multiple influences which have made you what you are. Then you will remember that such and such a culprit has not in his sad life met with these favorable conditions; that he had a drunken father or a foolish mother, and that he has lived without affection, exposed to all kinds of temptation. You will then take pity upon this disinherited man, whose mind has been nourished upon malformed mental images, begetting evil sentiments such as immoderate desire or social hatred."
Mr. Bruce indorses this kind of talk when he concludes, "The blame for the boy who goes wrong does not rest with the boy himself, or yet with his remote ancestors. It rests squarely with the parents who, through ignorance or neglect, have failed to mold him aright in the plastic days of childhood."
Where is the evidence of the existence of these plastic days of childhood? If they exist, why do not ordinary brothers become as much alike as identical twins? How long are we to be asked to believe, on blind faith, that the child is putty, of which the educator can make either mediocrity or genius, depending on his skill? What does the environmentalist know about these "plastic days"? If a boy has a drunken father or foolish mother, does it not suggest that there is something wrong with his pedigree? With such an ancestry, we do not expect him to turn out brilliantly, no matter in what home he is brought up. If a boy has the kind of parents who bring him up well; if he is, as Dr. Dubois says, surrounded by relatives who love him and set him a good example, we at once have ground for a suspicion that he comes of a pretty good family, a stock characterized by a high standard of intellectuality and morality, and it would surprise us if such a boy did not turn out well. But he turns out well because what's bred in the bone will show in him, if it gets any kind of a chance. It is his nature, not his nurture, that is mainly responsible for his character.