Chapter VI: The Skin and the Pigments (2)

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In this new task, anthropology not only studies the individual, but also gives real and personal contributions to the solution of many pedagogic problems; among others, that relating to study after school hours; to rewards and punishments; to physical training, elocution, etc.; while, by regarding the children as the _effects_ of biological and social causes, it establishes new and enlightening standards of morality and justice, and reveals to educators responsibilities not hitherto conceived. It will suffice to call to mind the fact that the most studious children, and therefore those who receive the greatest amount of praise and prizes, show a deficiency in weight, in chest development, and in muscular force; consequently, a physiological impoverishment the blame for which must be attributed to an ignorance of hygiene and of anthropology, such as still persists throughout the whole field of pedagogy; an ignorance which leads the teacher to encourage by his praises the impoverishment of the best forces that reveal themselves in the school (the most intelligent and studious children) in an age when social industries, multiplied and grown to a giant size, demand the cooperation of a vigorous race, and to inspire by rewards and praise a sentiment of superiority and of vanity in an age that is dominated by the sentiment of universal equality and brotherhood.

The teacher ought, on the contrary, to appoint himself the defender of the race, and to demand, among his other rights, that of making such social reforms and such reforms in the school and in pedagogies as may be necessary to the accomplishment of his purpose, which is the attainment of the highest degree of civilisation and of prosperity.

But this subject would lead us to repeat principles on which we have already insisted; it will suffice to reassert that the tendency of anthropology is undoubtedly toward a reform in the school and the opening of a new era in pedagogy.

_The Significance of the So-called Physical Stigmata of Degeneration._--We have studied so many congenital malformations and pathological deformations that a synthetic statement of their significance becomes necessary. All the more so, because certain principles in this connection, already widely circulated among the general public, have now been rejected by science.

One of these principles refers to the so-called _atavism_ and formed part of the original Lombrosian doctrines: but blessed is the scientist who is obliged to correct himself, for that means that his brain is still fertile.

Certain morphological anomalies call to mind forms of the inferior races and species, from which, according to the original Darwinian doctrine of evolution, the human species had descended in a direct line: hence the term "_atavistic survival_." It will suffice to mention the receding forehead that calls to mind the Neanderthal cranium, the long simian arms, the prognathism distinctive of the inferior human races and of animals, microcephaly which suggests the crania of anthropoid apes, the mongoloid eyes and protruding cheek-bones, which recall the yellow races; the "canine" ear, the wooly or smooth hair, polytrichia, the dark skin, etc.

Now, all this assemblage of stigmata which went under the name of _atavistic_, or _absolute retrogression_, were held to be in almost direct relation to _degeneration_.

Degeneration was supposed to revive in us forms that had been superseded in the course of evolution, and hence also psychic states that had also been superseded in the history of the human race; it is well known that, according to Lombroso, a criminal might be defined as a savage, a barbarian born among us, yet still having within him his particular instincts of theft and slaughter.

To-day, since the original interpretation of the Darwinian theory has been discarded, with it have fallen all those deductions which medicine and sociology were in too great haste to draw, in order to make scientific application of them.

In conclusion, the principle remains firmly established of a correlation between physical and psychic anomalies, which forms the very essence of the Lombrosian theory. What science wishes to-day to correct is the _atavistic_ interpretation of stigmata and of types of degenerates. This takes nothing away from the brilliant record of Lombroso, who interpreted biological and pathological phenomena in the selfsame light that shed glory upon Ernest Haeckel, namely, the Darwinian theory. In the first enthusiasm of that luminous flame which had wrought a reawakening of thought throughout all Europe and the civilised world Lombroso tried to explain _according to the letter_ what could properly be explained only according to the spirit; that is to say, in accordance with a very broad principle (evolution and the successive formation of species) which had been divined but not yet demonstrated.

We ought to have recourse, in interpreting congenital (degenerative) malformations to explanations analogous to those in the case of acquired deformations, _i.e._, to pathological explanations.

