Education: How Old The NewWalsh, James J. (James Joseph)
History
Education: How Old The New
Walsh, James J. (James Joseph)
Education -- History
Of course from the scientific standpoint this is, after all, what we
might expect. In all the years of history of which we have any record
there has been no change in the nature of man and no modification of
his being that would lead us to expect from him anything different
from what had been accomplished by man in the past. There is no change
in man's structure, in the size of his {54} body in any way, in his
anatomy or his physiology, in his customs, or ways of life, or in his
health. The healthy still have about the same expectation of life, to
use the life insurance term, and though we have increased the general
average duration of life this has been at the expense of other
precious qualities of the race. The healthy live longer, but the
unhealthy also live longer. The weaklings in mind and body whom nature
used to eliminate early are now a burden that must be cared for. In
general it may be said, and Virchow, the great German pathologist, who
was one of the world's great living anthropologists of his time--and
that but a few years ago--used to insist, that man's skeleton and,
above all, his skull as we can study them in the mummy of the olden
time, were exactly the same as those that the race has now. Man cannot
by thinking add a cubit to his stature, nor an inch to the
circumference of his skull. The seventh generation of an academic
family each member of which has been at the university in his time, is
not any more likely to have special faculties for the intellectual
life, indeed it is sometimes hinted that he has less of a chance than
if his parents had been peasants for as long as the history of the
family can be traced. Of course this has no proper bearing on
evolution from the biological standpoint, for the length of time that
we have in human history may be conceded to be entirely inadequate to
produce any noticeable changes on man's body or mind, {55} granting
that such were in progress. At the most we have 7,000 years of history
and the evolutionists would tell us that this is as nothing in the
unnumbered aeons of evolution. In the popular estimation, however,
evolution can almost be seen at work just as if one could see blades
of grass growing by watching them closely enough. This impression of
man's progress supposed to be supported by the theory of evolution is
entirely unfounded. Just as his body is the same and his brain the
same size, and the relative proportion of brain weight to body weight
or at least to skull capacity the same now as they were 6,000 years
ago; and this is true for both sexes, so that because women have
smaller bodies by one-eighth they also have smaller skulls, and this,
too, occurs among the mummies in Egypt quite as in our own time; so in
what he is able to do with body and mind man is unchanged. Something
of dexterity, of facility, of self-confidence and assurance of results
is gained from time to time in history, but lost as often, because a
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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