Homo-culture, by Martin Luther Holbrook

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EVOLUTION'S HOPEFUL PROMISE FOR A HEALTHIER RACE.

Given before the Greenacre Conference of Evolutionists.

We have most of us in the past looked upon health as a matter of inheritance, or temperance and moderation in working, in eating and drinking; or as depending on climate; or exercise, or plenty of sleep, pure water and a morning bath, or some other secret, one or more of which is pretty sure to be in the possession of most persons who have lived long enough to have had some experience with those things that do them good or harm. All these agencies have great value; but I think few of us realize that nature, through the laws of evolution, has long been working to produce a brave and strong, healthy and hardy race of men and women by other methods than those health habits which most of us value so highly.

Nature has been doing this chiefly by two methods, and it seems necessary that I should say something about them in order to present my subject as I wish to present it. The methods to which I refer are those of sexual and natural selection. It is to these two processes that we are largely [131]indebted for race improvements—more perfect bodies, more active brains, and the high degree of health which a considerable portion of the race enjoys.

Sexual Selection.—By sexual selection is meant that preference which the male or the female has for certain characteristics of the other sex. It also includes the advantages which the stronger and more capable male has over the weaker one in obtaining a choice, or, among polygamous animals, a larger number of females, thus allowing offspring to be generated by the most capable, and preventing the most incapable from procuring mates.

The first principle of sexual selection, that of preference, would imply a considerable development of the intellect, and some taste, but I do not think it has had great influence on the lower forms of life. It is difficult to study the preferences of insects, for instance; but I have studied the moth of the silkworm, and could never observe that either male or female had a choice for any particular mate. They always appear to take the first one that comes along. I think this is the conclusion come to by those entomologists who have had opportunities for studying other insects. The spider might perhaps be studied in this relation to advantage, as the female is ferocious, often eating her male suitors while they are trying to woo her. Nor do I believe that it is a very important matter [132]in many other animals. Certainly among the domestic ones—the sheep, the horse, the bull and the cow—a superior male and female will mate with inferior ones of the opposite sex, apparently without the slightest objection. I have sometimes thought I had observed in pigeons a preference, having occasionally seen a male leave his mate for a more attractive female; at least one that seemed more attractive to me.

When it comes to sexual selection through struggle, no doubt there has been great advantage, and it has produced important effects. This occurs among polygamous and also among non-polygamous animals, and the strong males are certain to secure the largest number of females and, consequently, leave the largest number of offspring. This would, no doubt, through the laws of inheritance, be beneficial in producing animals of greater vigor and more perfect health. But even in this case, the males seem to have little preference for any particular female; and so while the least vigorous ones would leave few, and many no offspring, the least vigorous females would leave nearly as many as the more vigorous ones. Still, through pure-blooded males alone, stockbreeders tell us, herds of cattle can be brought up to a high degree of perfection in three or four generations, even if the females, at the beginning of the experiment, are inferior. The first generation would [133]be half pure blood; the second three-fourths; the third, seven-eighths, and the fourth fifteen-sixteenths, or almost thoroughbred.

When it comes to man, however, the case is different. With him sexual selection is more important, and the preference shown by both sexes is very marked. Many women have strong prejudices against marrying men with certain characteristics, and nothing will induce them to such a union. So strong are the desires many of them have for mates with particular qualities, that they prefer to remain single rather than marry one not possessing these qualities. Through this preference, on the whole, the better and those most adapted mate with those most suited to them, and a considerably larger class of physically and mentally inferior ones do not mate at all, or, if they do, leave few offspring. The idiot would stand no chance of securing a mate, although, if left free, he would unite with another idiot, like an animal. Such things have happened, and the offspring were not idiots, as might have been expected; but they were not superior beings. The most deformed in body would, in most cases, unless they had mental traits of a high order to counterbalance them, rarely find mates. Thus, through this agency, some of the poorest specimens of both sexes do not produce offspring, and this raises the standard of the health and ability of the race.

[134]There are many characters which have come into existence, it is believed, through sexual selection. One is beauty in women, greater beauty of form, of hair, of eyes, of grace, fidelity, chastity, power of love, etc. These all give pleasure to the opposite sex, and have an element of usefulness in them. Whenever these characters have appeared in women they have given the possessors a better chance to find a partner with superior characters. The same is true of men. Woman being debarred from the hardest labor through maternity has found it useful, even in early times, to choose men who were strong, brave, courageous and capable of defending and caring for her, so far as was possible, and thus by sexual selection she has indirectly promoted health and vigor in man, for these qualities are inseparable from it.

But the results of sexual selection are by no means perfect. The sexes are nearly equally divided, and as polygamy is not to any great extent practiced among human beings, with the exception of those already named, most men and women can find mates if they wish, even though they may have many serious imperfections of body and mind, and from them many children will be born physically and mentally incompetent.

There is no doubt that sexual selection is coming more and more into play, however. We have abundant evidence of this in the growing sentiment [135]against the marriage of those with a tendency to any serious disease, as insanity, syphilis, etc. Only a little while ago was published an account of a suit for a breach of promise brought by a young woman in an English court against her suitor. He, having in view the value of a healthy wife, and also of children well endowed physically, asked her before the engagement if any of her near relatives had died of consumption, and she replied that none had, which he afterwards found was not true. On learning of it he refused to marry her. I am sorry to say that she won her suit. One of the questions asked in court was: "Is it possible that a lover would ask such questions of his sweetheart as would be asked of a candidate for life insurance?"

Courtship is such a delightful occupation for the young, that it seems a pity to mar it by bringing in questions of health. Yet men and women are often such deceivers, and frequently so ignorant, that some way must be devised to prevent deception if sexual selection is ever expected to have its full influence on race improvement.

Human Selection.—Under the head of human selection Galton and Wallace have made some interesting and valuable suggestions for improving the health and quality of man. Mr. Galton proposed a system of marks for family health, intellect [136]and morals, and those members of families having the highest number were to be encouraged to marry early by state endowments sufficient to enable them to make a good start in life, early marriages being favorable to large families. It was a bold suggestion, savoring too strongly of socialism or state control of marriage to suit many of us.

Professor Wallace's plan is that women shall, so far as possible, be made independent, so that they will not feel the necessity of marrying for a home. Her time might be occupied either in public duties or self-culture, or any occupation she might prefer. She should be educated to believe it degrading to marry for a home, without love and adaptation, and equally wrong to marry her inferior. This would compel men to be more manly, to leave off their bad habits and many vices, in order to obtain wives; and the idle, selfish, sickly and deformed would not easily get them. One difficulty in the way of carrying out this plan is the greater number of women in society as it exists today, owing to the larger mortality among boys. But by a better hygiene which is likely to result from the evolution of the race, this greater mortality of the masculine sex is certain in the future to be prevented, and there will then be an excess of men instead of women. This will be a real advantage, for a scarcity of women would give her a greater [137]influence in selection, and the result would be, the worst men would not be able to get wives.

Being in a minority, women would be held in higher esteem, be more sought for, and have a real choice in marriage by being able to reject unsatisfactory suitors, which is certainly not the case now to any considerable extent.

Mr. Wallace's plan would not require such early marriages as that of Mr. Galton's, and this would be a positive benefit to the physical vigor of the children, for we know that the progeny of too early marriages are more delicate, and reproduction before bodily maturity lowers the standard of health in parents as well as of their offspring. Marriage being delayed, and the culture of the mind being more attended to than is possible when it is early, would reduce the number of children in any family, and this would enable parents to bestow more care upon them. It would also prevent, to a limited extent, over-multiplication of the race, which is a real evil, for if every couple left three or four children the whole world would soon be full, and over-population would result in much disease.

Mr. Wallace's scheme has in view the prevention of marriage by the weak and worthless. He believes that if this can be done little more will be required, for the superior would be the only ones to procreate, and this would be quite sufficient in a few generations to produce a strong and healthy [138]race. He calls his plan that of "human selection," but it may be considered practically as a modification of sexual selection.

Natural Selection.—Natural selection is another process which takes place on an enormous scale and constantly among all organisms, whether animal or vegetable. Natural selection is the result of the operation of certain laws in the natural world which brings about the survival of those best fitted for their environment. It is a weeding-out system by the destruction of a certain portion, at least, if not all, of the weak and the bad, and it occurs because there is such a rapid increase of most organisms. We speak of it as the survival of the fittest, but it is also, at the same time, the destruction of the unfit.

Mr. Darwin says: "We have seen that man is variable in body and mind, and that the variations are induced either directly or indirectly by the same general causes, and obey the same general laws as with the lower animals. Man has spread widely over the face of the earth, and must have been exposed during his incessant migrations to the most diversified conditions. They must have passed through many climates and changed their habits many times before they reached their present homes. They must have been exposed to a struggle for existence and, consequently, to the [139]rigid law of natural selection. Beneficial variations of all kinds have been preserved and injurious ones eliminated. If, then, the progenitors of man, inhabiting any district, especially one undergoing some changed conditions, were divided into two equal bodies, the one-half including those with the best adapted powers for movement, for gaining a subsistence, for self-defence, would, on the average, have more offspring than the other and the less well endowed half."

