The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear many a gem of purest ray serene. Even the most gifted individual, thrown into an adverse environment, will either fail utterly to develop his powers, or else will develop them so incompletely that they can never come to their full fruition. Thomas A. Edison cast away on an island in the South Pacific would be useless to his fellows. Abraham Lincoln, living among the Apache Indians, would have left small impress on the world. A sculptor, to be really great, must go to Rome, because it is in Rome that the great works of sculptured art are to be found. It is in Rome, furthermore, that the great sculptors work and teach. A lawyer can scarcely achieve distinction while practicing in a backwoods county court, nor can a surgeon remain proficient in his science unless he keep in constant touch with the world of surgery. "I must go to the city," cried a woman with an unusual voice. "Here in the country I can sing, but I cannot study music." She must, of necessity, go to the city because in the city alone exists the stimulus and the example which are necessary for the perfection of her art. A congenial environment is necessary for the perfection of any hereditary talent. Lester F. Ward concludes, after an exhaustive analysis of self-made men, that such men are the exception. That they exist he must admit, but that their abilities would have come to a much more complete development in a congenial environment he clearly demonstrates. The rigorous persecution of the Middle Ages eliminated any save the most daring thinkers. Men of science, who presumed to assert facts in contradiction of the accepted dogmas of the Church, were ruthlessly silenced, hence the ages were very dark. The nineteenth century, on the contrary, through its cultivation of science and scientific attainments, has reaped a harvest of scientific achievement unparalleled in the history of the world. Men to-day enter scientific pursuits for the same reason that they formerly entered the military service--because every emphasis is laid on scientific endeavor. The nineteenth century scientist is the logical outcome of the nineteenth century desires for scientific progress. The environment shapes the man. Yet, equally, does the man shape the environment. A high standard individual may be handicapped by social tradition, but, in like manner, progressive social institutions are inconceivable in the absence of high standard men and women. The institutions of a society--its homes, schools, government, industry--are created by the past and shaped by the present. Institutions are not subjected to sudden changes, yet one generation, animated by the effort to realize a high ideal, may reshape the social structure. Can one conceive of a paper strewn campus in a college where the spirit is strong? Parisians believe in beauty, hence Paris is beautiful. Social institutions combine the achievements of the past with the ethics of the present.