We find ourselves in all these cases in the presence of pathological phenomena affecting either the _species or the individual_. On the strength of analogies shown by certain malformations, the tendency to-day is to consider them as "_arrests of development_" or phenomena of _infantilism_, such, for example, as macrocephaly, macroscelia, nipples or shoulders placed too high, nose tending to flatness, handle-shaped ears, etc.--a whole series of stigmata which go by the name of _stigmata of relative retrogression_.

Meanwhile there are other malformations which merely deviate from the normal form (Morselli's "simple deviation"), and they may deviate either in the way of an excess (hyperplasia), or of a deficiency (hypoplasia), as, for example, macroglossia, microdontia, macro- and microphthalmia, etc.; or they may deviate in a true and actual sense (paraplasms), as, for example, in the various asymmetries (plagiocephaly, plagioprosopy, etc.). This whole group of above-mentioned stigmata, which seem to have a congenital origin, or, rather, to be connected in a general way with growth itself, are called _malformations_, to distinguish them from _deformations_, which evidently have an acquired origin, especially from pathological causes, such, for instance, as rachitis and forms of paralysis which arrest the development of a limb, etc., resulting in functional and morphological asymmetry.

DISTRIBUTION OF MALFORMATIONS

Malformations (associated, as we have said, with individual development) may be found in all individuals who, through various causes (degeneration, disease, denutrition, defects of adaptment), have undergone any alteration in development. And, since we have not yet acquired a recognised standard of _morality_ _of generation_, and the social environment, including the school, weighs heavily upon humanity in the plastic state, who is there without malformation? Complete normality is a _desideratum_, an ideal toward which we are progressing, and, we might add, it is the battle-flag of the teacher.

Accordingly, all men have malformations. It is interesting to see how they are affected by variations in age and social condition, and how they are distributed among normal persons and degenerates, in order to measure the extent of their contribution to the diagnosis between normal and abnormal man.

On the basis of notes taken from an important work by Rossi,[48] I have drawn up the following table, relating to malformations based upon a comparative study of children and adults, grouped under three different social conditions--peasants, city labourers and persons of the wealthy class.

At the further extremity of the horizontal lines will be found the figures recording the number of times that any one anomaly occurs in a hundred instances. The other indications are explained in the figure itself.

From this it is apparent that anomalies of the cranium are much more rare than those of the face, both in children and in adults.

But in children the anomalies of the cranium (and this includes the cases of plagiocephaly), are much more frequent than in adults in all social classes; this shows that in the course of growth the malformations of the cranium have to a great extent disappeared.

In regard to the face, on the contrary, or, at least, in regard to certain malformations of the face, the opposite holds good; the mandible and the zygomata, or, in general, that part of the face which grows rapidly during the period of puberty, show more anomalies in the case of adults than in the case of children.

This shows us that a face which is still beautiful in childhood may acquire malformations in successive periods of growth. In simpler words, the facts may be expressed as follows: that the cranium _corrects_ itself and the face _spoils_ itself in the course of growth.

But in the case of facial asymmetries the same thing occurs that we have already seen in regard to plagiocephaly; it is more frequent in children, hence asymmetries are infantile stigmata.

Some important characteristics are to be noted regarding the handle-shaped ear; all children have ears proportionally larger than those of adults and the _handle-shaped_ form is very frequent in normal children, regardless of the social condition to which they belong. This malformation _corrects_ _itself_ in the course of growth, being far less frequent in adults of the wealthy class and even among the labouring classes; but among the peasantry it remains permanently, almost as though it were a _class stigma_. Although the mechanical theories are in disrepute as an interpretation of morphological phenomena, nevertheless it is worth while to note the singular frequency of this stigma in peasants, in connection with the habit of straining the ear to catch the faintest sounds, distant voices, echoes, etc., for which the _senses_ of peasants are extremely acute.

