Nature and nurture : the problem of the future : a presidential address / delivered by Karl Pearson.

  • Pearson, Karl, 1857-1936.
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Nature and nurture : the problem of the future : a presidential address / delivered by Karl Pearson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    out of the way with the idea that the relative intensity of these two factors is of secondary importance or un- determinable : then you can give no aid to the working man on the points where he needs most education at the present critical time in our national history. But if you have formed your opinion on these points and seen their wide, if not all dominating, bearing on national life and social progress, then your task of education will be a definite, if not an easy one. For truth at first is often an unpalatable medicine, and the sympathy which arises almost unconsciously between lecturer and audience when he voices their personal needs, is as tempting and even more dangerous than the wine of applause. Of this point I would quote the memorable words of Seeley :— ‘ Think that you are the apostles, not of any political opinions, but of a method. This means that you do not want your audiences to applaud you or to agree with you, but to begin to think for themselves. Now if they begin to think for themselves, they will very probably show it by grumbling at you and arguing with you. I have sometimes had a misgiving when I have heard it said of a lecturer that the people were delighted with him ; for I have said to myself, Ought they to have been delighted ? ’ I must apologize for quoting words so familiar to all of you, yet they come back to me after twenty-seven years with an even intensified sense of their truth, and a still higher appreciation of the spirit of the man who delivered them. Our working classes need more than ever educational help, they need more than ever some other guidance than that of the politican and the journalist; neither of these will lead them to see beyond the horizon of class-interest, will enable them to look upon the nation as an ever-changing organization susceptible of advance