Birth and Breeding
"-58 THE COMMONWEAL January I2, I927 who has tramped up and down the good old college paths for twenty-seven years, in fulfilment of a promise made to the wife of his youtb ~3ince dead) that he...
...cunning in the Japanese...
...Pagenstecher...
...Simply this: "We publish this letter because many British people have feelings of gratitude and admiration for Dr...
...In short, it was physiology which accepted inconstancy, and sociology which held to constancy...
...It may be that this was what Plato's emphasis upon wisdom meant to imply...
...It is not worth while going further into this most affecting but altogether triumphant romance...
...But ap-parently the whole lumbering wave could not, as the saying goes, hold a candle to what is being dreamed of about boys in 'varsity sweaters and their delightful darlings...
...and he meets a lovely young lady whose ability to inspire and depress is reminiscent of Cleopatra's powers, though not of her sins...
...cupidity in the Jews, is so much twaddle...
...58 THE COMMONWEAL January I2, I927 who has tramped up and down the good old college paths for twenty-seven years, in fulfilment of a promise made to the wife of his youtb ~3ince dead) that he would abide in the dear old school until it had de-feated its bitterest rival...
...Control and censorship of the theatre are difficult...
...One might recommend to them the recent legislation propounded by I1 Duce, imposing a tax upon the single and carefree...
...And ultimately some form of control will be exercised, even if it is difficult to determine in advance what that form will be...
...And for his part, John Dryden was so well satisfied with official disapproval of the theatre that he loudly regretted his share in the merry bedlam, going so far as to castigate himself in the middle of a famous ode...
...Perhaps--who knows...
...He is one," declares the corre-spondent, "of the many innocent sufferers through our government's having seized the property in this coun- try of Germans, whose own government (though it agreed to compensate all its citizens whose goods had been seized abroad as alien property) is not in a posi- tion to give them adequate compensation...
...He will be supported particularly by those who know how often in history theatres have been closed tight for offenses no more serious than those now visible on Broadway...
...Though it cannot be held responsible for the cheap vulgarity of many shows to which out-of-towners flock, it offers no basis for belief that it can insist upon positive quality and get what it wants...
...The truth is that every child, when born, possesses nothing in the way of hereditary fac- tors beyond the sum of autonomic physiological, ana- tomical and neural correlations which ensure its de-velopment into a human being of a distinct type...
...It is not to them, but to the community, that the opportunity for improvement must come home...
...Mentality is not hereditary," Dr...
...A leading German physician goes so far as to say that determin- ing the "constitution" of a patient is an important part of diagnosis and an essential requisite of preventive January 12, 1927 THE COMMONWEAL 259 medicine...
...Aristotle would have seen much to commend in these views of a distant scientific disciple...
...And to comment on that, in turn, would be to spoil its inimitable effect l THE moral superiority of married men has not always received due recognition at the hands of poets and philosophers...
...the metropolis of the United States has produced--well, what is the use of odious comparisons...
...When you come down to it, the well-known Don and his Dulcinea have been rather hopelessly out- dassedmin an age that is usually identified with prose...
...Of course, it still turns up here and there--for instance, in a large and imposing volume we have just looked into--but it wears a spectral garb...
...But after all, the truth of the matter may lie in a decent community respect for individual free- dom...
...That vicious plays gratify a certain public has nothing to do with the matter...
...Our time is gradually restoring equilibrium...
...Physiology used to laugh at popular talk about "types," or what an older poet like Chaucer used to call "humors," and tried to find a decidedly different explanation for problems like immunity...
...And what did the Spectator venture to say by way of com- ment...
...No abstraction can be instinctive, for an instinct is inherited as a biological factor...
...And there, during the past year, offenses committed by bachelors outnumbered by more than two to one, the misdemeanors of which married men--and widowers--proved guilty...
...When one is old or tired, frolicsome relaxation under ques- tionable auspices is very tempting...
...Elizabethan drama came into public favor very much in the same way as a criminal might be paroled into normalcy...
...It arises through a confounding of these acquired abstract qualities with inherent instincts...
...WHITEWASHING BROADWAY M AYOR WALKER of New York in the r61e of Jeremy Collier displays more than a little vigor and charm...
...Even the later "morality plays" resisted improvement, so that the Archbishop of York finally despaired and put an end to them...
...The eugenist has been misled by bassing his hypothesis on the older biological concept that a mentality super- imposed on a network of instincts is as truly hereditary as the color of the skin, the shape of the face, the visceral processes...
...Thus there is no such thing as a born poet, or a born artist, or a born musi- cian...
...To say that the child of a burglar inherits a tendency to commit burglary is rubbish...
...Meanwhile sociology has seen the eugenic fancy die by inches...
...the motive for this decree was not to awaken the slumbering from their lethargy, but indeed to safe-guard Italy against the surge of criminality which has all but deluged Staten Island...