We may have a good object lesson in the elimination of the unfit going on about us constantly. In New York City, for 1891, the deaths of children under five years of age was 18,112; for 1892 it was 17,577, or slightly less. This is more than one-third, but not quite one-half, of the total deaths at all ages for these years. A very large proportion of these deaths occurred in the tenement house districts, and a very natural question arises in the mind: Are the children of those who live in tenement houses more unfit to survive than those who live in houses in which only one family dwells. No doubt in most cases the children of those are most fit who are most able to provide them with hygienic surroundings, the better food and most suitable care; such are usually the prudent and the capable. The love of children is usually stronger in them. The intelligent affection of parents for their young is one of the incentives to their best [140]training. It certainly is not nearly so strong among the residents of the crowded quarters of a city as among the more prosperous. Any one may observe this by going with a company of mothers on the excursions of some fresh air society, which may be seen in most cities. It is hard to find one of these mothers who shows what we may call intelligent affection or intelligent care of her young. Some pathetic instances illustrating this might be mentioned.

When it comes to the question of their physical or mental inferiority, a cursory inspection is all that is required to show they are far below the average. There is a great want of symmetry of body and mind—evidence of degeneration. In order to test the strength of constitution, which is a good way to get at one form of physical fitness for survival, it seems to me, I made a study of the blood of a considerable number of these children and found the amount of protoplasm in the colorless blood corpuscles deficient. This shows that their power to resist disease is slight. It must be borne in mind, however, that a strong constitution alone is not evidence of fitness for survival. A strong person may not have prudence, foresight, keenness of perception, judgment, and many other qualities equally important. The characters just mentioned may constitute fitness when there is only a moderately vigorous body. Mr. Darwin [141]recognized this when he said: "We should bear in mind that an animal possessing great size, strength and ferocity, and which, like the gorilla, could defend itself from all enemies would not, perhaps, have become sufficiently social, and this would effectually have checked the acquirement of the higher mental qualities, such as the sympathy and love of his fellows. Hence, it might have been of immense advantage to men to have sprung from some comparatively weak but social creature."

Fitness is a complicated condition and not a simple one. It depends upon so many external conditions. Fitness in one place would be unfitness in another. Still, other things being equal, strength of constitution is a very important factor, and must not be left out of consideration. With it there is a surplus of material in the body beyond what is required for digestion, assimilation, circulation and other bodily functions, to enable the parents not only to do hard labor, but also to endow their offspring with vigor equal to their own, often greater vigor. The feeble individuals will have a small amount of stored up material in their bodies which we may designate as physiological capital to give continuous food, warmth and protection to their young; they will not be so well adjusted to their environment, and, consequently, natural selection will cause their non-survival—or their offspring, if not immediately, at no distant period.

[142]This doctrine of natural selection has been designated as cruel, harsh, inexorable, and under the influence of the human feeling every effort is in our time being made to prevent this wholesome check upon the processes of nature from having its due influence upon evolution and race progress. Modern hygiene undertakes to put an end to disease, to save all who are born, to surround them with every influence which can favor their health and development. It would stamp out diphtheria, scarlet fever, summer complaint, consumption and a host of other diseases which now decimate the ranks of the unfit, and often, no doubt, of the comparatively fit. This would perpetuate a type of feeble, unhealthy persons. There would not be much hope of more perfect health for the race if our hygienists could carry out this daring scheme along the lines now working. There seems an antagonism between nature's methods of bettering the physical condition of the race and the efforts of man himself, acting under the guidance of his moral feelings, to prevent the action of natural law. Mr. Darwin recognized this, and referred to it in his great work, "The Descent of Man," where he says: "With savages, the weak in body and mind are soon eliminated, and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build [143]asylums for the imbeciles, the maimed and the sick; we institute poor laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment."

"There is," says he, "reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands who from a weak constitution would have succumbed to smallpox. Thus the weak members of civilized communities propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt but this must be highly injurious to the human race. Excepting in the case of man himself hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed."

Other evolutionists, in more recent times, have taken a still more somber view of this danger of race deterioration through the prevention of the full action of the law of natural selection.

Dr. John Berry Haycraft, in a recent work entitled "Darwinism and Race Progress," has sounded the alarm in no uncertain tones. He says: "Races, therefore, subject to epidemics of a particular fever, suffer selections in the hands of the microbes of that fever, and those living are survivals, cast in the most resisting mould. It may not be flattering to our national vanity to look upon ourselves as the product of the selection of the micro-organism of measles, scarlet fever, smallpox, etc.; but the reasonableness of the conclusion seems [144]to be forced upon us when we consider his immunity from these diseases as compared with the natives of the interior of Africa, or the wilds of America, whose races have never been so selected, and who, when attacked for the first time by these diseases, are ravaged almost to extinction. By exterminating these diseases we shall no doubt preserve countless lives to the community who will, in their turn, become race producers; but in as much as the individuals thus preserved will, in most cases, belong to the feebler and less resisting of the community, the race will not become more robust."

The same author concludes in these words: "In the meantime we may view, and not without inquietude, the probability that our statistics, as far as they go, indicate that race deterioration has already begun as a consequence of that care for the individual which has characterized the efforts of modern society. The biologist, from quite another group of facts, has independently arrived at conclusions which render this view in the highest degree probable."

"Thus, the great English race, once so hardy, so powerful," says this modern writer, "by hygiene and better physical conditions, is becoming weaker and weaker."

This view of the case is growing largely in England and, perhaps, other European countries. [145]There is already some evidence of its truthfulness in statistics. The death rate for those in middle life is rather increasing than diminishing. This arises from the fact that the great number of children who formerly died in infancy have lived, but being of more feeble constitutions, they swell the death rate later on. It is felt, also, in many educational institutions in the larger number of youths who cannot stand the strain and stress of student life. They are, high medical authority says, the youth saved from early death by modern hygienic and medical care. Formerly, natural selection would have chosen them as unfit to survive, and there would have remained alive few besides the hardy ones with good constitutions, capable of great strain, with great powers of endurance.

It is also shown in the stress of modern competition, in which there are multitudes who cannot stand this strain. It is from these, in some degree, that we hear the cry for governmental aid. "We must make the conditions of life easier for them," say our social reformers, "or they will become 'a submerged class.'"

Conflict between Evolutionary Theories and our Humane Sentiments.—And now I wish to consider another phase of my subject. Those who have followed closely what was said concerning natural selection will have seen that there appears [146]to be a conflict between evolutionary theories and the humane sentiment of the age—a want of correspondence between what is being done by natural law and what man is trying to do under the inspiration of his loving heart. Can we reconcile this want of correspondence? To some extent no doubt we can.

In the first place, the growth of the moral nature has always been held in high esteem by every nation and every race. Our moral giants stand higher in the scale of being than our great generals or statesmen, even in an age when moral culture is at a low ebb. We draw our moral inspiration from Buddha, Socrates and Christ rather than from Aristotle; their science may be, yes, is, faulty, but their spirit is lofty.

And the moral nature is cultivated in laboring for the good of others, in trying to save for a better life the poor, the weak, the distressed. All that is required is that we do this work wisely, not unwisely, under the guidance of reason, not feelings. We want to prevent these calamities rather than cure them.

Another satisfaction arises from the fact that in learning how to perfect the lives of the feeble so that they may live longer, we also learn how to perfect, in a still higher degree, the lives of the strong, or those we call the fit, so that they also will not only live longer, but be able to live with [147]much greater satisfaction the complex lives of our times.

The knowledge which helps the first may help the second even more than the first, for they have better opportunities and can take advantage of it. We may also comfort ourselves with the fact that a majority of those with feeble constitutions, whose lives have been for a time snatched from the operation of the laws of natural selection, will not, after all, contribute very extensively to the increase of the population. Great powers of generation and numerous offspring rarely go with physical weakness. If there are exceptions they are explainable. It is, I think, pretty certain that a great majority of such leave few, often no offspring. They find their way into places where work is light and the pay small, and they cannot afford to marry and care for families, and do not do it.

The law of natural selection will continue to work on them so long as its action is required, with little regard to the efforts of man to abrogate it. Nature works continuously for ages, and she works on every part of man, every organ, every function. We may almost say she is omnipotent; that she watches for every slight improvement; that she knows what to do under every circumstance. Foiled in one direction, she has other means, infinite means, for gaining her ends. [148]Man can no more put a stop to the operation of natural law than he can put a stop to the flow of Niagara. He may turn off a trifle of its water to whirl wheels and spindles, but the mighty river flows on until nature makes some changes in the watersheds, that make its flow impossible. Man, on the other hand, acts on his own body in a finite way. He works mainly for immediate, not remote, ends. He changes his methods as his needs change, or his knowledge increases. Today he works with limited knowledge of hygiene, inspired by old ideas of philanthropy. Tomorrow he may have a vastly extended knowledge of this subject and an entirely new social science which will enable him to do more good and less harm.

