I

NATURALISTS have long noted the way in which various animals merge themselves into the landscape of which they form a part. It takes sharp eyes to distinguish the living thing from its environment. There are butterflies that look like the leaves on which they alight, caterpillars that resemble the bark of the tree they infest. The polar bear is a part of the snow-fields. Even the stripes of the zebra, which make him conspicuous in the circus, are said to be inconspicuous when seen against the arid landscape of South Africa.

All these concealments are useful in the struggle for existence. They form part of the grand strategy of nature. The creature unable to stand in the open against its enemies seeks to escape their prying eyes. It tries to look like something else.

These natural hypocrisies throw light on human conduct. When we call a man a hypocrite we usually assume that he is trying to imitate a higher order of being than that to which he has attained. In this we perhaps do too much credit to his spiritual ambition.

The hypocrisies in nature are not of this kind. The creature does not imitate its betters but its inferiors. The vegetable imitates the mineral; the animal imitates the vegetable. It does not parade its peculiar talents, but modestly slips back in the scale of being. It likes to hide in the already existing.

The naturalists distinguish between protective coloring of animals — that which they call cryptic coloring — and mimicry. The cryptic coloring aims purely at concealment. In mimicry the hunted creature finds safety in its resemblance to some other creature which is either feared or disliked or despised. Thus a worm that is really good to eat escapes the predatory bird by looking like a worm that is not good to eat. It willingly sacrifices its reputation for gastronomic excellence in order to prolong its existence.

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Harmless, good-natured reptiles wriggle along in peace because they superficially resemble venomous snakes with whom interiorly they have nothing in common. Any one who has made the acquaintance of a garden toad knows that he is not nearly so ugly as he looks. After thousands of years precarious living, these wise amphybians have learned to divest themselves of the fatal gift of beauty. Doubtless the less unprepossessing attracted the attention of envious rivals and were slain, while those whom none could envy survived.

One who takes a sympathetic view of the evolutionary process will make allowance for the many worthy creatures who conceal their virtues for prudential reasons. They are like a richly freighted ship trying to avoid capture. It receives a coat of paint to match the fog, puts out its lights, and makes a run to avoid the enemies' cruisers.

An appreciation of the ways of the hunted would save the ambitious educator from many disappointments. He is engaged in the imparting of knowledge, the holding up of ideals, the development of the higher faculties. Being human, he longs to see the results of his labors. What becomes of the embryo scholars and philosophers and social reformers when they begin to shift for themselves?

Ah, there comes the bitter disappointment. These objects of tremulous care, the moment they are released from tutelage, seem to lose their painfully acquired superiority. Instead of proudly carrying their educational advantages as an oriflamme of progress, they carefully conceal them, and take the color of their present world.

The enthusiastic kindergartner one day visits the primary school to see how her little graduates are following the ideals she has imparted with such loving care. Little George Augustus was the paragon of the kindergarten. With wide-open eyes and eager ears he received the sweet parables of Nature, and with nimble fingers practiced what he had been taught. None in the kindergarten so docile as he. To him education would be no task. With his With his heart so early attuned to its harmonies he would joyfully play upon it as on an instrument of ten strings.

But alas! in the public school little George Augustus does not stand out as one of the elect infants. The multiplication table has for him no spiritual meaning, and against its literal meaning he hardens his heart. His realistic mind does not in the least mistake work for play. He perceives instantly and resentfully where one begins and the other leaves off. His attitude is that of his fellow conspirators. He will learn his lesson if he has to, but he will not encourage teacher by performing any work of supererogation.

VOL. 116-NO.5

Has the kindergarten failed? Not ultimately. The effects will doubtless reappear; but they are now in hiding. George Augustus is wise in his generation. Through several weeks of hard experience in his new environment he has learned to appear as one of the unkindergartened. His newly acquired manners are the protective coloring which enables him to go about unmolested.

A distinguished physiologist has shown by a number of experiments that terror and hate produce the same physiological reactions. In the one case the instinct is to get away from the foe; in the other it is to get at him. In either case there is a demand made on the adrenal glands, which, as a war measure, pour adrenaline into the blood. In the case of little George Augustus, the sudden increase of adrenaline which makes him appear so truculent is produced, not by hate of sound learning, but by a well-founded fear. He is panicstricken over the possibility of being called 'Teacher's Pet.'

I have in mind a boy who was early taught to love to go to Sunday School and hear the Sabbath bell. At the age of ten he suddenly informed his parents, with the air of a hardened offender, that he intended to cut Sunday School regularly once a month. On inquiry it appeared that the superintendent had arranged an honor list on which were to be inscribed the names of those whose attendance for a month had been faultless.

'Dickey says he got caught that way once.' There was something not to be endured in the thought of standing before his companions as a horrible example of the degrading virtue of punctuality.

The youth who passes from an excellent preparatory school into the university has the same experience. He has an uneasy feeling that he has been

over-educated. The whole of the freshman year is sometimes spent in the successful attempt to conceal the too careful training he has received. Only when he is convinced by the college office that his attainments do not make him conspicuous, does he feel that he may safely continue his education.

The educator who would keep a cheerful courage up must be something of a detective. He must be able to penetrate the disguises which his pupils put on to conceal from him the result of his labors among them. He must remember that these youthful pilgrims are traveling through an unfriendly world. To some of them, the intellectual life is an uncanny thing of which they have heard in the classroom, but of which they are suspicious. It appears to them as the field of psychical research does to the partially convinced. When the conditions are right the phenomena appear. But when they go on the street and talk with the uninitiated, they mention these matters with a tone of indifference. They do not like to appear too credulous.

Moreover, these young people are conscious that their stay in the seats of learning is but temporary. They are aware that the subjects in which the university seeks to interest them are not mentioned in the good society which they aspire to enter. Were they to acquire any unusual ideas, they fear that on their return to their native Philistia they might be interned as alien enemies.

Education depends not only on the consent of those who are being educated but on the consent of those who are paying the bills. The proud father is willing to pay roundly for an education which will make his son like himself. It is hard to make him appreciate an education which aims to produce a salutary unlikeness.

The only institutions which can

openly avow their real ambitions for betterment are those which are endowed and supported for the benefit of confessedly backward races. Carlisle Institute for the Indians does not profess to make its students like their fathers. It boldly admits to the paternal relatives that it sees room for improvement. The student is not to go back to take up the accustomed life in the wigwam. He is to tear down the wigwam and make a civilized home.

But this would not be so easy if the school had to depend for its support on the Indian tribes from which the pupils come. Some self-made savage of the old school would declare that he would have no flummery fit only for mollycoddles. In the interest of efficiency he would endow a chair of practical scalping.

The Indian School is like a system of waterworks fed from a remote and elevated reservoir. All one has to do is to turn the water on and let it flow through the pipes. But the institution of higher education for the more favored classes has no such advantage. It is like the hydraulic ram placed in the bed of the running stream. Most of the water that runs through it escapes downhill, but in doing so sends a very slender stream far above its natural level.

It is the function of the institution of higher learning to educate the public that supports it up to the point of appreciating its real purpose. But while it is being educated up to this point, will the public support it? That is a matter that causes anxious thought.

Athens supported a numerous body of sophists who taught what the Athenians wanted to know. Socrates had a different educational ideal. He endeavored to teach the Athenians that they did n't know a good many things they thought they knew. This method was not so readily appreciated.