The child : a study in the evolution of man / by Alexander F. Chamberlain.

  • Alexander Francis Chamberlain
Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The child : a study in the evolution of man / by Alexander F. Chamberlain. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    horticulture), domestication of animals, agriculture (with the aid of the plough, the cow and the horse); forestry, (c) Transformative mdustries—arts and manufacturing industries, architecture, milk-industry, etc. id) Locomotion industries— trade, commerce, etc. In all of these the influence of sex is often only second to that of environment, while in some cases it is even greater. After the arguments adduced by Bos, it will be admitted how difficult the verification of the three culture-stages under discussion is in the life of the individual. Thoreau, who held that, ‘ even in civilised communities, the embryo man passes through the hunter stage of development,’ wrote : ‘ There is a period in the history of the individual, as of the race, when the hunters are the “ best men,” as the Algonquins called them. We cannot but pity the boy who has never fired a gun; he is no more humane, while his education has been sadly neglected. This was my answer with respect to those youths who were bent on this pursuit, trusting that they would soon outgrow it’ (638, p. 213). So, too, with fishing—for fishing and hunting, Thoreau tells us, are ‘oftenest the young man’s introduction to the forest [where of old dwelt his pro- genitors of the prime], and the most original part of himself.’ The ‘ collection-instinct,’so-called, characteristic of certain periods of childhood and youth, deserves study in the light of the researches of Bos and others and the studies of De Sanctis. Especially important is the relation of environment and oppor- tunity to culture in connection with theories of ‘culture- epochs.’ Social Types.—Some light is thrown upon the question of ‘culture-epochs’ and ‘developmental stages’ by Demolins in his study of the ‘ social types ’ of Southern and Central France, where the great role of the nature of the place, and of the labour in the formation of these ‘types’ is pointed out, although the author seems to emphasise too much the environ- mental factors of a more or less physical sort to the detriment of the historical, religious, moral and artistic. One ‘social type’ may be derived from pastoral art, another from the exploitation of fruit trees, a third from manufacture, a fourth from transportation and commerce, while the‘petite culture’ and the ‘grande culture’ have each their peculiar ‘types.’ There are also varieties and sub-divisions of these ‘social types.’ The shepherd type of the Pyrenees and the Alps differs
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