Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 46.djvu/172

160 the various influences and modes of training to which it subjects children, to establish in them permanent and sufficient inhibitory centers which shall enable them to conform to the various artificial restraints imposed by an advanced civilization. And in the latter, as in the former case, when the inhibitory impression has become well established the desire diminishes. Each successful resistance of temptation renders resistance more easy and certain.

In the former as well as in the latter case the readiness with which these inhibitory impressions are received and retained depends upon the quality of the cerebral tissues, the cells.

In the lower forms of idiocy, individuals are often seen who never can be taught to refrain from putting their hands into a candle flame, and the well-recognized criminal class is largely composed of individuals whose cerebral tissues are of so inferior an order that permanent and sufficient inhibitory centers can not under any circumstances be so established as to enable them by themselves to conform to the restraints which civilization imposes. Sound and successful training attempts to establish these centers of inhibition, and not to prevent their formation by keeping the individual in ignorance of the conditions which demand their exercise. When young people with this false training are thrown upon their own resources, great suffering is almost sure to follow.

While doubtless in this country a large proportion of the individuals composing the criminal class are such by reason of defective brain tissues, it is wellnigh certain that a considerable number might never have entered it if from the start they could have had proper training.

A thorough musician may get better music from a defective instrument, with whose defects he is familiar, than a poor musician can get out of a perfect instrument.