The greater frequency of prominent superciliary arches in adult peasants and labourers may also be considered in relation to a defective cerebral development, connected, perhaps, with illiteracy, etc.; furthermore, the superciliary arches, together with a more than normal development of the jaw bones, are stigmata which usually occur together as determining factors of an _inferior_ _morphological type_. The fact also that an excessive development of the mandible, unlike other malformations, is found with the same frequency among adults of the peasantry and the labouring class, gives to this anomaly the significance of a _stigma of the poorer_ _classes_. It should be remembered that children of inferior intelligence have a deeper mandible.

What is quite interesting to know, in addition to the frequency of stigmata at various ages and in the various social conditions, is the _number_ of them that may coexist in the same individual. It was already asserted by Lombroso that a single undoubted malformation was not enough to prove degeneracy, but that it depended upon the number of stigmata existing simultaneously in the same individual. Now, confining our attention to _normal individuals_, we find, according to Rossi, that the individual number is less among the well-to-do than among the poor; and that it is less among the peasantry than among the working class. The working class in the cities are accordingly in the worst condition of physical development. Furthermore, children always show a greater number of individual malformations than adults.

INDIVIDUAL NUMBER OF MORPHOLOGICAL ANOMALIES

+---------+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| | Adults: to every 100 | Children: to every 100 |
|Number of| individuals | individuals |
+anomalies+---------+--------+----------+---------+--------+----------+
| |Labourers|Peasants|Well-to-do|Labourers|Peasants|Well-to-do|
+---------+---------+--------+----------+---------+--------+----------+
| ... | 4 | 18 | 14 | ... | ... | 12 |
+---------+---------+--------+----------+---------+--------+----------+
| 1-2 | 56 | 36 | 68 | 18 | 16 | 44 |
+---------+---------+--------+----------+---------+--------+----------+
| 3-4 | 31 | 26 | 18 | 52 | 68 | 38 |
+---------+---------+--------+----------+---------+--------+----------+
| 5-6 | 9 | ... | ... | 27 | 13 | 6 |
+---------+---------+--------+----------+---------+--------+----------+

From which it appears that only 4 per cent. of the labouring class are without malformations, while the peasantry and the well-to-do have from 18 to 14 per cent. Among normal adults there is a preponderance of persons having 1-2 stigmata; while those having 3-4 stigmata are more frequent than those without any at all.

Excepting for a few labourers, there are no normal persons with 5-6 malformations; in fact, this is the number of coexisting malformations that is held to be the _test of degeneration_, the sign of an abnormal morphological individuality.

Among children, on the contrary, this individual number of malformations (5-6) occurs, _even in the wealthy classes_, so that the child and the adult cannot be judged by the same standards.

The prevailing number of stigmata among children is 3-4. Therefore, in the course of growth, many of these malformations are eliminated. It should be noted that children without malformations are found only among the prosperous classes and in a rather small percentage (12 per cent.).

Accordingly, social conditions bring about a difference not only in robustness, stature, etc., but also in the degree of beauty which the individual is likely to attain. The social ideal of the establishment of justice for all mankind is consequently at the same time a _moral_ and _æsthetic_ ideal.

Another parallel that it is interesting to draw is that between the most unfortunate social class (the working class) and the degenerates. We have seen that the working class has the highest individual number of stigmata. Rossi compares them with two other categories of persons who are strongly suspected of being degenerates, or who at least must include a notable proportion of degenerates among their number, namely, _beggars_, as regards the adults, and _orphans_, as regards the children.

These classes differ in the general frequency of malformations; in fact, the chronic anomalies, taken collectively, give 17 per cent. for the labouring class and 25 per cent. for beggars. But the difference becomes strikingly apparent when we come to consider the _individual number_ of stigmata.

+---------+---------------------+-------------------+
|Anomalies|Labourers (per cent.)|Beggars (per cent.)|
+---------+---------------------+-------------------+
| 3-4 | 31 | 41 |
+---------+---------------------+-------------------+
| 5-6 | 9 | 21.3 |
+---------+---------------------+-------------------+

And still greater is the difference between the children of labourers and the orphan children.