Ideal of Health.—Let me now consider some of the things necessary to give us a greater hope for the future of human health, of ourselves and for our children.

The first thing necessary is to get a higher ideal of bodily or physical perfection than we have today. Sir James Paget, in a lecture on National Health, in 1884, put this in the following words:

"We want," says he, "more ambition for health. I should like to see a personal ambition for health as keen as that for bravery, for beauty, or for success in our athletic games or field sports. I wish there was such an ambition for the most perfect [149]national health as there is for national renown in war, in art or in commerce." Sir James then gives his own ideal. It is for man or woman to be so full of health as to be comparatively indifferent to the external conditions of life, and to make a ready self-adjustment to all its changes. He should not be deemed thoroughly healthy who is made better or worse, more fit or less fit, by every change of weather or food, or who is bound to observe exact rules of living. It is good to observe rules, and to some they are absolutely necessary; but it is better to need none but those of moderation, and, observing these, to be willing to live and work hard in the widest variations of food, air, climate, bathing and all other sustenances of life.

Adaptation to Environment.—This sounds very much like saying that to be healthy one must be adjusted to his environment; and this is practically what Herbert Spencer long before said in his "Principles of Biology." Here are his words:

"As affording the simplest and most conclusive proof that the degree of life varies as the degree of correspondence, it remains to point out that perfect correspondence would be perfect life. Were there no changes in our environment but such as the organism had adapted changes to meet, and were it never to fail in the efficiency with which it met them, there would be eternal existence and [150]universal knowledge. Death by natural decay occurs because in old age the relations between assimilation, oxidation, and the genesis of force going on in the body gradually fall out of correspondence with the relations between oxygen and the food and absorption of heat by the environment. Death from disease arises either when the organism is congenitally defective in its power to balance ordinary internal actions, or when there has taken place some unusual external action to which there was no answering internal action. Death by accident implies some neighboring mechanical changes of which the causes are either unobserved from inattention, or are so intricate their results cannot be foreseen, and, consequently, certain relations in the organism are not adjusted to the relations in the environment. Manifestly, if, to every outer co-existence and sequence by which it was ever in any degree affected, the organism presented an answering process or act, the simultaneous changes would be indefinitely numerous and complex, and the successive ones endless, the correspondence would be the greatest conceivable and the life the highest conceivable, both in degree and length."

Knowledge.—Another requirement to promote human health is a better knowledge of how the constitution of the body may be strengthened, and more certitude as to whether such improvements as [151]it may receive by hygienic training will be transmitted to offspring. That human health may be improved by right training of the body, a better supply of fresh air, greater moderation in living, there is not a shadow of doubt; but is the constitution itself thus strengthened, or only its original vigor conserved and made effective? I have been working on the problem for some time by a series of studies on the blood, and especially the amount of living matter in the colorless corpuscles, and have satisfied myself, from some observations on individual cases, that the original constitution of feeble persons can be strengthened in early life, but the extent of this strengthening seems somewhat limited. Much original research is still required to get at important facts in this direction. If some of the study now given to micro-organisms could be devoted to this subject it would be most useful. The work might be done in connection with our numerous schools of physical culture, now happily multiplying, and also in our physiological laboratories.

That any gain to the vigor of the constitution can be transmitted to the offspring is very probable. While education and training do not seem to affect the germ cells in any marked degree, nutrition does affect them. Whether acquired characters in the form of skill, music, language or other like things are transmitted or not may still be an open question.

[152]Strengthening the constitution seems to be best accomplished by increasing the resources of the body beyond its outgo, so that there shall be some gain; and this brings up a very important subject, that of the importance of living within the bodily income.

In our fast age we are likely to use up the physiological resources in excessive work or dissipation, and so rob our children of their just inheritance.

Effects of Living at High Pressure.—One generation may, by living at high pressure and under specially unfavorable conditions, use up more than its share of the living matter of its bodies and draw a bill on posterity which the next generation cannot pay. Many of us now have the benefit of the calm, unexciting lives of our forefathers. They stored up physiological wealth for us; we are using it. The question is, Can we, working at high pressure, keep this up during our lives (which, in that case, will be on an average rather short), and transmit to the coming generation a large supply of living matter for their needs?

How often has it happened in the history of the world that people who for generations have exhibited no special genius, have blazed out in bursts of national greatness for a time, and then almost died out! We ought to take care that this does not happen to us. How often we see a quiet country [153]family, whose members have for generations led calm, temperate lives, suddenly produce one or two great men and then relapse into obscurity. They had by their quiet, inexpensive living stored up energy for this purpose. On the other hand, how often have we seen the reverse—families whose energies have been used up in overwork or sensuality producing offspring below themselves in ability. The true rule, however, is neither to waste the bodily energy nor to keep too much of it lying idle and producing nothing.

Girls in Manufacturing Districts.—We need also a new departure in our manufacturing centers. Manufacturing as now conducted is a far less healthy occupation than agriculture and horticulture. The reason for this is that workmen and workwomen and even children in most mills and factories are exposed for hours at a time to an atmosphere which is loaded with dust and the debris of cotton, of wool, and often to that worst of all dust which comes from shoddy and rags. They are also, in many cases, kept away from light, and in cramped positions, and this, continued for years, slowly deteriorates the constitution; and if, in case of a war, we were obliged to enlist a large army, we should find a far less number of able bodied men among the factory workers than among the farmers. Let me give you a picture, perhaps one [154]of the very worst to be seen anywhere, of a visit to a New England paper mill.

"We left, with a company of ladies and gentlemen, the light of a mellow afternoon to climb some steep and dusty stairs under the courteous guidance of a superintendent. We had hoped to 'see it all,' 'but that was quite impossible,' said our guide, 'since the room where the rags are sorted is so dusty that the gowns of the ladies would be ruined.' So we contented ourselves with less dangerous rooms. But even about the stairway the dust cloud hung heavily, obscuring the sight and choking the breath. From the narrow landing the room, into which it was impossible to venture, was in full view. It was long and large. From end to end were ranged huge boxes, waist high. Fastened to each were two inverted swords on whose sharp blades the workers cut the piled-up masses of rags, shredding them for the bleaching boiler. All the floor was covered with rags, billows upon billows of soiled white pieces, in which the toilers stood, their feet buried deep beneath the dirty, tattered material.

"Not a word was spoken. Even where we stood speech was difficult, so completely did the thick dust fill eyes, mouth and nostrils, choking, blinding and exasperating. The effect of this perfect silence was oppressive. A certain solemnity hung over the place. Through the fog of dust the figures [155]loomed unnaturally large. All the workers were white and hollow-cheeked, with great sunken eyes, emphasized by the circles underneath. Each woman had bound upon her head some rag, larger or finer than the rest, to protect her hair, and the gray-white bands folded straight across the forehead showed weirdly in the dim half-light.

"As they stood there in long, silent rows, cutting, cutting, CUTTING, they looked like the priestesses of some ancient and frightful ceremonial. We were glad to escape, to exchange the dust, the grime, the wan faces, and the burning eyes for the breath of cool wind, the full glow of the sunlight, and the face of nature herself, so many of whose human children have no time to know or learn her ways.

"It gave a tragic significance to the memory of those silent workers to know that they have but a few years to live."

The same unfortunate condition of things is complained of in Manchester, England, one of the greatest manufacturing centers in the world. "The heated air of the mills, the dust, lack of light, the employment of children," says the London Lancet, "are causing vast deterioration and a most disastrous effect on the morals of the people. Football is popular, but all the players are imported from Scotland. The natives simply look on and shout. If they want men for policemen or constables, they go to Scotland or Ireland for them. The women and [156]girls are equally stunted and feeble." In the manufacturing towns the prospect for a strong, healthy race from such material is poor indeed.

Co-operation: an Example.—It is difficult to see the remedy for this state of things. Probably the evolution of a higher standard of ethics, a higher sense of justice, and a more thorough belief that health is a duty, may do something. Meantime it is important that the working man should do all he can for himself; and perhaps I can do no better than to give here a picture of what some of them have done under the inspiration of co-operation, not only for their health but for their pockets.

