SPECIAL D.L.F. Club Number

Otago Witness, Issue 2812, 5 February 1908, Page 83

SPECIAL D.L.F. Club Number

OUR FIRST INTERCLUB DEBATE.

By T.D.A. akd Tangles. It is now some time since the idea of an interclub debate was first broached, Horry first proposing it in the days when both clubs were in "their infancy. Al the time there -was little enthusiasm about it, the difficulties in the way being considered too great. Now. however, both clubs are on a firmer, surer footing, the constant interchange of visits and papers have brought them closer together and thelped us all to know one another, and as the outcome of the rivalry which has long existed between the clubs, we have at last iad our first interciub debate, which was held in the library at the Witness office on Thursday evening, the 16th inst. As may be supposed on such an auspicious occasion, Dot was with us in person, as also w«s Mr George Fenwick, one of the Dunedin Club's patrons, who, despite the many calls on his time, spares the club an evening now and then. Harry occupied -the, chair during the first part of. the evening-, but the attendance was disappointing, though no doubt the inclement state of the weather accounted in some measure, for this, and we know that many of our country comrades, though necessarily absent in person, were with us in tspiiit. No effort was spared by those responsible to secure able, unbiased judging, and through Dot's courtesy and assistancewe had with us Mr Theomin and the Hon. J. B. Sinclair, M.L.C, ia the capacity of judges. The subject, "Which has the most Influence on Character — Heredity, or Environment?" was a deep, far-reaching one, and one which gave plenty of scope for the ability of the debaters. The Invereftrgill Club for Heredity found worthy and able representatives in Ceres, leader, supported by Shasta, club president, and Lola, a "Very old page correspondent, < and now a very interested and hard-working club member. Dunedin, for Environment, found able champions in Harry, leader, supported by Emerald, club president, and Cornish, the hard-working and deservedly popular dub secretary*-. Harry, in opening the meeting, introduced and welcomed the judges and visitors, and xead a telegram containing best wishes for an enjoyable and successful meeting from Octava, Areta, and Stan, three of the Dunedin •Club members at present in Queenstown. Mr George Fenwick then took the chair, and the battle commenced in earnest, Invercargill getting in first shot in the shape of ■an ably•writ^en paper by Ceres, containing some splendid arguments ' and registering some good points for heredity. Then came Dunedin'^ turn in the fray, Harry, in a very capable and well-thought-out paper, ranging some invincible arguments in favour of environment. Next came Shasta to take up the cudgels for heredity, and in a clearly-derated, intelligent paper she battled right loyally for her club^ Now'D'unedin's turn again, when Emerald, in her usual emphatic, lucid manner, put in some good shots for environment, and did good work for her club. Then came Lola, who, though labouring under a- decided disadvant- ' age. inasmuch as she came at the last moment in the place of Smoking Flax, submitted a splendid paper, which materially added to heredity's chance of victory. Lastly came Cornish, jvho, in a characteristic paper, well •written, flowing, and forcible, strove valiantly for Dunedin and environment. The leaders having briefly replied, the Chairman, on behalf of the judges and himself, congratulated both sides on the splendid papers- submitted •nd the unexpected knowledge, talent, research, and originality , they showed, and expressed the pleasure the debate had afforded Then came the anxious time when the judges retired to consider their verdict. The tedium and suspense were greatly relieved by quite a nujnber ofjeleasant little speeches, reflecting throughout the friendly, chivalrous spmt ' which characterised the debate from start to finish. Cornish spoke briefly on the debate, and in this connection recorded our appreciation of the part played" by Shasta, on whom fell most of the work of writing and arranging for the debate, and to ffhose untiring efforts its realisation was- largely due. Harry, in seconding Cornish's 1 remarks., recorded special thanks to^the Invercargill members who had to come such a long distance, and hoped the debate would be one of a "Ceres." Ceres returned thanks for the welcome extended to him and his supporters, and hoped the next debate would be held in. Invercargill, where, as he expressed it. we can. meet you on our own ground." Emerald voiced the general appreciation by expressing our - grateful thanks to Lola, who at the last moment willingly stepped into the breach caused by Smoking Flax's forced retirement. Lastly, Dot expresses the pleasure and enjoyment the debate had afforded her, and con, gratulated the debaters on the excellent material their papers^contained. The .return of the judges quickly restored the meeting to attention, and we all anxiously waited "for the chairman to make known the momentous decision. The surprise was general when be^ announced that so far as the judges were concerned the debate was a draw. One of the judges was of opinion that the side for Heredity had been better piesented. whereas the other thought that the supporters f>f Environment had made the better use of their material. As the most satisfactory solution of the problem they proposed submitting the papers, together with their views on the debate, to a competent umpire to be chosen T>y them 1 , and who would decide the question. The leaders having agreed to this, Mr Fenwick again complimented the debaters on their ability, particularly when they had managed to tangle up two such competent judges, and a vote of thanks to the judges and the ciair brought a very successful and enjoyable debate to a close. . . A few days later the umpire's lecision awarded the "victory to Invercargill, and our squthern comrades are to be congratulated on their hardly won victory, as are oiu Dunedin ones on the splendid fight they made. The debate was in every way a success, and Quite justifies our hoping it -wilr be one of many. The papers submitted! were «11 of » high standard, and must have entailed much earnest thought and hard work on the part of (the writers. They are all worthy of publication, ■tut that beis^ -olrrfously -impossible tlios* of the two leaders — "Heredity,' by Ceres, and "Environment," by Harry — will be published in full, and at Dot's special request the following extracts have been culled from the others: — The old idea of the pure white sheet of paper may be finally laid to rfst. - The page .of the youngest life is so -far from being blank that it bears upon it characters whose erigin is 'lost in obscurity. - Education and toTixonment can and do modify and develop

