at wandering voice
Still goes the upward way: rejoice!"
--EDWIN MARKHAM.

=The Proportions of Genius to the Mediocre.=--In Dr. T.S. Clouston's
suggestive book, _The Hygiene of Mind_, he estimates that at least
four-fifths of the human race are legally "sound" and of average
capacity. Of the remaining one-fifth who are "unusual" he and other
investigators name only one-tenth of one per cent, as entitled to the
distinction of "Genius." Clouston adds to this a class of "lesser
genius," often extremely useful to the race but often personally
unhappy from ungratified ambition or lack of temperamental balance. He
lists "reformers" for the most part in this class and "inventors who
do not succeed." He also specifically indicates a class of "all-round
talent" from which successful social and political leaders are drawn
and heads of big business and administrators of large enterprises in
educational fields. Dr. Lester F. Ward, on the contrary, believed that
we estimate the rate of genius and potential genius far too low and
that special talent is vastly more common than the usual observer
thinks. He says, "What the human race needs is not more brains but
more knowledge." In his clarion call for the better education of all
people of every race and condition, he affirms his faith in
environmental opportunity and a finer personal development as the
chief things needed to send the race onward. Professor Woods, of
Dartmouth College, writing on "The Social Cost of Unguided Ability,"
confirms this conviction of Doctor Ward.[11] He declares that "for ten
men who succeed there are probably fifty more who might succeed with
adequate development and specialization of effort." He shows how
"education as an agency in the selection of personal ability fails
because of undue abbreviation of the period of training for most
individuals and the omission of elements of training of real
significance for the purpose of adjusting individuals to the specific
task." When we note that before the fifth elementary grade is reached
there is a drop in attendance showing only 80 per cent. of those found
in the second grade, and in the sixth grade only 66 per cent., and in
the seventh grade only 50 per cent., and in the eighth grade less than
40 per cent. remain of those entering the first and second grades, we
see good reason for his statement. When the high school statistics are
added, with the drop year by year in attendance unti