It is a picture of a great manufacturing establishment of the Scottish Co-operative Wholesale Society, at Shieldhall, near Glasgow, on the Clyde. This society is a federation of all the retail societies of Scotland, 238 in number, with a membership of over 150,000 persons. The society began on a moderate scale many years ago, but its development has been marvelous. In 1887 it started out on a career which has since continued, owing to the indomitable energy of one of its members, himself a working man. The buildings stand in a very healthy locality, the health of the working force being considered of the first importance. They seem to have learned that sickness is loss—loss of time, of productive energy—and that it is a costly matter. As Mr. Beecher once [157]said, "it is the one burden that bends, almost breaks, the back of society."

These Scotchmen are realizing, just as far as is possible, the condition of a sound mind in a sound body. They recognize the rights of the laborer to health, and place him in a position while working, so that his body may not deteriorate any more than is natural for it to do as age advances. The living machine must not be harmed more than the dead machinery. The land consists of 12 acres, and cost $2,500 an acre; nearly all of it is covered with fine buildings, in which 19 different industries are carried on, many of them on a large scale. Every one of these buildings is constructed after modern methods, with every requirement, not only for convenience but for health. The workrooms are cosy and spacious, well ventilated, warmed in cold weather by steam, and lighted by electricity. The best sanitary arrangements known have been introduced, and the excellent health of the workmen and workwomen, of whom there are over 1,000 of each, tells the story of sanitation.

Two large dining-rooms, one for men and one for women, are provided; also two large reading-rooms with all necessary papers, periodicals, books and means of amusement. Its only lack is a gymnasium and a field for athletic sports, but these may in time be added. Food of the best quality is supplied for all who desire it at cost. A dish of oatmeal [158]and milk costs three cents; a large scone with tea or coffee, the same; Scotch broth or soup, two cents; stewed meat and potatoes, eight cents; roast beef or mutton, with potatoes, ten cents; a good and sufficient meal need not cost over twelve cents. Standard wages are paid, and two and one-half hours less time demanded than in private shops.

Men work fifty-three hours weekly, women forty-four. Most of the latter work in the shirt factory, but they do not need to sing Hood's Song of the Shirt. Sweating is unknown; every worker, from the youngest to the oldest, receives his or her share of the profits, which amount to about $15,000 yearly.

Here we have an almost ideal manufacturing establishment, and if all were such we should have higher hopes for human health in the immediate future for our workers in factories. It was the outgrowth, the effort of the Scotch, a highly intellectual race, to adjust itself to its environment. Necessity and competition acting on them forced them to new and better adjustments. Such a result could hardly have been achieved by a less hard-headed and practical people, a race on which evolution has for ages produced some of its best effects.

Hygiene.—But I fancy you ask me, Is there any hope that in the future evolution, and with it adjustment to environment, will carry man so far that an ideal state of health will be the lot of all? [159]This is what hygiene promises. Is it a vain hope? If we look at what older sciences have done for man we find much to encourage us. In astronomy, by the aid of mathematics, we can calculate with certitude the date of future eclipses. In many other sciences we can make accurate predictions and accomplish results of the greatest importance. Indeed, science has become almost our only authority. Imperfect as it yet is, we trust it, perhaps, too implicitly. The science of hygiene is the youngest of all the sciences. Not that the Greeks, the Hebrews, the Hindoos and Chinese did not have some practical knowledge on the subject, but it was rude and empirical. With the discoveries of micro-organisms as the cause of a series of the worst diseases, we have begun to place hygiene alongside mathematics and chemistry.

We now know the origin of many diseases which formerly were enveloped in mystery. Can we remove them? That is the next task. Hygiene will in the future busy itself with this great question. It has, it is believed, already made many cities proof, or almost proof, against cholera and yellow fever. It will try to make them proof against other contagious diseases also, and it will without doubt succeed. But its work will not then have been accomplished. We may avoid the causes of disease and still be puny creatures. Our great task will be the building up of bodies equal to the needs [160]of our environment. This we have, in a small way, already begun to do—imitating the ancient Greeks—in our schools of physical culture, where the body can be trained up to its best, and also in our laboratories for psychological research, in which the relation of mind and body are being carefully investigated, where every subject connected with every function is being studied, even weariness, anger, hope, despair, drink, food, sleep, the weather, and their effects on function. The results of such knowledge will prove beyond a doubt that the health of the body, as well as of the mind, is of the highest importance for success in life, for happiness and usefulness, and that we can do much to secure both.

My own personal hope for the future of human health lies in the evolution and spread of this gospel of hygiene.

Hygiene interests itself in all that relates to human well-being. It may be defined as the ethics of the body—the science of true living. It promises health to all who obey its laws. It makes no such promise to those who disregard them. In the future, no doubt, a higher average of health will be the result of our ever-increasing knowledge; and whenever we are able and willing to apply this knowledge to our own bodily and mental conduct we shall be amply rewarded. This much we can safely promise, but no more. On the contrary, the [161]violators of hygienic laws will, with their offspring, suffer in the future as in the past, and that suffering will be in the form of pain, disease, degeneration, premature death.

This may seem hard to many who are sensitive to the pains and sorrows of the world, and some have gone so far as to attribute to the author of nature, the unknown cause of all things, a character anything but good. But this is a very erroneous way of looking at the subject. To discuss it fully we should have to consider the question of the mystery of evil, which cannot be done here. Suffice it to say, the creation, the evolution of the race, is by law. Causes produce their legitimate results. If it were not so, our sufferings might be far greater, and no progress would result. Let us be thankful that nature is as it is, and let us do our best to put our lives in harmony with it. By so doing, we may in the end attain all that we strive for.

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THE GERM PLASM; ITS RELATION TO OFFSPRING.

The germ plasm is a most interesting and remarkable substance. It must be interesting, for everything which relates to life and reproduction is interesting. It must be remarkable, for out of it, under proper conditions, remarkable results are produced. Although our knowledge of its nature is very imperfect, yet let us not on this account refuse to try to understand what little is known.

In the first place, the germ plasm of animals which reproduce sexually is composed of two germ plasms—that of the male, and that of the female. That of the male is called the spermatozoon (pronounced sper´ma-to-zoön). It is sometimes called spermatozoid; the plural is spermatozoa. It is exceedingly small, the smallest of any cell in the body, and has the power to move from place to place. These cells are produced in enormous numbers, and so far as they have been observed under the microscope they differ considerably in power of movement and in perfection of development. Considering their small size, they must make a [163]very long journey to find the ovum; and if they were only few in number, they would rarely succeed; but existing in large numbers, for there are millions of them produced in each sexual act of the male, some of them are pretty sure to do so, and, probably in most cases, it would be those most vigorous and capable of making the journey most direct and in the least time.

That of the female is called the ovum, or egg; plural, ova. Only a small number are produced, when compared with the number of the male spermatozoa, but there are quite enough for the ends they are to serve. They have not the same power of movement, though they do move somewhat as the amæba does. They are also very much larger than the male cells.

The eggs of all mammals look alike as they come from the ovaries, but take on some changes afterward. Hæckel says: "Every primitive egg being an entirely simple, somewhat round, moving, naked cell, possesses no membrane, and consists only of a nucleus and protoplasm. These two parts have long borne distinctive names: the protoplasm being called the vitellus, or yelk, and the nucleus the germinal vesicle (vesicula germinativa)." The same author also says: "The human egg cannot be distinguished from that of most other mammals, either in its immature or in its more complete condition. Its form, its size, its composition, are [164]approximately the same in all. In its fully developed condition it has an average diameter of one-tenth of a line—about the one hundred and twentieth part of an inch. If the mammalian egg is properly isolated, and held on a plate of glass towards the light, it appears to the eye as a very fine point. The normal eggs of most of the higher mammals are of almost exactly the same size. They have the same spherical form; always the same characteristic covering; always the same clear, round germinal vesicle with its dark germinal spot. Even under the highest power of our best microscopes there appears to be no essential difference between the eggs of a human being and that of the ape, the dog, the cat or other animal." This similarity is one of appearance only. There is a difference, and of this I shall speak later. It may be asked if the egg of a bird is the same as the egg of a mammal. The mature bird's egg, as it is laid in the nest, differs materially from that of any mammal; but in its miniature form, as found in the hen's ovary, it is also the same. The egg of a bird after it leaves the ovary, and as it passes along the oviduct, takes on secretions in its passage which it converts into yelk, and afterwards a shell is added to give it protection in the external world, where it must undergo incubation before it can become a bird; but before it takes on its shell it has been fertilized, and this [165]also causes other changes. Hæckel says: "After the ripe egg of the bird has left the ovary, and has been fertilized in the oviduct, it surrounds itself with various coverings which are secreted from the inner surface of the oviduct. The thick layer of transparent albumen first forms round the yellow yelk; this is followed by the formation of the outer calcareous shell, within which is another envelope, or skin. All these coverings and additions which are gradually formed round the egg are of no importance to the development of the embryo; they are parts which have nothing to do with the simple egg cell. Even in the case of other animals we often find large eggs with thick coverings. For example, the shark's; but even in this case the egg is originally exactly similar to those of mammals when in its primitive condition as it comes from the ovary. In the case of the bird these additions serve only as food for the growing embryo, which, in the case of mammals, is furnished by a stream of the mother's blood, making 'stored-up' nutriment unnecessary."