FREQUENCY OF ANOMALIES IN CHILDREN (PERCENTAGE)

Anomalies Labouring class, Orphans, degeneration
pauperism

Cranial anomalies in general 32 39
Forehead very low 16 20.8
Alveolar prognathism 4 10
Enlarged mandible 20 25
Plagiocephaly 16 45.8
Prominent cheek-bones 16 41.6
Facial asymmetry 28 35.4
Anomalies of teeth 24 37.5

We see therefore that _degeneration_ exerts a most notable influence upon morphological anomalies; it is far more serious than external (social) conditions.

Dr. Ales Hrdlicka, studying the distribution of malformations and deformations among poor children who were inmates of a large New York orphan asylum (634 males and 274 females) distinguishes the morphological anomalies into three categories: Those that are congenital (degeneration); those acquired through pathological causes (diseases), and those acquired through the circumstances of social adaptment, or, as the author expresses it, through _habit_. And to these he adds still another category of stigmata the causes of which remain uncertain.

If we examine the following extremely interesting table, we see at once that in the case of children the anomalies of form are associated with _degeneration_ and with _disease_, because the anomalies _acquired_ individually by the child as the result of personal habits are comparatively so few in number as to be quite negligible, and all of them are exclusively in reference to the trunk; in other words, a result of the position assumed on school benches.

As between degeneration and disease, the proportion of anomalies caused by the former is considerably more than double. Hence, the great majority of malformations have their origin, so to speak, _outside of the individual_, the responsibility resting on the parents.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Organs | Anomalies
in +-------------------------------+-------------------------------
regard to | Males | Females
which +-------+-------+--------+------+-------+-------+--------+------
the |Congen-|Patho- |Acquired|Cause |Congen-|Patho- |Acquired|Cause
anomalies | ital |logical|through |uncer-| ital |logical|through |uncer-
occur | | |habit | tain | | |habit | tain
------------+-------+-------+--------+------+-------+-------+--------+------
Head | | 74 | | 15 | | 26 | | 10
Periosteum | | | | | 1 | | |
Hair | 26 | 2 | | 1 | 17 | | |
Forehead | 15 | 25 | | 1 | 1 | 8 | | 1
Face | 51 | 68 | | 10 | 11 | 17 | | 4
Eyes | | | | 15 | | | | 6
Ears | 221 | | | | 88 | | |
Teeth | 67 | 20 | | 37 | 19 | 4 | | 27
Gums | 51 | 7 | | 104 | 41 | 3 | | 23
Palate | 88 | 59 | | 81 | 30 | 40 | | 44
Uvula | 14 | | | 112 | 6 | | | 54
Body (bust) | 5 | 54 | 72 | 2 | 3 | 18 | 9 | 1
Limbs | 60 | 14 | | 11 | 39 | 4 | | 3
Genital | 275 | 1 | | 1 | | | |
organs | | | | | | | |
------------+-------+-------+--------+------+-------+-------+--------+------
Totals | 873 | 324 | 72 | 390 | 256 | 120 | 9 | 173
Percentage| 40 | 10 | 4 | 18 | 45 | 21 | 1 | 30

The greatest number of anomalies due to degeneration occur in connection with the _ear_, and the _genital organs_, and next in order come those of the _palate_, the _teeth_ and the _limbs_. The maximum number of anomalies due to _pathological causes_ are in connection with the _head_, and principally with the _face_; after that, with the _palate_, and then with the _bust_.

The anomalies most difficult to diagnose seem to be those relating to the gums, the palate and the uvula, in regard to which it is not easy to determine whether they are due to degeneration or to disease.

In order that we may have a clear understanding regarding
_malformations_, it is well to insist upon still another point:
Malformation does not signify _deviation_ from a type of ideal
beauty, but from _normality_.

