young and the immature, those values will be emphasized and those purposes recognized which the influential members of the adult generation regard as important. Indeed, the main function of education in static societies is the initiation of the young into already established customs and traditions. But in progressive societies, education may be used to promote critical inquiry into the social inheritance. The young may be trained not merely to absorb "all the best that has been thought and known in the world," but to inquire as to what is best for the generation in which they live. The heritage of the past will thus be utilized rather than merely æsthetically appreciated. The reason why so much of education must necessarily be given over to the imparting of information is because those who are being educated have so little information to start with. But the spirit in which information is imparted and learned depends on the attitude toward the past and the present which governs education. The heritage of the past may be used as a kind of escape, like a romantic novel or play. There are people who fairly wallow in dead traditions, who like medieval times with their glamor of 'iron clothing', who revel in the romantic exploits of the Borgias, and lose themselves in the canzoni and cathedrals of the Renaissance. But we do live in the present, and the past is primarily important (though it may be interesting for other reasons) in so far as it does illuminate and clarify the world in which we and our problems are set. Especially since education is calculated to make men at home in the world in which they will have to live, that part of the heritage of the past will be emphasized and perpetuated which is of relevance to contemporary human needs. There is so much material and so little time that selection must be made. Consequently, many things in the past, interesting on their own merits will have to be neglected in favor of those habits, traditions, recorded files of knowledge which will be most fruitful in our contemporary situation. Thus in the problems of a predominantly industrial and mechanical civilization, it is imperative that we emphasize the scientific methods and information, and transmit the scientific and technical habits which men have acquired in recent generations. At the same time, education aims to train men not simply to do their jobs well, but to live well. Those elements of the past must be preserved and transmitted which broaden the meaning by broadening the background of our lives. The literature and the art, the culture of older times, enable us the better to understand the world in which we live. Studied in this light, they are truly educative; studied as merely so many curious and interesting relics of the past, they are dead and irrelevant traditions. We are, after all, living in the present. The 'culture' of the past either does or does not illuminate it. If it does not, it is a competing environment, a kind of shadow world in which we may play, but which does not bring either 'sweetness' or 'light' to the actual world in which we live. CHAPTER XII INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES The Meaning of Individual Differences The major part of this volume has been devoted to a consideration of those traits, interest, and capacities which all individuals share, and which may in general be described as the 'original nature of man'. These distinctive inborn tendencies were treated, for purposes of analysis, in the most general terms, and, on the whole, as if they appeared in the same strength and variety in all individuals. When we thus stand off and abstract those characteristics which appear universally in all individuals, human nature appears constant. But there are marked variations in the specific content of human nature with which each individual is at birth endowed. Put in another way, one might say that to be a human being means to be by nature pugnacious, curious, subject to fatigue, responsive to praise and blame, etc. and susceptible to training in all these respects. By virtue of the fact that we are all members of the human race, we have common characteristics; by virtue that we are individuals, we all display specific variations in specific human capacities. There is, save abstractly, no such thing as a standard human being. We may intellectually set up a norm or standard, but it will be a norm or standard from which every individual is bound to vary. The fact that individuals do differ, and in specific and definable respects, has most serious consequences for social life. It means, briefly, that while general inferences may be drawn from wide and accurate observations of the workings of human nature, these inferences remain general and tentative, and if taken as rigid rules are sure to be misleading. Theories of education and social reform certainly gain from the general laws that can be formulated about original human traits, fatigue, memory, learning capacity, and the like. But they must, if they are to be applicable, take account also, in a precise and systematic way, of the variety of men's interests and capacities. To this fact of variety in the original nature of different men social institutions and educational methods must be adapted. Arbitrary rules that apply to human nature in general do not apply to the specific cases and specific types of talent and desires. Educational and social organizations can mold these, but the result of these environmental influences will vary with individual differences in original capacities. We can waste an enormous amount of time and energy trying to train a person without mechanical or mathematical gifts to be an engineer. We not only save energy and time, but promote happiness, if we can train individuals so that their specific gifts will be capitalized at one hundred per cent. They will be at once more useful to society and more content with themselves, when they are using to the full their own capacities. They will at once be unproductive and unhappy when they find themselves in activities or social situations where their genuine talents are given no opportunity and where their defects put them at a conspicuous handicap. Among the chief causes of individual differences may, in general, be set down the following: (1) Sex, (2) Race, (3) Near Ancestry or Family, (4) Age, (5) Environment. The particular fund of human nature which an individual displays, that is, his specific native endowments, as they appear in practise, will be a resultant of these various causes. In the study of each of these characteristics, we should be able ideally to eliminate all the others and to consider them each in isolation. The Influence of Sex In the case of sex, for example, we should not confuse individual differences due to the fact of sex with individual differences due to divergent training given to each of the sexes. In scientific experiments to determine sex differences in mental traits, there have been careful attempts to eliminate everything but the factor of sex itself. Thus in Karl Pearson's studies of fifty twin brothers and sisters, the factors of ancestry and difference of training and age were practically eliminated. In so far as allowance can be made for other contributing factors studies, of individual differences due to sex, have revealed, roughly speaking, the following results. There have been, in the field of sensory discrimination and accuracy of motor response slight-and negligible difference of responses made by male and female. The subjects stated were, in most cases, selected so far as possible from the same social strata, social and intellectual interest and background.1 Thorndike reports the general results of such tests as follows: The percentages of males reaching or exceeding the median ability of females in such traits as have been subjected to exact investigation are roughly as follows: In speed of naming colors and sorting cards by color and dis- In finding and checking small visual details such as letters In school 'marks' in English In school 'marks' in foreign languages 24 +333333 In memorizing for immediate recall In lowness of sensory thresholds. In retentiveness . . . In tests of speed and accuracy of association In tests of general information In school 'marks' in mathematics In school 'marks' (total average) In tests of discrimination (other than for color) In range of sensitivity In school 'marks' in history In tests of ingenuity. In accuracy of arm movements 35 40 42 43 47 48 50 50 50 51 52 55 63 66 68 70 71 In school marks in physics and chemistry In reaction time In speed of finger and arm movement The most important characteristic of these differences is their small amount. The individual differences within one sex so enormously outweigh the differences between the sexes in these intellectual and semi-intellectual traits that for practical purposes the sex difference 1 As, for example, the members of the graduating and junior classes of the co-educational college at the University of Chicago, studied by Dr. Thompson. |