...Today the first has apparently gone back to the doc- trine that there is definitely something like a "constitu- tion," which may guarantee immunity from specific diseases or reveal a disposition to succumb...
...BIRTH AND BREEDING T HE complete upset of several notions of human nature which seemed scientific a few years ago is a curious contemporary fact...
...It would be a sorry state of affairs if the theory so wisely propounded by Mussolini should clash squarely with another ac-tually advocating single blessedness, and therefore en-couraging the hardened to persist in their lawless tendencies...
...What would be worth examining, however, is the rapt seriousness with which audiences galore gaze deep into this alluring concoction...
...What is so alarming and so engrossing in our time as crime ? The question can be asked with- out fear of negative response even in a region so tran- quil as Staten Island...
...Narcosan has been invented for the benefit of a similar group, and if we remember correctly, the "laws of supply and demand" did not suffice to calcimine the white-slave traffic...
...This must be said, even though one is conscious of what hard and brilliant efforts have been put forth by some actors and managers to raise the standard of the art...
...Nowhere has the stage risen to look beyond the day and its profits...
...A~nd the lines...
...At any rate, the point is serious enough to merit the consideration of a cer- tain eminent authority who recently predicted the downfall of society unless energetic steps were taken to prevent "marriage of the unfit...
...A CORRESPONDENT, in the London Spectator, outlines the pitiable old age of Professor Pagenstecher, a famous German oculist whose skill was placed at the service of many prominent English people, including Queen Victoria...
...The popular idea that different races inherit marked emo- tional and cortical concepts such as sportsmanship and patriotism in the English...
...It remained for modern ethical statistics, compiled in the most approved form, to call attention to a very signifi- cant fact...
...George Ryley Scott wrote recently, "or at any rate its hereditary factor is so slight as to be negligible so far as any practical purpose is concerned...
...They [the producers] were ad-monished by me that if they did not get together in some form for the control of their properties, and for the improvement of the character of theatrical performances, I would have to find a way to do it for them," is about as pat a monologue as one could hope to hear...
...Unfortunately, New York is at present not a creative or a beneficent community...
...He now finds that he has been deprived of practically all of this because it was invested in England--a country many of whose citizens and several of whose statesmen were treated by him...
...There is no doubt that if the mayor of New York determines to run a certain variety of shows out of town, he can get all the support he needs or cares to have...
...On the other hand, sociologists were con-vinced that the mental and moral structure of the in- dividual was largely an inheritance, which might be exploited by "careful breeding" to the advantage of the race...
...His manner is aggressive, his un- derstanding of ensemble must be termed remarkable...
...If Mr...
...he has the most charming ignorance of gridiron tactics, but develops into a scintillant star instantly...
...He had read Plato carefully enough to be quite certain that all resolutions to employ the state as a means toward the realization of "ideal man" repose on either too much or too little emphasis being put upon the material constituents of human nature...
...He commented: 'It is always a satisfaction if, in one's old age, one can still be of use to fellow-men.' " The correspondent added that a subscription was being taken up on behalf of the professor...
...Small wonder that the authorities have begun to ponder the situation...
...He argued well from his premises...
...As a matter of fact, the several attempts of the English people to rectify the stage always ended in what we today would term a row of padlocks...
...It has long since been no secret that New York play- houses are badly in need of moral criticism...
...Though eighty-two, he still operates and was able re- cently to save the sight of a man only four years his junior...
...When one is young and inclined to be "satirical"--a condition widely prevalent in our day--the lure of anti-social literature is more magnetic than grave thinking...
...but those were wrong...
...Most of the literary text-books--some of which are occasionally read in college--report that a wave of distorted romar~ce-writing swept over the world during the era of chivalry's decline...
...but it must not be thought that we endorse any strictures upon His Majesty's government . which may be expressed or implied...
...At present, only about two and one-half percent of the amount of the claims is being paid...
...The pity of it is, how little has been done to construct a theatre worthy of the best in America...
...This ultimately prevails against the theatre which is so immediately a creation of pub- lic taste...
...Athens brought forth and crowned Aeschylus and Aristophanes...
...They have never been easy...
...Anyhow, what property the famous oculist held in Germany had almost vanished with the collapse of the mark, and he was counting on his old age being eased a little by what he possessed elsewhere...
...A proper use of matrimonial selection would, it was thought, develop nobler mental "types...
...parsimony in the Scots...
...But after all, most people are sooner or later honest with themselves: they drop all poses about art, beauty, and sophistica- tion...
...David Belasco can be honest enough to say that indecent shows are staged because they pay, it is possible that some jury may be honest enough to agree with him...
...Plato, in particular, practically ex- cluded from the profession of wisdom all those who had succumbed to the lure of heading a family...
...and they quote a pretty straightforward defini-tion of immorality...
...How.the advocate of "better breeding" was duped by a whole series of mechanistic assumptions is an in- structive spectacle...
Vol. 5 • January 1927 • No. 10