Now, there are normal forms which are very far from beautiful
and which are associated with race. For instance, prognathism,
ultra-dolichocephaly, a certain degree of flat-foot, prominent
cheek-bones, the Mongolian eye, etc., are all of them
characteristics which are regarded by us as the opposite of
beautiful, but they are normal in certain races (therefore
practical experience is indispensable). These principles which,
when thus announced, are perfectly clear, must be extended far
enough to include that sum total of individuals whom we are in
the habit of calling _our race_. That we are hybrids, still
showing more or less trace of the racial stocks which originally
concurred in our formation, is well known, but not clearly enough.
The _primitive races_ are more or less evident in different
centres of population; for instance, in the large and promiscuous
cities, hybridism tends more or less completely, to _mask_ the
_types_ of race, producing individual uniformity through an
intermixture of characteristics that renders all the people very
much alike (civilised races). These are the individuals who form
the majority of the population, and whom we are in the habit of
regarding as being _normally formed_. But when we get away from
the big centres it may happen, and indeed does happen, that the
primitive racial forms or types become more apparent; thus, for
example, I found in Latium almost pure racial types at Castelli
Romani (dolichocephalics, brunette type, short stature), and at
Orte (brachycephalics, blond type, tall stature); the nuclei of
population at Castelli were especially pure. Now, as a result of
a highly particularised series of observations I found _normal
forms that were not_ _beautiful_ in each of these races; thus,
for example, in the brunette race, while the face is extremely
beautiful and delicate, the hands are coarse, the feet show a
tendency toward flat-foot, the breasts are pear-shaped, pendent and
abundantly hairy; in the blond type, on the contrary, while the
facial lineaments are coarse and quite imperfect, the hands, feet
and breasts are marvellously beautiful.

Accordingly, the marks of beauty are distributed in nature among
the _different_ _races_; there is no race in existence that is
wholly beautiful, just as there is no individual in existence who
is perfect in all his parts.

Furthermore, since there is for every separate characteristic a
long series of individual variations, both _above_ and _below_ (see
chapters on _Biometry_ and _Statistical Methodology_), it is very
easy to assume that we are on the track of a malformation, when it
is really a matter of racial characteristic. And this is all the
more likely to constitute a source of error, because the school of
Lombroso promulgated the morphological doctrine that a degenerate
sometimes shows an _exaggeration_ of ethnical characteristics.

Thus, for example, we meet with ultra-brachycephalics and
ultra-dolichocephalics among the criminal classes.

Let us suppose that a teacher who has made a study of anthropology
receives an appointment in one or another of the Castelli Romani.
Among the _normal_ individuals studied by me, certain ones showed a
cephalic index _of_ 70. Now, a teacher accustomed to _examine_ the
crania of city children and to find that the limits range more or
less closely around mesaticephaly, would be led to assume that he
was in the presence of an _abnormal_ individual.

Now, in the places where morphological characteristics of race
are most persistent, the _social forms_ are primitive, and so
also are the sentiments, the customs and the _ethical level_,
because _purity of race_ means an absence of hybridism, _i.e._,
an absence of intimate communication with human society evolving
in the flood-tide of civilisation. Consequently, in addition to
the above-mentioned characteristic (ultra-dolichocephaly), the
individual would probably show an intellectual inferiority, an
inferiority of the ethical tense, etc., and this would serve
to strengthen the teacher's first impression. But the normal
_limits of growth_ for a given age, the absence of real and actual
malformations (for instance, in this case there is probability of
facial beauty, etc.), would cause him very quickly to correct his
first judgment with a more thoughtful diagnosis. Therefore a study
of local ethnical characteristics would be very useful as a basis
for pedagogical anthropology, as I have tried to show in one of my
works (_Importanza della etnologia_ _regionale nell'antropologia
pedagogica_, "The importance of regional ethnology in pedagogical
anthropology").

And this also holds good for the interpretation of true
malformations.

We have hitherto been guided in our observation of so-called
stigmata by analytical criteria, that is, we have been content with
determining the single or manifold malformations in the individual
without troubling ourselves to determine their _morphological
genesis_ or their _genesis of combination_.

