e," and probably
the most important part of this improvement is in bringing about better
relations between the muscles and the nerves. To pursue the analogy
which Mr. Redfield so often misuses, the effect of training on the human
machine is merely to oil the bearings and straighten out bent parts, to
make it a more efficient transformer of the energy that is supplied to
it.

The foundation stone of Mr. Redfield's hypothesis is his idea that the
animal by working stores up energy. This idea is the exact reverse of
the truth. While the facts which Mr. Redfield has gathered deserve much
study, his idea of "Dynamic Evolution" need not be taken
seriously.[198]

APPENDIX C

THE "MELTING POT"

America as the "Melting Pot" of peoples is a picture often drawn by
writers who do not trouble themselves as to the precision of their
figures of speech. It has been supposed by many that all the racial
stocks in the United States were tending toward a uniform type. There
has never been any real evidence on which to base such a view, and the
study completed in 1917 by Dr. Ales Hrdlicka, curator of the
division of physical anthropology of the U. S. National Museum, furnishes
evidence against it. He examined 400 individuals of the Old White
American stock, that is, persons all of whose ancestors had been in the
United States as far as the fourth ascending generation. He found little
or no evidence that hereditary traits had been altered. Even the
descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers, the Virginia cavaliers, the
Pennsylvania Dutch and the Huguenots, while possibly not as much unlike
as their ancestors were, are in no sense a blend.

The "Melting Pot," it must be concluded, is a figure of speech; and as
far as physical anthropology is concerned, it will not be anything more
in this country, at least for many centuries.

Announcing the results of study of the first 100 males and 100 females
of his series,[199] Dr. Hrdlicka said, "The most striking result of
the examinations is the great range of variation among Old Americans in
nearly all the important measurements. The range of variation is such
that in some of the most significant determinations it equals not only
the variation of any one group, but the combined variations of all the
groups that enter into the composition of the Americans." This fact
would be interpreted by the geneticist as an evidence of hybridity. It
is clear that, at the very beginning, a number of diverse