Mankind in the Making
Mankind in the Making (1903) is H.G. Wells's sequel to Anticipations (1901). Mankind in the Making analyzes the "process" of "man's making," i.e. "the great complex of circumstances which mould the vague possibilities of the average child into the reality of the citizen of the modern state."[1] Taking an aggressive tone in criticizing many aspects of contemporary institutions, Wells proposed a doctrine he called "New Republicanism," which "tests all things by their effect upon the evolution of man."[2]
Author
The volume consists of eleven "papers" that were first published in the British Fortnightly Review from September 1902 to September 1903 and in the American Cosmopolitan, and an appendix. It was reprinted by Chapman and Hall in 1906 in a cheaper edition,[3] and again in 1914, on the eve of World War I.
Synopsis[edit]
Preface[edit]
Wells proposes to "provide the first tentatives of a political doctrine that shall be equally available for application in the British Empire and the United States." He notes an "especial indebtedness to my friend, Mr. Graham Wallas."[4]
Chapter 1: The New Republic[edit]
Renouncing any claim to an "absolute truth" on the ethical, social, and political questions addressed in this volume, Wells says his views are "designed first for those who are predisposed for their reception." He proposes as a "general principle" a doctrine he dubs "New Republicanism," based on a view of life as "a tissue and succession of births." Only in the 19th century, with the idea of organic evolution, has such a view become "definite and pervading," "alter[ing] the perspective of every human affair" and enabling a criterion of judgment based on "wholesome and hopeful births." No existing political party is based on such a view. New Republicanism, then, exists "to get better births and a better result from the births we get."[5]
Chapter 2: The Problem of the Birth Supply[edit]
Because of "an absolute want of knowledge" in the domain of the "missing science of heredity," Wells rejects the notion, advanced by followers of Francis Galton like Max Nordau, that the state should try to breed human beings selectively: "we are, as a matter of fact, not a bit clear what points to breed for and what points to breed out." He argues that such supposed positive traits as beauty, health, capacity, genius (Wells does not refer to "intelligence"), as well as such supposed negative traits as criminality and alcoholism, are in fact such complex entanglements of characteristics that "ignorance and doubt bar our way." Transmission of specific diseases may be an exception. Research in this area is in urgent need of support. At the level of individual action, however, New Republicans are to "use our judgments to the utmost to do each what seems to him probably right." Laws that "foster and protect the cowardly and the mean" or "guard stupidity" should be altered.[6]
Chapter 3: Certain Wholesale Aspects of Man-Making[edit]
As for the upbringing of children, any notion of "Nature's trustworthiness" is rejected out of hand: "The very existence and nature of man is an interference with Nature and Nature's ways." A child needs (i) "exclusively to itself" the "constant loving attention" of "a mother or. . . some well-affected girl or woman" who is in good health; (ii) warmth; (iii) shelter; (iv) cleanliness; (v) bright lights; (vi) good food; (vii) intelligent and articulate caretaking; (viii) access to skilled medical care. Wells doubts whether more than a quarter of the children born in England grow up in such conditions. He cites statistics from Clifford Allbutt's System of Medicine demonstrating class differences, and infant mortality statistics suggesting "a holocaust of children" is occurring in industrial areas like Lancashire.[7]
Rejecting an approach to the problem via philanthropic homes because these encourage "inferior people" to have children and in any case "do not work," Wells argues that public policy ought to "discourage reckless parentage" but not lighten at all the burden of parental responsibility. He proposes that the state determine standards for the care of children, and when parents are unable to meet the standards they should be "charged with the cost of a suitable maintenance." This will discourage "inferior people" from reproducing. Also conducive to this end is a minimum wage set to allow for a life that is "wholesome, healthy. . . by the standards of comfort at the time." Industries incapable of sustaining such a wage are only "a disease and a parasite upon the public body." People unemployable at this minimum wage are "people of the Abyss" who will thus be "swept out of [their] rookeries and hiding-places." In this dispensation, "[t]hey would exist, but they would not multiply—and that is our supreme end."[8]
Chapter 4: The Beginning of the Mind and Language[edit]
Wells views a child at birth as "at first no more than an animal," but during the first year "a mind, a will, a personality, the beginning of all that is real and spiritual in man" "creeps in" in the course of a "process" that is "unanalyzable." What the child needs for development is "a succession of interesting things," and poor children are "least at a disadvantage" during this phase. The "almost constant presence of the mother" is ideal, and is, indeed, the reason for monogamy's "practical sanction." Simple toys that can be variously manipulated are best.[9]
"With speech humanity begins." Wells, following Froebel, emphasizes the child's need to hear clear consistent speech, and disapproves of baby talk and of nurses speaking foreign tongues. Wells notes that "only a very small minority of English or American people have more than half mastered" English, and expostulates on the unnecessary impoverishment of English speech that is maintained as a social norm. "Saving" English is necessary "if we wish to save the future of the world." Wells advocates promoting throughout the world "one accent, one idiom, and one intonation" of English. Better materials for the teaching of language need to be developed by an "English Language Society" made up of "affluent and vigorous people." Wells also makes practical pedagogical suggestions, like advocating paraphrasing to teach writing.[10]
Wells gives practical suggestions for the teaching of shapes and numbers; he is a great advocate of wooden blocks. He sketches the state of a child's imaginative world "at or about the fifth year," when "formal education. . . ought to begin."[11]
Chapter 5: The Man-Making Forces of the Modern State[edit]
A key factor in human development is the home, understood broadly as the circle of people with whom the child is in "constant, close contact." The impression of home life on the child is nearly indelible, and derives principally from
Composition[edit]
The success of Anticipations in 1901 led to a demand for a sequel, which Wells wrote while his wife was pregnant with his second child, Frank Richard, born on Oct. 31, 1903.[18]
Graham Wallas greatly influenced Mankind in the Making, especially the first few chapters.[19] Their collaboration on the book occasioned on Sept. 19, 1902, one of Wells's longest and most revealing letters.[20] Shortly after the publication of Mankind in the Making Wells and Wallas hiked for two weeks in Switzerland; their exchanges greatly influenced Wells's next venture in social thought, A Modern Utopia.[21] Later, Wallas would also help Wells with The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind (1932).
Reception[edit]
Wells considered Mankind in the Making weaker than his other books on modern socialism, Anticipations, A Modern Utopia, and New Worlds for Old: in his Experiment in Autobiography he describes the book as ‘my style at its worst and my matter at its thinnest, and quoting it makes me feel very sympathetic with those critics who, to put it mildly, restrain their admiration for me.’ It was praised, though, by Henry James, Leopold Amery, Ford Madox Ford, Ray Lankester, Morley Roberts, Violet Paget (Vernon Lee), and C.F.G. Masterman; many of them, however, found it excessively optimistic.[22] Arnold Bennett called the book sloppy in thought and turgid in expression.[23] Joseph Conrad thought it showed Wells to be "so strangely conservative at bottom."[24]
Wells was disappointed that most reviewers took the book as categorical and predictive rather than as tentative and exploratory.[25]