Euthenics, the science of controllable environment. Ellen H. Richards

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      Prof. George E. Dawson, The Control of Life through Environment.

      We create the evil as well as the good. Nature is impersonal. To an increasing degree man determines.

      Carl Kelsey.

      The only certain remedy for any disease is man’s own vital power.

      Today only an exceptional man, almost a genius, learns to modify his habits and his life to his environment and to triumph over his surroundings, his appetites, and the absurd dictates of fashion.

      Richard Cole Newton, M.D., How Shall the Destructive

       Tendencies of Modern Life Be Met and Overcome?

      We have certain inherent capacities as to bodily strength, length of life, etc., but it lies largely with ourselves to adopt a mode of life which may make an actual difference in height, weight, and physical strength and intellectual capacity.

      E. H. Richards, Sanitation in Daily Life.

      There are two recognized ways of improving the quality of human beings: one by giving them a better heredity—starting them in life with a stronger heart, better digestion, steadier nerves; the other by so combining the factors of daily life that even a weak heart may grow strong, a poor digestion may become good, and frayed nerves gain steadiness.

      E. H. Richards, The Art of Right Living.

CHAPTER II

       Table of Contents

FAITH

       Table of Contents

      The relation of environment to man’s efficiency is a vital consideration: how far it is responsible for his character, his views, and his health; what special elements in the environment are most potent and what are the most readily controlled, provided sufficient knowledge can be gained of the forces and conditions to be used.

      To this end home life—in its relations to the child, the adult, and the community—is considered in connection with the effect on the home of the influences outside it, and the reaction of each on the other. These relations and influences are partly physical and material, partly ethical and psychical.

      The right of the child is protection, and it is the responsibility of the adult—parent, teacher, or state officer—to secure this protection.

      The knowledge that investigators are gaining in the laboratory and are trying to give to the community must be accepted and applied by the individual. How is the individual, discouraged by sickness and hardship, to know that things are awry or that they can be set more nearly straight? How can he know that he is responsible for his limitations? Why should he suppose that he need not be eternally a slave to environment? How can he realize that “health promotes efficiency by producing more energy and leaving it all free for useful purposes?” A few enlightened souls recognize the tendency of environment to kick the man that is down; to be subservient to the man of bodily and mental vigor, of keen understanding and human insight, but the majority must be led to believe these scientific principles.

      Again and again scientists and humanitarians must return to the attack, for individual carelessness becomes community menace, and “line upon line and precept upon precept” they must present their knowledge in language that shall attract and hold the attention and fancy. So the work and discoveries of Metchnikoff have gained credence because the disciple who described them had the ability to impress on his audience in a convincing fashion the one fact that made a strong appeal—the possibility of long life. If those who are zealous for any movement would study the psychology of advertising and speak as forcefully as the legitimate advertiser, they would be more persuasive and successful.

      When an idea has won in a certain circle, it quickly spreads to the other members, thence to active communities. So the universal law of imitation may be the greatest help in the spread of ideas. The individual eats a certain food because his neighbor does. Boston determines to make an effort for a better city because Chicago has felt the stirrings of civic pride.

      A gifted individual with a deep sense of the need of his community sees an ideal condition, which by his thought becomes a possibility. These beliefs he shares with a few choice spirits till the circle has widened. The new ideas come to the notice of the city or the town officials, new means are adopted of educating the whole community, and, if necessary, legal measures are passed. But the new means to betterment must be applied by the individual. Beginning with the exceptional individual and ending with the average individual, the perfect circle is rounded out.

      The leaders must show convincingly that the laws which they have discovered may be applied to daily life, but the individual himself must adopt them. When he has been saturated with knowledge, his inertia will break down, his hopelessness give way to its very antithesis, a strong hope for a better future. Every known method must be used by the laboratory to develop this hope into a belief wide enough to reach all members of every section of the community and deep enough to become a vital working principle. Only through a belief strong enough to ride over unbelief and inertia, a belief in the value of science for personal life strong enough to make a wise choice possible, can the will to obtain a better environment be developed. The belief in better things must be thoroughly impressed on the individual mind. Each individual must understand that it does affect him, that it is his concern, that he must give heed to his environment. Then he may have the will and make the effort to combat dangers to body and mind.

      Today, belief is much more difficult than ever before because the dangers are unseen and insidious, and our enemies do not generally make an appeal through the senses of sight and hearing. But the dangers to modern life are no less than in the days of the pioneers, when a stockade was built as a defense from the Indians. We have no standards for safety. Our enemies are no longer Indians and wild animals. Those were the days of big things. Today is the day of the infinitely little. To see our cruelest enemies, we must use the microscope. Of all our dangers, that of uncleanness leads—uncleanness of food and water and air—uncleanness due to unsanitary production and storage, to exposure to street dust, or to cooking and serving of food in unclean vessels. Such conditions result not only in actual disease, but in lowered vitality and lessened work power.

      Lack of knowledge on the part of some, heedlessness on the part of others who should be intelligent enough to interpret such conditions, are responsible for their continuance. A few timely suggestions will accomplish more in remedying many evils than any amount of attempted legal enforcement. The very fact of a law makes many persons defy it. They feel justified in showing their wit by outwitting the law’s representatives. Many of our newer citizens have come to us from the protection (?) of a personal authority that they can see and feel. In this country of ours, we have taken away that binding regard for authority, and we must as far as possible lead rather than compel.

      It is, after all, what a man determines for himself and for his family that affects both his views of life and his wish to secure for himself and for them that which he believes to be best. It is not what some other man believes for him that affects his life.

      Evolution from within, not a dragging from outside, even if it is in the right direction, is the method of human development. Nevertheless, if the bale of hay is skillfully hung in front of the donkey’s nose it will often serve to СКАЧАТЬ