character, but have no absolute power to alter it. — "Heredity," by Shasta. Man inherits the physical, mental, and moral qualities which to a certain extent make character. Having inherited certain thoughts and feelings, he is therefore disposed to will, and consequently io act as his parents did. — Shasta. Transmission of physical qualities is too well known to need mentioning, but a few instances of hereditary talent will be found interesting. Amiong men of letters we find Addison, one of the best prose writers of England, and his father, a very_ learned divine and author. In the world of science we find Erasmus Darwin, author, his two sons physicians of note, and. his grandson Charles, the celebrated naturalist. Hereditary talent for music is_ not rare, though perhaps the Bach family is the most distinguished instance of hereditary musical ability. Sebastian Bach is -the greatest of 'his family, which, during a period of 200 years, numbered among its members 29 eminent musicians, besides many members' of considerable ability. Looking through the .lists of famous* artists we find Murillo,, who was a pupil of his uncle, a painter, of merit. Another uncle and cousin weae also notable painters. — Shasta. Burdach says that "heredity has actually more power over our mental ' condition and our character than all external influences, physical or moral." — Shasta. To make- character we need -soul, will, conscience, and intellect, and not one of these can be given to us by environment. They begin life with us, and so are under the influence of heredity. Environment develops character, but it does not begin at the beginning, and the hereditary qualities are more necessary to the building up of a fine character than the acquired ones. You cannot, by education, build up a oharacter without soul and intellect to work upon. — Shasta. We will suppose that a lily and a weed are 'growing side by side in a swamp. We remove therm, side by aide, into a beautiful garden. Under the oare of the gardener, the lily becomes a beautiful flower. The weed flourishes, but remains a weed, and not all the influence of the beautiful garden nor the care and skill of the gardener can make it anything else but « weed. An elaborate eduoation often fails because of a deficiency- of character which all the pare in the world cannot make good. For intelligent, healthy people, environment can do a great deal, but for the mentally or' morally _ inefficient at one end of the scale alid for genius at the' other end it can do very little. — Shasta. „ Without the influence of heredity each new generation would have had to begin at the beginning, and obviously could never have mounted very far, but with that influence at work nothing is lost. The capacity for achieve- ! ment is undoubtedly transmitted from one generation to another. Every stage of growth becomes an impulse towards ft higher stage.' ' Development is- twofold, national, and individual. National character is the result bf ' individual character, and- nations have _ their characteristic tendencies just as individuals have theirs. .We allude to these when we speak of the canny Scot, the bluff, hearty Englishman 1 , or the jolly, rollicking Irishman who meets .everything with a joke and a twinkle in his eye. — Shasta. Each individual life has in it something given by heredity." apart from any other life, " an individual self which grows stronger with the passing yeau. "Each individual thing, says Spinoza, "so far as in it lies, endeavours to persist in its own being."— Shasta. The law of heredity is an obscure and little understood force, reaching backward to the far-away past and forward to the future. It | plays an important part in the development of the human race. •' Looking backward we have travelled a long way. Looking forward, to what heights may we not attain? Always in our lives this secret influence is at work, unseen hands beckon us forward, silent guides go with us on our way, the voices of the past urge us on towards the goal .they sought but railed to reach. A perfect character is a gift from heaven. A noble character may become the possession "of everyone to whom heredity has given the desire for perfection in his soul, and the will to seek it diligently.— Shasta. , Heredity, or that law by which all creatures endowed with life tend to repeat themselves in their descendants, has a most powerful influence on the material body of man. How often do we find a. child so closely resembling some ancestor in form and feature, trick of. ' voice, and gesture, that it elmost .seems as ' though the dead had risen to life and resumed .its old material body.— "Heredity," by LolaJ 1 Hereditary influence meets us on every side, within as well as without. . „ lam deeply impressed by the belief that we axe endowed at birth with «► soul on which is written in 1 invisible ink, as it were, a character made up of the impulses and tendencies of generation after generation of ancestors. Slowly, bit by bit, the latent character develops, heredity giving more or less tendency to good or evil. — Lola. , , . , Those latent, silent sensations which are forever thronging our nerves develop in us that which we call temperament. To those who study the development of, character in children this is most apparent. I have two little boys who, as far as outward appearance is concerned, beair so striking a resemblance to each other that it takes strangers quite a time to distinguish them apart. From their earliest infancy a most decided difference in oharacter and disposi- ! tion was clearly apparent. One was of a, dreamy, imaginative nature. As a very small child he loved to watch the branches of the waving trees, the white clouds trailing across the blue sky. The birds, bees, and butterfiies were all objects of keenest interest. The other at exactly the same age delighted in galloping up and down on an imaginary steed. I Soldiers battleships, and 1 battles were his favourite pictures. His favourite stoneß were 1 of war and warriors; his favourite music was • a kerosene-tin drum, on which he thumped 1 j all day long. The first delighted' in fairy I stories bits of poetry, and tales of animals, and would ix>re for -hours over pictures o| spiders or butterflies. Outdoor games had nat much attraction for binj. But No 2 'delighted in everything which smacked of a tussle or battle, SoEool. life but developed the same disposition?. Nature .studies to the one was tout a wearisome tnsi ; to the otfcer unlimited deligW, and so on. We traced the warlike propensities in the one to «> long line of soldier ancestry, th« dreamy, poetic nature of the other back to his maternal great grand- , mother.— Lola. • , . , i Education has but flxed in us the results achieved by hundreds of generations, and we cannot close our eyes te the fact that many of the instincts which cling to us have been ■ handed down from primitive man^— Lola. 1 Let us consider the part played ffj atavism-

