The Three Conditions that Determine People's Ability.—The preceding comparisons illustrate the fact that the importance of a region depends on the ability of the people no less and perhaps more than upon any other single factor. If the three hundred million people of India were as able and energetic as the ninety thousand of Iceland, India might dominate the world. Three main conditions determine people's ability: (1) race and inheritance; (2) health and energy; (3) training and social environment. Some people think that one of these is the most important, and some another. All are im portant and it would be a waste of time to try to show which is more so. Each plays its own special part: inherit ance determines the kind of abilities which a nation possesses; health determines whet her those abilities are used effectively or weakly; and training determines the direction in which the abilities are applied.
A nation may be com pared with a knife. In heritance determines the quality of the steel, so to speak; health determines whether the blade is sharp or dull; and training whether the knife is used skillfully or unskillfully. The first thing is to choose a knife with good steel and a man with a good inheritance; the next is to see that the knife is sharp and the man in good health; and the third is to learn to use the knife and to teach the man how to work effectively.
In this chapter we shall look more deeply into the great question of inheritance and racial traits, while in the next we shall find out how closely geographical conditions are related to health and energy. We shall not discuss education and training, for they are geographical only as they depend on inheritance and health. The fact that this book has been written for the purpose of training bright minds shows the great importance attached by the authors to education.
The relation of inheritance, health, and training may be illustrated by a few comparisons. The native Australians inherit such poor minds that no matter how strong and healthy they may be it seems impossible to train them to take an important part in the world's work. Even as laborers they are ineffective because, although they can become skillful with their hands, they lack sufficient power of con centration to plan carefully or to work steadily. Their interests flit from object to object. If a problem involves many ideas they can rarely or never think it through to its logical conclusion. The Dutch have a much better inheritance than the native Australians both men tally and physically. But suppose they settle where the hookworm, malaria, and other diseases keep them ill most of the time. They may be more competent than native Australians would be, but they cannot accomplish much, for what little energy remains to them must largely be devoted to looking after their bodily health. In the same way, if people who have no training undertake to run a copper mine or a woolen factory they produce little. The Bolshevists in Russia dis covered this when untrained men tried to run the factories, railroads, and government. The Bolshevist regime could maintain itself only by
calling many of the trained men back to their old work.
How Racial Inheritance Makes Itself Evident.—The inheritance of a race is a geographical matter because environment selects certain types for preservation. The Norwegians are hardy in part because only haidy people can survive in their rugged land and stormy climate; the Arabs are slender partly because stout people tend to die in the heat of the desert. The Beduin Arabs or nomads are also poor laborers. This is largely because there is little call for steady labor in their wandering lives. The man of the desert who is most likely to succeed and to be able to take care of his children is the one who is able to make a swift hard dash into the desert after stray camels or on a plundering raid, and to go days without food and with only a few swallows of water. So natural selection has chosen that type for preservation, and the Beduin Arab is therefore quicker, more alert, more able to endure hardship, and less able to carry on steady work or to engage in trade than the Arabs of the towns in the oases.
The effect of inheritance is very evident in the differences in the people around us. Even among brothers and sisters one may be inventive, another musical and a third hopelessly dull. Among races the differences are similar, although not so extreme. These differ ences appear not only in complexion, hair, eyes, features, and stature, but in mental ability. It was long supposed that the minds of young children of all races are alike, and that the differences which are so evi dent in later life arise from training and health. Now it is known that both individuals and races differ in their mental quite as much as in their physical inheritance. One of the strongest evidences of this is psychological tests such as were made on a large scale during the Great War when hundreds of thousands of soldiers were tested all over the United States. The tests showed that the average mental ability of the grown men of the United States is scarcely greater than that of a bright child of about 13 years. Less than half the people in the United States have sufficient ability really to utilize the education offered by the elementary schools, and not over 12 per cent belong to the superior type that is really able to benefit fully by college training. Hence, almost every business employs some people who are not mentally competent for their work. The result is an enormous amount of poor work and a vast number of cases where men take a job only to be dis charged or to quit work, so that the labor turnover, as it is called, is enormous. Another result is inefficiency and extravagance in govern ment. People who have poor minds can easily be persuaded to vote for bad men or deceived into thinking that useful reforms will take away their liberty.