Private Sex Advice to Women: For Young Wives and those who Expect to be Married

by Robert B. Armitage

"It would be an advantage—although this might be more difficult to obtain—to have the date of the children's marriage, and of the birth of previous children, as well as some record of the father's standing in his occupation. But even the ages of the parents alone would teach us much when correlated with the school position of the pupil in intelligence and conduct. It is quite true that there are unavoidable fallacies. We are not, as in the case of genius, dealing with people whose life-work is complete and open to the whole world's examination.

"The good and clever child is not necessarily the forerunner of the first-class man or woman; and many capable and successful men have been careless in attendance at lectures, and rebellious to discipline. Moreover, the prejudice and limitations of the teachers have to be recognized. Yet when we are dealing with millions most of these fallacies would be smoothed out. We should be, once for all, in a position to determine authoritatively the exact bearing of one of the simplest and most vital factors of the betterment of the race. We should be in possession of a new clue to guide us in the creation of the man in the coming world. Why not begin today?"

Considerable attention on the part of the American thinking public has been directed toward the investigations and researches of Casper L. Redfield. Mr. Redfield combats the orthodox scientific position that the acquired qualities are not transmitted to offspring; and he most positively states that such characteristics are transmitted to offspring, and are really the causes which have tended toward the evolution and progress of the race. But he insists upon this vital point, namely, that the parent must already have acquired improved quality before he can transmit improvement to the offspring—and that before he can have acquired this improved quality, he must have lived sufficiently long to have experienced the causes which have developed improvement in himself. Consequently, he holds that delayed parentage produces great men.

Mr. Redfield several years ago offered a prize of two hundred dollars to anyone who could show that a single one of the great men of history was the product of a succession of young parents, or was produced by a line of ancestry represented by more than three generations to a century. But no one ever claimed the prize money. According to Mr. Redfield's doctrine, race improvement is and will be accomplished as the result of effort, physical and mental, upon the part of prospective parents, particularly if the period of effort is sustained over a considerable number of years previous to reproduction.

The following quotations from Mr. Redfield's writing will give a general idea of his lines of thought and his theories. He says:

"At some time in the past there was a common ancestor for man and the ape. At that time the mental ability of the man was the same as that of the ape, because at that time man and the ape were the same person. From that common ancestor there have been derived two main lines of descent, one leading to man and the other to the ape of today. In the line leading to man, mental ability has increased little by little so that today the mental ability of the man is far above that of the ape. While it may not be literally true for each and every generation between that common ancestor and man of the present time, still we will commit no error if we divide the total increase in mental ability by the number of intervening generations and say that each generation in turn was a little superior to that which produced it. Now it happens that mental ability is something which is inherited—is transmitted from parent to offspring. Take that fact with the fact that there has been a regular (or irregular) increase in mental ability in the generations leading to man, and it will be seen that each generation in succession transmitted to its offspring more than it inherited from its parents. But a parent cannot transmit something which he did not have. Where and how did those generations get that ability which they transmitted but did not inherit?"

Mr. Redfield in his writings shows that what is true of the human race is true of high-bred domesticated animals, namely, the cow of high milk producing breeds; the fast running and trotting horses; and the highly developed hunting dogs. To each case he applies his question: "Where and how did those generations of animals get that power which they transmitted but did not inherit?" In his investigations he claims to have discovered the secret, namely, that the ancestors, throughout several generations, had each acquired the power which it transmitted, which added to the inherited power raised the general power of the stock. This arose from careful breeding, and directly from the fact that the average age of the parent was much higher in the highly-bred stock than in the "scrub" or ordinary run of stock. In other words, delayed parentage produced better offspring.

Mr. Redfield proceeds to argue from these facts as follows: "At one time man and ape reproduced at the same average age, whereas now they reproduce at widely different ages. Going back to the time when man and ape separated, our ancestors survived by physical and mental activity in securing food and escaping from enemies. As time went on man reproduced at later and later average age until now he reproduces at about thirty years from birth of parent to birth of offspring. When time between generations stretched out in the man line more than it did in the ape line, the man acquired more mental development before he reproduced than did the ape, and he did this because he was mentally active more years before reproducing. The successive generations leading to modern man transmitted to offspring more than they inherited from their parents, and the generations which did this are the same generations which acquired, before reproducing, the identical thing which they transmitted in excess of inheriting.

"Coming now to those rare men of whom we have only a few in a century, how were they produced? It should be noted that each one had two parents, four grandparents, and eight great-grandparents. Also that they are certainly improvements over their great-grandparents. If they were not such improvements, then there would be many 'rare' cases in a century. In looking into the pedigrees of these great men it is found that they were sons of parents of nearly all ages, but were predominantly sons of elderly parents. While we sometimes find comparatively young parents in the pedigree of a great man, we never find a succession of young parents. Neither do we find an intellectually great man produced by a pedigree extending over three generations. The great man is produced only when the average for three generations is on the elderly side of what is normal. The average age of one thousand fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers in the pedigrees of eminent men was found to be over forty years. Great men rise from ordinary stock only when several generations in succession acquire mental efforts in excess amounts before reproducing."

It is the opinion of the present writer that the theories of Mr. Redfield are in the main true, and that in the future much valuable information will be obtained along the same lines, which will tend to corroborate his general conclusions. One's attention needs but to be plainly directed to the matter, and then he will see that it is absurd to think of a creature transmitting to his offspring qualities which neither he or his mate had inherited or acquired. If there were no transmission of acquired qualities there would be no improvement—and in fact, we know that the bulk of inherited qualities were at some time in the history of the race "acquired." And, reasoning along the same line, we may see that the young parents who have not had as yet an opportunity to acquire mental power cannot expect to transmit it to their offspring—all that they can do is to transmit the inherited stock qualities plus the small acquired power which they have gained in their limited experience. And, finally, it is seen that offspring produced at a riper age of parenthood, continued over several generations, tend toward unusual ability and powers. Consequently, the people or nation with a higher average age of parenthood may logically expect to attain greater mental powers than the peoples lacking that quality. And what is true of a people or nation is of course true of a particular family.