or reversional heredity. I have in my mind a case which wiM illustrate this tendency. An Englishman of birth and culture fell in love with and married a beautiful half-caste Maori, The mother died, and the child was, at the age of one year, sent home to her father's ancestral h^j^e in England to be brought up by his mother. She returned to her father at the age of 17, to all appearance a highly educated, polished young lady. She had inherited much of the outward appearance of her father. Of her mother's Maori origin she knew nothing, but she had all the love of freedom characteristic of the Maori race. "I hate a conventional life," she would say. "I would love to be a Gipsy roaming through the wild woods without restraint. I feel as though I were two different persons at war with each other. I like beautiful clothes, and everything beautiful, but not to be. shut up in houses." Her favourite seat was on the grass or the hearthrug, and as she sat in all her beautiful, fashionable clothes, the attitude and gesture were exactly those of her Maori grandmother. Most of her time was passed out of doors roaming through the countryside and seashore,' until at last she came fin her Maori grandmother's pa. I shall never forget the look on her face as she gazed on the seene — a puzzled, v strange look. In a moment she was amongst them. "I love them," she said afterwards. "I feel as if I had known them all long ago." From that day she visited them constantly, and finally married a stalwart Native. Education, influence, and surroundings' were powerless to eradicate the impulses handed down through generations of savages. — Lola.

