One advantage will be evident, I think, to all. Erroneous systems of training, which do not injure the health, will not appear through heredity in the offspring of parents thus wrongly trained, except as a result of environment. That is to say, the injury does not become congenital—will not be in the blood—and, consequently, it will be less difficult to eradicate it and to introduce better systems. This may be considered an advantage. But it is not all. If heredity takes place only through the germ-plasm, then it seems to me that whatever promotes a knowledge of how to maintain it in a high degree of health, and how to favor more perfectly natural selection, are subjects with which our educators may busy themselves far more than they do. That is to say, the study of biology, of life—of the laws of human growth and development, and of evolution, will become, more and more, important factors in our school curriculum. We can hardly imagine how much our common every-day life has been aided by even the slight knowledge of mathematics gained by an acquaintance with addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. By it we are able to keep our little accounts correctly, and neither cheat our creditors nor be cheated by them. Could we not by a knowledge of the laws of evolution, and also the laws of growth and development, keep our larger account with nature in a far better condition? Could we not keep ourselves from being cheated out of our health and happiness, and also do something to put an end to physical, intellectual and moral deterioration which threatens so many families and even races? It seems to me that the time is not far distant when these studies will be quite as much attended to as the not unimportant ones of arithmetic and grammar.
Knowledge of Heredity.—Whatever doctrine of heredity prevails, however, one thing is certain, some knowledge of the subject will be very useful to those who have in care the training of children. To them, often more than to the parent, is entrusted the task of developing the character and the individuality of the child. Can he do this well if he knows nothing of what the bent of the child's genius from ancestral influence is? I doubt very much if any of us realize how important it is that this individuality should have its proper share of attention. As the evolution of society goes on, more and more must there be differentiation of our various activities. If every boy and every girl can be educated so that to a considerable extent they can follow the bent of their genius, whenever that bent is a normal one, will not the available intellectual and moral energy of society be considerably augmented? If you educate a boy which nature intended for a blacksmith for a preacher, has not the world lost something? Educate another for a blacksmith who should have been a preacher, is there not also a great loss? There are a few children who will come out all right, no matter how much they are schooled, or whether they have any schooling, so well have they been born, but with the majority this is not the case. Now it seems to me that the teacher who knows the natures of his pupils, and something of their ancestors', can direct their energies more satisfactorily than the one who does not. If there are hereditary defects of intellect or morals, he can more easily correct them. If there are ancestral tendencies to disease through imperfections of certain organs, for instance, the lungs or the brain, he can often put the child on such a course of physical culture or mental training as to lift it above danger, so that it may go through life a useful person instead of a feeble one or a lunatic. Even the tendency to crime might be averted.
Individuality.—If we could educate the young so as to bring out more fully their normal individualities we should be able to cultivate in them more independence of character. On this subject Prof. Mills says: "With all its imperfections, I am bound to say that the individuality of the pupils in the old log school-house was often more developed than in the city public schools of today, where for a boy to be himself frequently brings with it the ridicule of his fellows—a condition of things that has its effect afterward on the lad at college. I find that this fear of being considered odd,—out of harmony with what others may think,—one of the greatest drawbacks to the development of independent investigating students at college. The case is still worse for girls. When women begin to be really independent in thought, in feeling, in action, I shall be more hopeful of the progress of mankind. Happily, the dawn of this day is already begun."
We must not forget that there is also a spectre of heredity. It is seen under different forms. The physician is often reminded by his patients that they have inherited this or that disease from father or mother, or an ancestor farther back. Now, there are few diseases which come to us directly through inheritance. In a majority of cases they are not transmitted. Even consumption is not. If we accept the modern theory of its origin, as we must, this plague is the result of germs floating in the air being introduced into our bodies by respiration, or in food, or through contact with abraided Surfaces. Those with weakened constitutions are more liable to it than the strong, and a weakened constitution may be inherited, for in this case the germ-plasm will not be well nourished and will suffer; but those thus handicapped in the race of life will get on far better by endowing themselves with knowledge and obeying the laws of life than they can by living under the shadow of the great spectre of heredity, and casting anathemas at their ancestors for not having done more for them. No doubt most of them have done the best they could; and if life is worth living, as most of us believe, we owe them many thanks for having brought us into the world.
The Spectre of Heredity.—There is a spectre of heredity of a more serious nature. It is the spirit of the dead past, with its mighty hand on society, on institutions, on modes of life. Wendell Phillips used to tell a story, in his anti-slavery addresses, which illustrates the evil effect of this inherited spectre. It ran in this wise. In an Eastern temple, an idol, in the image of a god, stood calmly on its pedestal. It was sacrilege to touch it with human hands; but rats having no such feelings of awe in the presence of a deity, began to gnaw about it in various places, yet no one was bold enough to remove it to a place of safety; and so the rats gnawed on and on, and built their nests within the sacred image. In time they loosened it from its firm foundation, and one morning, when the worshippers came in to pay their devotions, they found their god had fallen prostrate on the floor. So it is sometimes with our inherited beliefs. They hold us back from progress like a heavy weight. We fear to remove them, for they are sacred inheritances, idols, gods, and so our institutions decay, perish.
FOOTNOTES:
[106:A] Darwin did not regard this experiment as settling this question. He had great affection, so to speak, for this poor, despised theory, and believed it would finally be established as in the main true.