Before, however, we can have true germ plasm the mother cell must be fertilized by the male cell. This is true of all the higher plants and animals. There are some low plants and animals in which fertilization by the male cell is not required. This has been called virginal generation. In no mammal is this possible.

[166]How fertilization takes place and what it signifies are both important questions which have not been entirely settled, and it almost seems as if they could not be settled in some of their details, except in the lower forms of life. Nature has so protected the process from observation in the higher animals that it cannot be studied in detail; but in plants and the lowest animals it has been observed with some success, and we may infer that the process is very much the same in the higher animals.

Hæckel, in his great work on the Evolution of Man, tells us that "The process of fertilization in sexual generation depends essentially on the fact that two dissimilar cells meet and blend. In former times the strangest views prevailed with regard to this act. Men have always been disposed to regard it as thoroughly mystical, and the most widely different hypotheses have been framed to account for it. It is only within a few years that closer study has shown that the whole process of fertilization is extremely simple, and entirely without special mystery. Essentially, it consists merely in the fact that the male sperm-cell coalesces with the female egg-cell. Owing to its sinuous movements, the very mobile sperm-cell finds its way to the female egg-cell, penetrates the membrane of the latter by a perforating motion, and coalesces with its cell material.

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"A poet might find in this circumstance a capital opportunity for painting in glowing colors the wonderful mystery of fertilization; he might describe the struggles of the 'seed animalcules' eagerly dancing round the egg-cell shut up in its many coverings, disputing the passage through the minute pore-canals of the chorion, and then of purpose burying themselves in the protoplasm of the yelk mass, where, in a spirit of self-sacrifice, they completely efface themselves in the better 'ego.' But the critical naturalist very prosaically conceives this poetical incident, this 'crown of love,' as the mere coalescence of two cells! The result of this is, that in the first place the egg-cell is rendered capable of further evolution, and, secondly, that the hereditary qualities of both parents can be transmitted to the child."

By coalescence is understood, growing together, not mingling as water and milk might when mixed. More recent observations indicate that during coalescence both the male and female cells throw off some portions of their substance. It is also considered that the important part of each cell is its nucleus. In it all hereditary characteristics are stored up. If the nucleus be absent in either cell these cells cannot reproduce. In unicellular, or one-celled, organisms, it has been found in multiplication by division, a part of the nucleus must go with each half, otherwise the half without a [168]part of it does not grow. In experiments in laboratories, artificial division of simple organisms may be made, and each fragment will become a perfect creature if only a very small piece of the nucleus goes with the separated portion; but if a part is cut off without any of the nucleus, then, while it may live on for a short time, it can not grow or propagate.

Possibly we have here an explanation of some hereditary phenomena in human beings. If there is an unequal division, and more of the male than of the female nucleus, the child might, as a result, inherit more of the father's than of the mother's characteristics, or the reverse.

What has been so far said about the germ plasm has been to enable the reader to possess a degree of intelligence on the nature of fertilization, so far as it is known; but from a practical standpoint the most important knowledge for those prospective parents who wish to practice intelligent stirpiculture is to understand that the health of the germ plasm or fertilized ovum depends on the health of the parents. By health, I mean the possession of a good constitution, to which will be added a strong hold on life, power to do and to endure, and quickly to recover from weariness. Disease will be easily warded off in such persons, so that there will be generally good health. Such a condition of body is usually inherited. It depends on [169]the possession of a large supply in the body of living matter—firm muscles, a good heart, lungs and digestive organs. Those who are feeble cannot endure much; whose heart, lungs and digestive organs are weak; whose hold on life is slight, can rarely endow their offspring with these high qualities. Their children may live if no great strain comes upon them; but if they must take an active part in the struggle and competition going on in the world they cannot endure it. Mr. Spencer puts the case very aptly in his work on Ethics where he says: "It results that where maternal vigor is great, and the surplus vitality consequently large, a long series of children may be borne before any deterioration in their quality becomes marked; while, on the other hand, a mother with but a small surplus may soon cease altogether to reproduce. Further, it results that variations in the state of health of parents which involves variations in the surplus vitality have their effects on the constitutions of offspring to the extent that offspring borne during greatly deranged maternal health are decidedly feebler. And then, lastly and chiefly, it results that after the constitutional vigor has culminated, and there has commenced that gradual decline which in some twenty years or so brings absolute infertility, there goes on a gradual decrease in that surplus vitality on which the production of offspring depends, and a consequent [170]deterioration in the quality of such offspring. This which is a priori conclusion is verified a posteriori.

"Mr. J. Mathews Duncan, in his work on Fecundity, Fertility, Sterility and allied topics, has given results of statistics which show that mothers of twenty-five bear the finest infants, and that from mothers whose ages at marriage range from twenty to twenty-five years there come infants which have a lower rate of mortality than those resulting from marriages consummated when the mothers' ages are smaller or greater. The apparent slight incongruity between these two statements being due to the fact that whereas marriages commenced before twenty and twenty-five cover the whole of the period of highest vigor, marriages commenced at five and twenty cover a period which lacks the years during which vigor is rising to its climax and includes only the years of decline from the climax."

This quotation from Mr. Spencer needs a qualifying remark. Mr. Galton, in his work on Hereditary Genius, found that the average age of mothers of men of the greatest ability was about thirty, and of their fathers thirty-five. In such cases, the physical and intellectual strength must have been above the average, and, consequently, it continued to a more advanced age. Besides, those of great ability mature later.

[171]It may also be added that Duncan's statistics, quoted by Spencer, are average statistics gathered from tables of mortality, and include every class of persons. Now, average statistics do not apply to individual cases, and they would not apply to those highly endowed physically and intellectually.

Further, those who are well endowed at birth and whose lives are in accordance with hygienic law, that is, those who do not squander their physiological resources by sensuality, by intemperance, or by excesses of any sort retain their health to a greater age than those whose lives are the reverse. Such are of a youthful physiological age, which is not altogether determined by the actual number of years they have lived, but by very high physiological conditions.

From all this we conclude that a very important rule in the production of offspring, if we would have those offspring superior, is to maintain a high degree of health—a condition in which there is a surplus of physiological capital to produce children with endowments equal to, if not superior to, their parents.

Another subject requires treatment here. It is the effect of alcohol on offspring. We are yet lacking in statistics giving the facts we need to know on this subject; but the general observation of competent persons who have had good opportunities to study it may teach us something. Alcohol, [172]in its circulation in the blood, penetrates every part; not even the germ plasm escapes. Demme studied ten families of drinkers and ten families of temperate persons. The direct posterity of the ten families of drinkers included fifty-seven children. Of these, twenty-five died in the first weeks and months of their lives; six were idiots; in five a striking backwardness of their longitudinal growth was observed; five were affected with epilepsy, and five with inborn diseases. Thus, of the fifty-seven children of drinkers only ten, or 17.5 per cent., had normal constitutions and healthful growth. The ten sober families had sixty-one children, five only dying in the first weeks; four were affected with curable diseases of the nervous system; two only had inborn defects. The remaining fifty, 81.9 per cent., were normal in their constitutions and development.

In this statement we have a graphic object lesson of the evil effects of alcohol on the germ plasm. Natural selection had far more to do in removing those unfit to survive in the intemperate than in the temperate families.

A knowledge of the evil effects of alcohol on the unborn child was known to the ancients. The mother of Sampson was warned "not to drink any wine or strong drink nor to eat any unclean thing" because she was to conceive and bear a son who was to deliver Israel out of the hands of the Philistines. [173]Manoah was so interested in what the angel of the Lord had said to his wife that he sought an interview with him for further confirmation, and asked: "How shall we order the child, and how shall we do unto him?" evidently meaning, "How shall we train and educate him?" and the same advice was given as before. Whatever view the reader may hold as to the inspiration or non-inspiration of the Bible, certainly this advice was good. Other examples similar to it are to be found, not only in the same book, but in numerous historical works, and also abundant evidence in our own time of the evil effects of alcoholic drinks on unborn children giving them a tendency to insanity, idiocy and other nervous diseases. A whole book might be written on this branch of our subject.

To what extent food affects the germ plasm we remain somewhat in ignorance. We know that it is from it that the body is nourished, and from it also the stored up or surplus matter in our systems is obtained. The larger the surplus the more highly will the offspring be endowed with energy is a fact clearly set forth by Mr. Spencer. A surplus of fatty food stored up in the body, however, cannot be of much service and may prove injurious. A deficiency of nitrogenous food would also, it seems to me, be an evil. The germ plasm, or its most important part, is a highly nitrogenous substance, like all protoplasm, or living matter. The [174]highest form of germ plasm, that with a most complex molecular structure, would hardly be formed if there was a deficiency of nitrogenous matter in the blood.