• Environment, acting from without, may do much^educaiion^cultivates the mind, develops the body,* and fashions the manners ; but heredity „ bestows upon us that internal essence w© call personality, character, tSatwhich differentiates us from, all other individuals and personalities. — Lola.

The permanence of "national character is at once a proof in itself of the influence of heredity. Take a Chinese for instance. Does education. j&nd surroundings ever transform him into anything else than a bland, taciturn Chinese? Could you change the nature of an Englishman, a Scotchman, or Irishman? 'Did you leave them' for 60 years in the middle of China or Bussia? You could not. I could pile instance upon instance of Scotchmen after tiO years' iesidence here in New Zealand who are as typically Scotch., as when they left their native land. — Lola. The greatest argument far heredity is ' generally educed by analogy between the physiological and the moral side of a man's character. But it has been proved that even in the physiological aspect, environment will overcome heredity. In "Natural Law in the Spiritual World" Drumsnond says: "The influence of environment may be investigated"" in two 'main aspects. First, one might discuss the modern and very interesting question as to the power of environment to induce what is known to recent science as Variation. A change in the surroundings of any animal, it is now well known, can so react upon it as to cause it to change. By the attempt, conscious or unconscious, to adjust itself to the new conditions, a true physio* . logical change is gradually wrought within the organism. Hunter, for example, so changed the environment of a seagull by keeping it in captivity that it could only secure 'grain diet. 1 The effect was to modify the stomach of the' bird, normally adapted to a fish diet, until it came to resemble in the gizzard* of an ordinary jjrain feeder, etc." It is admitted by all biologists that physiological' peculiarities are most easily and most faithfully transmitted to posterity. If such changes as the above -can be brought about in the physiological aspect of an animal's nature, is it not probable that similar changes may be wrought by environment upon the man's moral side ?—? — Emerald on "Environment." Allowing^ that moral peculiarities and habits are transmitted, let us consider the matter a moment in this light. A child's character is the result of his heredity plus his environment. His- heredity equals his parent's heredity -plus their environment. Therefore hia character is his parent's heredity plus their environment, p_lus his own environment, whiph gives two- environments for one heredity. Regarding this in a mathematical light, two to one is a good working majority. This will work out no matter how far we go, as there will always be one environment extra. — Emerald. Let us take the power of imitation as evidenced by the result of external influence. Example forms a child's character. Many children have otherwise goo^disposdtions marred by passionate temper, etc. This can often be improved by environments, and in cases I" such as this environment undoubtedly counteracts and conquers heredity. Example is a * powerful factor in a child's development, and many a man has to thank environment for changing the hereditary bad instincts of -his life into good ones. One life has the power of transforming another. — Emerald. , Education -is the strongest argument that can be advanced for environment. An eminent educationist has said that "to interpret the hereditary law in strictness is to give ourselves up to pessimism and despair." The world does get better, although* some would have vtf believe the contrary. — Emerald. Education, ia a very potent factor in character formation, and it is to education that we look to overcome the inherited evil tendencies of the race. Various customs which were handed down as hereditary have been done away with.- Take, for instance, the Vendetta in Corsica.— -Emerald. Let us take the influences of environment . in a downward sense. Look at the various races of the world that have, been displaced by civilised races. Let us go no farther abroad than New Zealand. Consider for a moment the Maori race and the result of the environment brought to bear on it. The Maoris originally were a strong, healthy race, and it has beeen proved conclusively that the habits, the environment brought by the Europeans have overcome the hereditary qualities of the Maori and made the race wha,t "it is, a fast decaying one. — Emerald. In its broad sense, it is the surroundings from the, cradle to the grave. AH the agencies, visible and invisible, conscious and unconscious, that are continually brought to bear upon life comprise environment. — Cornish on "Environment." Heredity has provided a. physical being, but environment must make or mar th« mental and the moral being. If heredity has the greater influence why do we aim to raise eaoh generation to a higher standard? If heredity has superiority why aa we match the taint Qf sin under which mortals are bom with environment ? Heredity is a power, the power of Hive* blended into one. Environment is a power, the power of the universe, and the oower of ' liea.-v.eii- NV»w low faxes tex«<l£*y (by contrast'? — Cornish. There -was a story in my school book, a story with, a moral so conspicuous that simple minds could grasp it. "A led had chosen comrades of questionable character, and p marked change for the worse appeared in his manners and actions. His father discerned the effect and the cause, and' to remove the latter he treated his son to an object lesson. Taking a plate of sound apples he placed in i the centre a rotten one, and bade his son -Mtcb the result, Ia the cants* *f time all

