Child Is a Father of Man

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Child is the Father of Man The celebrated (renouned) English poet, William Wordsworth said, “The Child is the Father of Man.” Indeed, a seed of the oak or the banyan (an Indian fig tree) tree is tiny, but in a matter of years, it is transformed into a huge tree. Perhaps, the same is true of human beings. Modern scientists are inclined (apt, prone) to state that genes, or rather the X and Y chromosomes, are the real “Father” of Man. The genetic term includes both men and women. As we are the inheritors of patriarchal system (rule of the father), our title appears to be male-dominated. Feminists would be fully justified in writing about the child being the mother of women! However, at the conceptual level and in the world of ideas, both these superficially (apparently, seemingly) different topics amount to much the same thing. Hence, we would use the term “Man” to include members of both sexes. The basic idea is that infancy (childhood, babyhood) quinte- essentially is part of a man’s life. The characteristics and propensities of the infant get crystallised and transformed into the personality and character of the same grown-up person. The two factors that influence a child are genetic and environmental. While the process of conception is purely genetic, from a few weeks of that event the environmental factors come into play even as the fetus is still in the mother’s womb. These two factors have lasting impact on the personality of human being. These two factors have spawned two different schools of thoughts whose proponents are eminent psychologists. Dr. Jenson of Stanford University in America believes in the theory of supremacy of the white race and is convinced that genetics is the factor of paramount importance. However, Prof. Eysenck of London University believes that it is the environmental factors that influence a child and shape his future
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