erial, but it is not the right material. What educators want
is the right kind of material--the material which the eugenists will
eventually supply. Or as Mr. Havelock Ellis has expressed it:

"Education has been put at the beginning, when it ought to have been put at
the end. It matters comparatively little what sort of education we give[34]
children; the primary matter is what sort of children we have to educate.
That is the most fundamental of questions. It lies deeper even than the
great question of Socialism versus Individualism, and indeed touches a
foundation that is common to both. The best organized social system is only
a house of cards if it cannot be constructed with sound individuals; and no
individualism worth the name is possible unless a sound social organization
permits the breeding of individuals who count. On this plane Socialism and
Individualism move in the same circle."

Education, then, as an exclusive factor, cannot achieve our ideal of
race-culture. In order that education may achieve a large measure of
success, it must have the proper material, and the right material can only
come as a result of the working out of the eugenic principle. Then--in the
aftertime--our educational efforts will not be wasted and misdirected, as
they are almost wholly to-day.

If we could transmit our acquired characteristics, education would have a
relatively smaller, and a much more fixed function in the "general scheme,"
but we cannot. We can only transmit what was inherent in us when created.
This simply means that, at the moment of conception, the child is
created,--it is a completed whole,--what it is to be is fixed at that
moment, its inherent capacities are formed. Nothing can affect it, in this
sense, after that moment. No act of either parent can have any influence on
it. Whatever ability the father or mother possessed of an innate character
is transmitted to the child at the instant of conception and that innate
legacy constitutes the working instrument of the child for all time. It
cannot be added to by education, or by environment, but both of these may
have a large influence in deciding whether it will be developed to its
highest possible limit of attainment.

Education, mental, moral and physical, is limited by this inability to
transmit acquired character to the persons educated. Each generation must,
therefore, begin, not where their parents left off, but at the point [35]
where they began. The sa