Air is also food the same as bread is. The activities, the chemical changes in the body, are mainly, though not entirely, between the oxygen of the air and the carbon and hydrogen of our food. The body is quite as much injured by a deficiency of air inhaled into the lungs by exercise as by a deficiency of food, though the injury may be of a different nature. Physicians and others have long ago observed that the offspring of parents living much in the open air and sunlight are healthier and stronger than those of parents living in confined spaces, where air and light are deficient. Air which is impure, which is loaded with poisonous matter, if inhaled for a long time by the mother, lowers the standard of her health. In malarious regions, the vigor of the offspring is less, and the number who die in infancy greater, than in regions where the air and water are pure. Many years ago I remember reading in one of the journals devoted to sanitary science published in London, an account of a rural town where both air and water were of extraordinary purity, and in this town a very large percentage of the children born lived to grow to maturity. There is also an isolated region in France, bordering on the sea, [175]where both air, water and climate are unusually salubrious, and though intermarriage has been practiced for a long time among the several thousand inhabitants, the people are remarkably well formed and healthy. Similar facts have been observed in other places. They indicate to us that a healthful climate, with good air and water, are important factors in all true stirpiculture.

While all diseases which exhaust the physiological resources of the system are detrimental to the offspring, there are certain ones which are peculiarly so. Specific diseases or those resulting from a sensual life are the first to be mentioned. If the bodies of either father or mother become saturated with the poison, which is probably a germ, then the child born of such parents will certainly be infected and either die at birth or live only a short and feeble life. It is one of the penalties of an impure life—a very severe one, no doubt, but perhaps not too severe, that the offspring of the sensualist must suffer the penalties for its parent's physiological sins. Medical men have long been trying to discover a remedy which will make it safe for a man infected with specific disease to marry and become a father, but so far they have not had much success. It is doubtful if they ever will.

Epilepsy is another disease which is so often transmitted to children that any one of either sex [176]suffering from it had better abstain from parentage. If one parent is remarkably healthy, the children may escape the severest form of penalty; but even then they may suffer from nervousness and other diseases, and rarely enjoy robust health.

The question whether persons who have a consumptive tendency should become parents or not has frequently been discussed by sanitarians, but never settled. Such persons are frequently intellectual, and often of an unusually cheerful and hopeful disposition. They are, in most cases, quite prolific. In the female they generally make excellent wives and mothers; in the case of the male, they are not uncommonly good providers for their families, and also good fathers. Except in the worst cases, does the welfare of the race demand that they shall not marry and become parents. Probably not. But we must advise them to take the very best care of their imperfect bodies; to develop their chests by wise but not excessive physical training; to husband their physiological resources carefully; not to marry young, nor rear too many children. Excessive childbearing is a prolific cause in women of consumption, and excessive sexual indulgence is a frequent cause of it in both sexes.

These remarks should not be construed to mean that those who are already in the early stages of this disease, or whose families on both sides have [177]been deeply affected by it, may become parents. They should not. But in the present state of society, we cannot hold men and women up to an ideal standard. Some slight risks may be taken, but not too great ones. As the race progresses in knowledge, however, we may raise our standards, and finally make them so high that no one with a tendency to any serious disease which is likely to affect the offspring unfavorably shall have any right to contribute to the world's population.

I have mentioned only a few of the many diseases which affect the germ plasm unfavorably. It is hardly necessary to extend the list.

One other subject deserves consideration, when I will bring this chapter to a close. Every child born into the world is, to a certain extent, an experiment. That is to say, the parents cannot predict its sex, nor what its chief characteristics will be. These depend on what potentialities are stored up in the germ plasm. If this be formed by parents in good health, with a surplus of vital force, and a long line of ancestors with normal lives, we may believe that if the environment be favorable, the child will develop so as to show the same characteristics, perhaps in an even higher degree. Whatever variations there are will not be much below or above the average line of its ancestors. The congenital characters will tend to be transmitted. They are in the germ plasm, even in great detail. [178]Whether the acquired ones are transmitted may still be uncertain; but whether they are or not, normal right living will be sure to have good effects. Obey the laws of life and far better results will follow than if they are disobeyed.

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FEWER AND BETTER CHILDREN.

In the present age suggestions on this subject may seem superfluous. The more highly educated and wealthy classes have already sufficiently reduced the number of children which they bring into the world. But are these offspring any better than they would have been had their parents given birth to a larger number?

Mr. Darwin did not think much could be done to improve the race by parents limiting the number of their offspring. He would trust to natural selection to weed out the unfit, and to sexual selection as an aid. He thus describes the probable manner of action of sexual selection among primeval men: "The strongest and most vigorous men—those who could best defend and hunt for their families; those who were provided with the best weapons and possessed the most property, such as a large number of dogs or other animals—would succeed in rearing a greater average number of offspring than the weaker and poorer members of the same tribes. Such men would doubtless generally be able to select the more attractive women. . . . [180]If, then, this be admitted, it would be an unexplainable circumstance if the selection of the more attractive women by the more powerful men of the tribes, who would rear on the average a greater number of children, did not, after the lapse of generations, modify the character of the tribes."

The way in which the tribe would be modified would be by its producing better children. Of course among primitive men the richer and more powerful had several wives, but it is not likely that the number of children by each one was large.

Natural selection is, however, a painful process, necessary, no doubt, where ignorance prevails; but if the number of children of each pair could be limited and of a superior character, so far as vigor and adaptation to environment are concerned, would there not be less need for natural selection with all its evils? It seems to us that this would be so.

We have already quoted Grant Allen as favoring abstinence from parenthood on the part of the unfit and the duty on the part of the fit to become parents, and, theoretically, Mr. Allen is right; but except as both of these classes are swayed by duty we would make little progress in this way. A majority of mankind think they are the fit. Why should they crucify their desires for the benefit of the race? As mankind becomes more moral Mr. Allen's views may have a larger influence on [181]thought than now; but before that time little can be expected from them.

Mr. Spencer says: "We have fallen upon evil times, in which it has come to be an accepted doctrine that part of the responsibilities [of parenthood] are to be discharged, not by parents, but by the public—a part which is gradually becoming a larger part, and threatens to become the whole. Agitators and legislators have united in spreading a theory which, logically followed out, ends in the monstrous conclusion that it is for parents to beget children and for society to take care of them. The political ethics now in fashion makes the unhesitating assumption that while each man, as parent, is not responsible for the mental culture of his offspring he is, as a citizen along with other citizens, responsible for the mental culture of all other men's offspring! And this absurd doctrine has now become so well established that people raise their eyes in astonishment if you deny. But this ignoring of the truth, that only by due discharge of parental responsibilities has all life on the earth arisen, and that only through the better discharge of them have there gradually been made possible better types of life, is, in the long run, fatal. Breach of natural law will, in this case, as in all cases, be followed in due time by nature's revenge—a revenge which will be terrible in proportion as the breach has been great. A system [182]under which parental duties are performed wholesale by those who are not parents, under the plea that many parents cannot or will not perform their duties—a system which fosters the inferior children of inferior parents at the cost of superior parents and consequent injury of superior children—a system which thus helps incapables to multiply and hinders the multiplication of capables or diminishes their capability must bring decay and ultimate extinction. A society which persists in such a system must—other things equal—go to the wall in the competition with a society which does not commit this folly of nourishing its worst at the expense of its best."

We have evidence among primitive people that they understand the necessity of limiting offspring, and practice it in a perfectly healthful way. The natives of Uganda, a region in Central Africa, offers an illustration: "The women rarely have more than two or three children; the practice is that when a woman has borne a child she is to live apart from her husband for two years, at which age children are weaned."

Seaman, speaking of the Fijians, says: "After childbirth husband and wife keep apart three and even four years, so that no other baby may interfere with the time considered necessary for suckling children."

Some fifty years ago there lived in New York a [183]young couple, strong, healthy, ambitious to be rich, and both saving and industrious enough to become so under ordinary conditions. The husband was in a business which required constant attention; and in order to promote it and save the expense of help which he thought he could not afford, he labored nights, often up to the hours of twelve and sometimes one o'clock, and then arose early and went at it again. His wife sympathized with him in all his undertakings, helped him in every way possible, even to the sharing of his midnight toils. In no way did either of them spare themselves. They knew something of the evils of poverty, and were determined that it should not always be their lot. Fortune favored them, and their bank account grew larger and larger until they could count the value of their possessions as amounting to several million dollars. They lived in a fine country seat, and could gratify every wish, so far as food, clothing, books and travel were concerned. During their early married life, when the strain of work was the greatest, two children were born unto them, both boys, and they are alive today; but are they a comfort to their parents, and a help in their declining years? Instead of this they are both deformed and cripples, unable to help themselves or do any labor. Their family physician has told me that the overwork and privation of the parents at the time of their [184]birth and before, was undoubtedly the cause of the children's inferiority. A younger son born after the wife had ceased to toil like a slave, gives some promise of being a man of character.