For example, the _ogival palate_ is a well-known anomaly of form,
but in all probability it will occur in an individual whose family
has the _high and narrow_ _palate_ that is met with, for instance,
as the normal type among the dolichocephalics of Latium; the same
may be said in regard to flat-foot, etc. Multifold diastemata and
macrodontia will, on the contrary, be more easily met with in
families whose palate is wide and low (brachycephalics). And just
as certain normal forms or characteristics are found in combination
in a single individual (for instance, brachycephaly, fair hair,
tall stature, etc.), so it is also in the case of stigmata, which
will be found occurring together in one individual, not _by_
_chance_, but according to the laws of morphological combination,
and probably as an _exaggeration_ of (unlovely) characteristics
which belong, as normal forms, to the family or race.

There are already a number of authorities on neuropathology, De
Sanctis among others, who have noted that there is an _ugly family
type_ which sometimes reproduces itself in a sickly member of the
family, in such a way as to exaggerate pathologically the unlovely
but normal characteristics of the other members, and furthermore,
that an exaggeration of unlovely characteristics may increase from
generation to generation, accompanied by a disintegration of the
psychic personality.

Consequently, a knowledge of the morphological characteristics
which in all probability belong to the races from which the
subjects to be examined are derived, has a number of important
aspects. The literature of anthropology is certainly not
rich in _racial_ studies, consequently, I feel that it will
not be unprofitable to summarise in the following table the
characteristics that distinguish the two racial types encountered
by me among the female population of Latium.

TABLE OF THE DIFFERENTIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TWO
RACIAL TYPES
_Brunette Dolichocephalics and Blond Brachycephalics_

=The Origin of Malformations during Development.=--Malformations are a morphological index, and we have already shown that there is a relation between the physical and the psychical personality. A defective physical development tells us that the psychic personality must also have its defects (especially in regard to the intelligence).

Not only degenerates, but even we normal beings, in the conflict of social life, and because of our congenital weaknesses, have felt that we were losing, or that we were failing to acquire the rich possibilities latent in our consciousness, and that vainly formed the height of our ambition. And when this occurred, the body also lost something of the beauty which it might have attained, or rather, it lacked the power to develop it. In the words of Rousseau, "Our intellectual gifts, our vices, our virtues, and consequently our characters, are all dependent upon our organism."

Nevertheless, this interrelation must be understood in a very wide sense, and is modified according to the period of embryonal or extrauterine life at which a lesion or a radical disturbance in development chances to occur. In a treatise entitled _The Problems_ _of Degeneration_, in which the most modern ideas regarding degeneration are summed up, and new standards of social morality advocated, Brugia gives a most graphic diagram, which I take the liberty of reproducing.

fertilized ovum
embryo
foetus and new-born child
child]

From the little black point to the big circle are represented the different stages of embryonal and foetal development, until we reach the child. In A we have the fertilized ovum. Here it may be said that the new individual does not yet exist; we are at a transition point between two adults (the parents) and a new organism, which is _about to develop_. Now comes the embryo, which may be called the new individual in a _potential_ state; then the foetus, in which the human form is at last attained; and lastly the child, which will proceed onward toward the physical and spiritual conquests of human life. But so long as an individual has not completely developed, deviations may occur in his development; but these will be just so much the graver, in proportion as the individual is in a more plastic state.

We should reserve the term _degeneration_, real and actual, to that which presupposes an alteration at A, _i.e._, at the time of conception. An alteration all the graver if it antedates A, that is to say, if it preexisted in the ovum and in the fertilizing spermatozoon, _i.e._, in the parents. In this case, there is no use in talking of a direct educative and prophylactic intervention on behalf of the individual resulting from this conception; the intervention must be directed toward all adult individuals who have attained the power of procreation. And in this consists the greatest moral problem of our times--sexual education and the sentiment of responsibility toward the species. All mankind ought to feel the _responsibility_ toward the posterity which they are preparing to procreate and they ought to lead a life that is hygienic, sober, virtuous, and serene, such as is calculated to preserve intact the treasures of the immortality of the species. There exist whole families of degenerates, whose offspring are precondemned to swell the ranks of moral monsters. These individuals, who result from a _wrongful conception_, carry within them malformations of the kind known as degenerative, and together with them alterations of the moral sense that are characteristic of degenerates, that is to say, they will be unbalanced (through inheritance) in their entire personality.

