The child : his nature and nurture / by W.B. Drummond.

  • Drummond, W. B. (William Blackley), 1868-1937.
Date:
1901
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The child : his nature and nurture / by W.B. Drummond. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    himself, like clay in the hands of the potter, to be moulded day by day by the habits, the tastes, the passions, the ideals of those among whom he lives, to be impressed in a thousand ways for good or for evil by all he sees and hears. Wax to receive and marble to retain, he is influenced for life by the early impressions which touch his body and his mind. There was a child went forth every day; and the first object he looked upon, that object he became; and that object became part of him for the day, or a certain part of the day, or for stretching cycles of years. (Whitman.) These biological considerations are of considerable import- ance at the present time, for there is a tendency, I will not say to lay too much stress upon the influence of heredity, but to take a somewhat narrow view of what heredity really means. Heredity is spoken of as our ancestors spoke of Fate. Nature is stronger than Nurture, it is said, and this is regarded as equivalent to saying not only that the child inherits certain tendencies from his parents, but that these must of necessity develop when the time comes. Many realising in themselves an inherited tendency to yield to a particular temptation, or to contract a particular disease, are discouraged from striving to escape from what they regard as a decree of Fate. There is no use fighting against Nature, they say. But if we realise that nature in the case of the child is in large measure a capacity for reacting to his environ- ment, and that his environment is in large measure under human control, then no matter what views we may hold upon such disputed questions as the inheritance of acquired char~ acters, we reach this conclusion, that, however certain it may be that whatsoever tendencies, either good or evil, the child inherits from his parents will shew themselves if the environ- mental conditions are favourable, it is just as certain that they will never shew themselves if the conditions are unfavourable. In the facts that it is possible for man so to alter the environment of the infant as to favour the preservation of good qualities, and to hinder or prevent the development of evil tendencies, and that the infant has a marvellous capacity