We have here a typical case of strong, healthy parents, with a limited number of offspring, yet they were not superior. On the other hand, it would be easy to collect a large number of instances where the children in large families have had superior endowments. Take Benjamin Franklin as an example. He was the fifteenth child of his father, Josiah Franklin, and the eighth of the ten children of his mother.

It seems that superiority is a result of great vigor and perfection of body and mind and of abundant reproductive power. Where this is absent the children will hardly be superior. Yet in both cases a certain degree of limitation ought to be advantageous.

In conclusion, let me say what I have indirectly said already. Let the strong, the capable and the good rear as many children as they can without overburdening themselves in any way, and let the weak, the imperfect and the bad rear few or none, but devote their lives to perfecting their own characters. In this way the future race will be modified for good and not for evil.

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A THEORETICAL BABY.
by C. W. Lyman, M. D.

Reported by request of Dr. Holbrook.

It was our first baby. I was making a living as a doctor by writing articles on the general care of the health; and my wife before her marriage had been a kindergartner, a trainer of kindergartners, and a lecturer to mothers on the scientific and expert methods of rearing children aright. We believed in the theories we had taught, and our baby got nothing else from the start. According to the first applied theory, we made our temporary home before the boy began to be, in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado; and were a large part of the time either in our garden or on horseback, in this perfect outdoor climate. My wife was entirely in love with me, and I made each day count for nothing more certainly than to deserve and return that sentiment of hers. We lived simply but freely, and had next to no anxieties. My wife had practiced general gymnastics for years; but for months prior to the birth of her boy, she every day went through with a series of special maternal gymnastics, by which the muscles that aid in parturition can be made [186]strong and entirely to be relied upon. We were rewarded for this outlay of time in a delivery that was rapid and easy, without more than an ounce of hæmorrhage, and everything so perfectly controlled that—except for the inconvenience of it—the presence and aid of the physician (myself) might have been dispensed with. Recovery was rapid also. My wife made no haste to get up, keeping quiet most of the time for two weeks, to ensure good milk. But she did a family washing without effort after three weeks, and was on horseback again by the sixth week. The baby was not severed from his mother till ten minutes after birth (ensuring a better blood supply). Then he got no bath, no food, no dressing process; but was simply swathed in cotton batting and laid aside for six hours in a padded box-bed, surrounded by bottles of hot water, and covered with plenty of soft blankets, to sleep and get used to his new environment. On the second day we began rubbing him daily from head to foot with vaseline. His first bath, with a flannel cloth dipped in warm milk diluted with soft water and without soap, came when he was a week old, and was followed by the thorough rub with vaseline. This bath he has had nearly every day up to date. He has often cried, or crowed and begged for this bath; but never cried during its performance, except when his clothes were being replaced. On the contrary, he enjoys every moment of it.

[187]Feeding began with a meal every hour of the twenty-four, for the first week. Then night feeding was reduced to two meals, and he was fed every two hours, from four or five o'clock in the morning till nine at night, till two months old. About then he began sleeping right through the nights; and until three months old was fed every three hours of the day time; then for a month he went four hours between his meals. At his fourth month began the present regime of four meals per diem. Now and then he has cried in the night from thirst, and a few spoonsful of cold water have sufficed to send him off to sleep again. All in all, I think I could count on my fingers the times that he has wakened us out of hours, and not once has anyone walked the floor with him. In fact, no diversions of this sort have ever been practiced on him. He has never been rocked to sleep; whenever cross or fretful in the day, we have known that sleep was all he needed, and into his little bed he has been promptly plumped, and covered with a loosely knit afghan, tented on a light framework, which we call "the extinguisher." Here shut away and entirely unnoticed he soon learned to give himself up to his own reflections, and then presently to sleep. Thus we have kept down the first great nuisance of ordinary infancy, namely, egoism and a habit of howling for attention when no attention is really needed. But social relations, [188]and those of the gayest, he has constantly with both his parents. We take up and make into play with him each idea of his own. We have shown him some finger-plays. In the main we leave him to originate his own amusements.

From the keeping of stomach and bowels absolutely healthy, by a regular and reasonable exercise of their all-important functions, not only has the boy been free from irritability, and spontaneously happy and self-amused, sometimes quiet, and sometimes jolly to overflowing. But the second great nuisance of those ordinarily attending baby-raising, namely, sour stomach followed by colic, was eliminated. A secondary result of this entire regularity of functioning at the upper end of the alimentary canal was that a like regularity set in at the other end. That is, at the thirteenth week he began to have but one daily passage of fæcal matter, and that soon after breakfast. Of the approach of this act he notified his mother without fail, and thereafter we had no soiled diapers. Movements were received on pieces of old cloth, and cloth and all tossed into a pan of ashes, or the fire, when we had one. When, at six months, we put him onto cow's milk, mixed with thin graham porridge, to supply the extra nourishment demanded by rapid growth, he went up to two movements per diem—morning and evening. Thus, the third great nuisance of of diaper washing was eliminated, in its more [189]disagreeable feature. Eructation of curds, rashes, colic, diarrhœa—these common ailments of ordinary babyhood, we have never had a sight of. We believe it due solely to strict adherence to the four-meals-a-day plan. These consist of an early breakfast, a later breakfast, a dinner about one o'clock and a supper between six and seven. The bath comes at any convenient time. On pleasant days, even in winter, he is outdoors, well wrapped, in a chair, for hours, and often has a long nap there. He was provided, by my own needle and penknife, with an ample fur sleeping sack, into which he is securely buttoned every evening and laid in his box-bed, on a trunk. He never sleeps with his parents. According to the coolness or coldness of the nights, additional covering, in the shape of soft blankets and shawls, is laid in on the box, their weight supported by the edges of the box. He cannot uncover himself, but he can kick freely, and use his arms. We dressed him, from the first, in the "Gertrude" system of baby clothes, introduced by Dr. Grosvenor, of Chicago—all woolen princess garments, with shirring strings at the lower hems, by which they are made closed bags, ending just below the feet; warm, but allowing of kicking ad libitum. At five months—it being winter time—he went into short clothes, including solid suits of warm flannel underwear, shirts, drawers and long snug-fitting stockings. He has never had a cold. [190]His muscles, from the first (due to his mother's gymnastics), were firm and active, like those of an adult. At the fourth week he surprised us by suspending his entire weight from his hands and arms one morning. Legs, neck, back and hands particularly have developed steadily in power and quickness. There was never any fat deposited—that avant courier of so much infant mortality—yet he is, and has been all along, a rosy, plump, dimpled baby, or boy, rather, for babyhood very early lost its hold on him. Too often children seem finally to emerge from the miseries and ailments of a tedious infancy and to take on, at last, individuality and distinct character at the second or third year. This child, per contra, having never had a sensation of illness, or of pain, save honest hunger, has seemed to be a happy little boy almost from the first, alert or thoughtful, shouting or cooing, laughing and crowing, especially after his meals and movements, studying the world of things about him by the hour, keenly appreciative of colors and of music, and preferring some sorts to others, his face crossed by vivid changes of expression, wonder, merriment, surprise, reverie—all as perfect at six months as ordinarily seen at three years. He has good color from head to foot, is pale when hungry, but the moment a bit of food is down expands to his most genial flow of spirits. Immediately after his day-time naps his cheeks are regularly flushed and [191]rosy. His spirits become more pronounced toward each evening, reaching their high-point of talking, laughing, crowing and squealing at just about bed-time. He keeps it up for some time after being tucked away for the night, till sleep masters him; and begins where he left off early next morning. All this is good physiology. So happy day succeeds happy day, and we trust and hope that many good tendencies are getting a fair start in a harmonious and spontaneous beginning of this great work of growing up that we are fostering but not forcing.

At One Year Old.—Everything continues as begun. Teething at times causes slight transient fretfulness, and more cold water is drunk. The bowels remain absolutely regular. The all-night sleep (never "put to sleep,") and two day-time naps are unchanged, in all thirteen or fourteen hours of sleep per diem. On warm days he needs and gets plenty of cool water to drink, often two-thirds of a pint at a time. Talking, standing and creeping he has attained by his own unaided initiative (this on principle). As for amusements, he invents his own always, except when engaged in social exchange with his father and mother, and in these, too, we are careful that he makes at least half the advances.

On particular occasions he comes in need of mothering—and gets it. On all others he simply [192]lives with two big but highly sympathetic playfellows; and he has developed separate lines of play and talk for each. Often he chooses to alternate as between two poles of attraction, turning his face to his mother's for her sympathy between shouts to his father, or vice versa. From week to week we notice that the older plays are mostly dropped one by one, and fresh ones invented. All, however, are real and vivid to him.