went bad." The moral is too ojbvious for me to proceed further. — Cornish. Have you ever thought of the power of environment as provided by Nature, and how great is her influence? "How wonderful is the sublimity of environments ! Master minds seem ignoble in Nature's grand presence. Great ia the power' of example, and Nature has set the greatest example in noble grandeur and delicate loveliness." — Cornish, - : Be the environments good) an hereditary bad character will prove irresistible to them. The principle is of a. drop of water wearing away the hardest atone. Hereditary good, enveloped with evil environments, will even- j tually lower the character of the individual. — ] Cornish. ( Environment enwraps the character as a garment, and with its matchless power is so clothed that the assaults of hereditary temptation c«n make no impression on the character. Heredity produces royalty, but environment produces the roan, behind the monarch. Heredity may provide a ra-ce, but environment classifies it, sifts the dross from the gold, and the.-weak from/the strong, and is a far more powerful agency than heredity in the influencing of character. — Cornish. " -» Labour may be said to be the supreme environment of life. Since it is ordained that man must work for existence labour must fill the great practical part of his life. A mart's work iplainly imprints its stamp on his character, influencing him according to its nature.— Cornish. Eeligion is *n environment, and witness the power .of religion on the character. It is boundless as the* ocean, and the barriers that will say thus far and no farther have not and never will be raised. Our lives are earth and heaven environed, aid it seems absurd to match infinite and earthly h power I against the- power concentrated in a few Jives. Scripture says -the universe took six days to perfect,. and we are told it was inhabited.with I bird, . animal, and human life' instantly, and the inference ia that more time was given to the environment, hence they must be more powerful. — Cornish. I A gardener can graft upon a tree end transi form stunted stumps into a prolific orchard, and "the principle ia the same as grafting environment upon heredity, thereby produoing results of * better character than if heredity were allowed to run riot. — Cornish. It is said the greatest power on earth is money, and money is an environment, since it comes not from the same source as life. Has money an influence on character? An answering query could be put, How are misers made? Has the want of money any influence on character? Undoubtedly, yes, for manySnave been brought to gaol pleading want.— Cornish.