Something similar will happen if such a lesion befalls the embryo, _i.e._, while the individual is still in the potential state (lacking human form). In the foetus, on the contrary, _i.e._, the individual who has attained the human form but is still in the course of intrauterine development, any possible lesion, and more especially those due to pathological causes, while they cannot alter the entire personality, may injure that which is already formed, and in so violent a manner as to produce a _physical_ _monster_, whose deformities may even be incompatible with life (_e.g._, cleft spine or palate, hydrocephaly, Little's disease, which is a form of paralysis of foetal origin, and all the teratological (_i.e._, monstrous) alterations). That is to say, in going from A to C we pass from _malformations_ to _deformations_; from simple physical alterations of an æsthetic nature to physical monstrosities sometimes incompatible with life itself; while in regard to the psychic life, we find that the remoter lesions (in A) result for the most part in anomalies of the moral sense, while those occurring later (B, C) result for the most part in anomalies of the intellect. So that at one extreme we may have moral monsters, with malformations whose significance can be revealed only through observation guided by science and at the other extreme, physical monsters, whose moral sense is altered only slightly or not at all. Those who suffer injury at A may be intelligent, and employ their intelligence to the malevolent ends inspired by moral madness; those who suffer injury at C or D are harmless monsters, often idiots, or even foredoomed to die. The peril to society steadily diminishes from A to C, while the peril to the individual steadily augments.

Over all these periods so full of peril to human development and so highly important for the future of the species, we may place one single word:

=Woman.=--Throughout the period that is most decisive for its future, humanity is wholly _dependent upon woman_. Upon her rests not only the responsibility of preserving the integrity of the germ, but also that of the embryonal and foetal development of man.

The respect and protection of woman and of maternity should be raised to the position of an inalienable social duty and should become one of the principles of human morality.

To-day we are altogether lacking in a sense of moral obligation toward the species, and hence lacking in a moral sense such as would lead to respect for woman and maternity--so much so, indeed, that we have invented a form of _modesty_ which consists in concealing maternity, in not speaking of maternity! And yet at the same time there are sins against the species that go unpunished, and offenses to the dignity of woman that are tolerated and protected by law!

But even after the child is born and has reached the period of lactation, we should still write across it the words _Woman_ and _Mother_. The education and the responsibility of woman and of society must be modified, if we are to assure the triumph of the species. And the teachers who receive the child into the school, after its transit through society (in the form of its parents' germs) and through the mother, cannot fail to be interested in raising the social standards of education and morality. Like a priesthood of the new humanity, they should feel it their duty to be _practitioners_ of all those virtues which assure the survival of the human species.

_Moral and Pedagogic Problems within the School._--Children when they first come to school have a personality already outlined. From the unmoral, the sickly, the intellectually defective to the robust and healthy children, the intelligent, and those in whom are hidden the glorious germs of genius; from those who sigh over the discomforts of wretchedness and poverty to those who thoughtlessly enjoy the luxuries of life; from the lonely hearted orphan to the child pampered by the jealous love of mother and grandmother:--they all meet together in the same school.

It is quite certain that neither the spark of genius nor the blackness of crime originated in the school or in the pedagogic method! More than that, it is exceedingly probable that the extreme opposite types passed unnoticed, or nearly so, in that environment whose duty it is to prepare the new generations for social adaptation. From this degree of blindness and unconsciousness the school will certainly be rescued by means of the scientific trend which pedagogy is to-day acquiring through the _study of the pupil_. That the teacher must assume the new task of _repairing_ what is wrong with the child, through the aid of the physician, and of protecting the normal child from the dangers of enfeeblement and deformation that constantly overhang him, thus laying the foundations for a splendid human race, _free to attain_ its foreordained development--all this we have already pointed out, and space does not permit us to expand the argument further.

But, in conclusion, there is one more point over which I wish to pause. If the Lombrosian theory rests upon a basis of truth, what attitude should we pedagogists take on the question of moral education? We are impotent in the face of the fact of the interrelation between physical and moral deformity. Is it then no longer a sin to do evil and no longer a merit to do good? No. But we have only to alter the _interpretation_ of the facts, and the result is a high moral progress pointing a new path in pedagogy. There are, for example, certain individuals who feel themselves irresistibly attracted toward evil, who become inebriated with blood; there are others, on the contrary, who faint at the mere sight of blood and have a horror of evil. There are some who feel themselves naturally impelled to do good, and they do it in order to satisfy a personal desire (many philanthropists) thus deriving that pleasure which springs from the satisfaction of any natural need. In our eyes, all these individuals who act instinctively, though in opposite ways, deserve neither praise nor blame; they were born that way; one of them is physiologically a proletarian, the other is a capitalist of normal human ability. It is a question of birth. When the educator praised the one and punished the other, he was sanctioning the necessary effects of causes that were unknown to him:

"But still, whence cometh the intelligence
Of the first notions man is ignorant,
And the affection of the first allurements
Which are in you as instinct in the bee
To make its honey; and this first desire
Merit of praise or blame containeth not."

(DANTE, _Longfellow's Translation_.)

The instinctive malefactor is not to blame, the blame should rest rather upon his parents who gave him a bad heredity; but these parents were in their turn victims of the social causes of degeneration. The same thing may be said if a pathological cause comes up for consideration in relation, for instance, to certain anomalies of character.

Analogously, he who is born good and instinctively does good deeds, deriving pleasure from them, deserves no praise. There is no vainer sight than is afforded by a person of this sort, living complacently in the contemplation of himself, praised by everyone, and to all practical intent, held up as a contrast to the evil actions of the degenerate and the diseased who act from instinct no more nor less than he does himself. The man who is born physiologically a capitalist assumes high moral obligations; he ought to discipline his nature as a normal man in order to make it serve the general good. And this is not to be accomplished through an _instinct_ to do good, which acts at haphazard, but through the _deliberate_ _will_ to do good, even if the requisite actions bring no immediate satisfaction, but even involve a sacrifice. Society will be ameliorated and rendered moral through the harmonious efforts of good men, trained for the social welfare. Man will become good only when his goodness costs him a voluntary effort.

Hence it will be necessary not to limit ourselves, as has been done in the past, to admiring the man who is born good, but to educate him so as to render him thoughtful, strong and useful; not to condemn the sinner, but to redeem him through education and through a sense of fellowship in the common fault, which is the scientific form of pardon. The degenerate, who succeeds in conquering his sinful instinct and in ceasing to do harm, the normal man who renders himself morally sublime by dedicating his splendid physiological inheritance to the collective good, will be equally meritorious. But what a moral abyss gapes open to divide them! Because it is a short stride at best that the physiological proletariat can take, while for the soul of the normal man an untrammelled pathway lies open toward perfection.

Accordingly the new task of the teacher of the future is a multifold one. He is the artificer of human beauty, the new modeler of created things, just as the sublime chisel of Greek art was the modeler of marbles. And he prepares for greater utilisation the physiological and intellectual forces of the new man, like a Greek deity scattering broadcast his prolific riches.

But above all he prepares the souls for the sublime sentiment which awaits the humanity of the future, glorying in the attainment of peace, and then indeed he becomes almost a redeemer of mankind.

FOOTNOTES:

[48] ROSSI, _Anthropological Anomalies in their relations to social conditions and to degeneration_.

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Pedagogical AnthropologyChapter VI: The Skin and the Pigments (2)

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