In early prospect we have but two more points to compass. Perfect health in all respects he has intact. Self-control and self-sufficiency, both in amusing himself and in enduring lesser ills, such as bumps and mild degrees of hunger, he is getting as fast as growth permits. But obedience and responsibility will soon be needed in his repertoire. Negative obedience his mother is obtaining already in response to "No, no," and shakes of the head. Positive obedience will be the far more vital thing to secure—just as soon as he can help in little ways. Here we hope to make him responsible as far as can be for the welfare, safety and amusement of younger playfellows, whether brother or sister it is now too soon to say.

At Eighteen Months.—A cold douche has, for three months past, ended his morning bath, regularly given by his father after his sister arrived, and his weight became considerable. This douche, poured slowly from a dipper until redness set in, [193]has added markedly to his spirits, muscular activity and digestive capacity. It causes screaming at the moment, but an instant later, as three Turkish towels are wrapped closely about him, his exuberance is delightful to see. Coincidently he has taken up a selected diet of solid food, including chocolate and cooked fruits, and will have but one nap, though often that is a long one.

As the child is working out of babyhood, every day counting (as no day of half illness in childhood can count), and well into boyhood, the single principle already outlined, of leaving the little individuality to establish its own activities and socialities, seems sufficient, as the illustrations appended, I believe, prove. Doubtless a child that is not, day after day, enjoying, and often thrilled by health and life, as this little boy is, a child not brought up in an unbroken camaraderie with both parents, such as he has had, and particularly a child not having the send-off of trust and amiable impulse which he received before his birth, could not be left to blossom in such wild-flower style. Ugly, sulky or "streaky" conduct, jumping perversely out in place of good cheer, we have never had to deal with. In fact, we have never been able to detect the slightest resentment immediately after punishing him for taking forbidden articles, or for raising an outcry over being denied sundry things he wanted. His crying when punished is that of pure grief, and he [194]is ready at once to nestle down under the hand that had spatted disapproval, to be comforted, resuming good spirits two or three minutes later on. In the main, simply "No, no!" from either parent, has sufficed to stop him in the beginnings of mischief, sometimes resulting in cheerful desisting, and sometimes in a little of what we call the "grieved cry." But this, too, if it becomes loud or insistent, can be hushed by another "No, no," and enable him to regain control of himself. With this regained self-control has always come gratefulness for aid in the matter, as evinced by extra sweetness and brightness immediately after, and eager resumption of some one or other of his plays or calls with one or both of us. This may be what is known as discipline. It always brings a smile to our faces, however.

Without a break of more than a day or two at a time, we have been able to be equally near him all the while, and divide up about equally the matters of bathing, feeding, dressing and undressing him. The conventional estimate of those standing nearest to a child of,

1—Mother,
2—Nurse,
3—Teacher,
4—Servants and playmates,
5—Older brother or sister,
6—Father—the man behind the newspaper,
[195]certainly does not apply here. When I am absent for from three to six hours his uneasiness sets in, and grows stronger and stronger, ending in repeated expeditions to a short distance along the road, where he stands and calls "Vager," "Vager," (Father, Father,) at first hopefully, then protestingly, and sometimes at last with indignation or tears. When I return—and he listens and catches the first distant sound of hoofs, or wheels, or whinny of the left-at-home colts, or voice, or opening gate—an eager, beaming face welcomes me from gate or doorway, or even several rods down the beaten snow on the road. Once back, things are all right in his little domain again, and he goes on, without special attention to me, in his series of occupations and plays.

I say "occupations." They are nothing else to him; serious matters that he goes about accomplishing. He is at his best when he can help his mother at her work—blowing the fire, bringing her kindling, handing her clothespins one by one as she needs them, shutting or opening doors on request, picking up articles from the floor. But there are many hours continuously when he is left to his own devices, which are numerous, though many of them he goes through daily, such as feeding the cat, visiting his little sister, emptying and refilling the wall-pockets, collecting his blocks, and fishing articles off the table with a long stick. He has learned, untaught, to get a cloth to open the stove door with [196]and save burned fingers; to get and bring clean diapers to his mother when he wishes a change; to stoop and lap water out of the pail; to stand by his bed and point up at it when wishing his mid-day nap; to retreat to a dark corner and drape his handkerchief over his head for a brief period towards the close of a day, in lieu of the discarded second nap; to scoop bread or biscuit out of a pail hung above his reach, with an iron spoon; to lasso peaches toward him with a cord, said peaches being in pan on the floor just beyond where he could reach from a little gate separating the kitchen and sitting-room. None of these things has been taught him. Nothing whatever has been taught him, and especially no words and no "tricks." He invents or does without, in all non-essential matters, in regular Spartan style. So, in pursuit of his own undertakings, he rarely asks for what he would have; just tries and tries, day after day, until he succeeds or is beaten. But as he is at some new act or plan much of the time when left to himself, he has, we are satisfied, independently attained to more of childish accomplishment than the most incessant teaching processes could have effected. In doing what he does do, for instance, in certain climbing feats, he has slowly worked up to, he is both cautious and sure; he rarely tumbles and never loses his confidence. Thus for the past two days he has achieved the feat of climbing up and [197]standing erect on a little box fourteen inches high, where he calls and shouts and roars to us his ecstacy over the matter for ten minutes at a time. Today only he has found out how to get down alone. Contrast is taken here with the frequent falls and wailings of children who are first persuaded into attempts of various sorts, but have not worked out a real personal mastery of given acts for themselves.

He has quite a vocabulary now of his own invention. The meanings of these terms we have learned mostly, and use them to him. Of our vocabulary he understands the meanings of a large number of the words for things in which he is interested, forty or fifty nouns, and a dozen verbs, perhaps. He sings to his mother, and now and then to me, rude imitations of the songs he has heard us sing, and his mother he roughly accompanies. His inflections of voice have developed to the point of entirely expressing many of his emotions; while his expressions of face are as much beyond these as the inflections are beyond his stock of English—about seven words, and those requiring some exigency to bring out.

All this pleases us, because we truly want him to become rich in his own life, to subsist and grow in his own home-made lines of feeling and thought; and not to learn words, parrot-like, before he has the thought formed, and searching, even struggling, [198]for a means by which to convey itself. It is dearth of internal life, emotion and unaided thought that is in need of replenishment in the average young person, not lack of English dictionary terms for things that can be talked about, but are evidently not intrinsic and personal.

C. W. Lyman, M. D.

New Castle, Col.

[admin]

NOTES.

War and Parentage.

In the interests of unborn children we should, so far as possible, remove from the world those causes which, acting on the mother, either directly or indirectly, may injure them by lowering the standard of their health, or by altering and debasing their moral and intellectual natures. One of the most potent of the causes for harm is war. War has generally been regarded as one of the ennobling professions. If we look upon it in its most favorable light, all that we can say in its favor is that among primitive and barbarous races it has perhaps resulted in the preservation and spread of the most capable ones, and that it has at the same time welded them together into larger groups, and finally into nations, and habituated them to those restraints which are necessary to social existence; but we no longer require it for this purpose, and the industrial pursuits and the evolution of civilization are so disturbed by them that they should cease, and especially should they cease in the interest of our children, both born and unborn.

How can war injure children? We have already shown in the chapter on Prenatal Culture that when the mother [200]is under the influence of any powerful mental emotion, such as fear, depression, anger and similar passions during the months in which the child is being developed in her womb, there is very great danger of permanent injury to it. Only the strongest mothers, those with the most robust health, or who have the most stable nerves, those who are rarely thrown off their balance, are capable of resisting the intense excitements to which they are subject during some of the phases of war.

As I mentioned in my early work on Marriage and Parentage, Esquirol, a French historian, gives details of a considerable number of cases of children born soon after some of the sieges of the French Revolution, which were weakly, nervous and idiotic, on account of the terrible strain to which their mothers had been subjected. In every war where a city is besieged, even if its women and children are sent away, they cannot be altogether free from anxieties and mental strains of a most unwholesome nature, and if some of them are soon to become mothers, the offspring not yet born must suffer. No one can estimate the vast number of children injured under such conditions in the ages past. They have been only incidentally referred to in history. The fame and glory of conquerors must not be dimmed by the relation of such occurrences.

Joseph A. Allen, in The Christian Register, gives the results of some of his observations which bear on this subject. He says:

"So much is being said about war and its effects, that I am prompted to send you the result of my observations.

[201]"I was in charge of the Massachusetts State Reform School for several years, when every inmate (there were between three and four hundred) was born before the Civil War—during the time of the great anti-slavery agitation, which did so much to educate the moral sense of the people.

"I was again in charge of the same institution when every inmate was born during, or soon after the war, when the mothers were reading, talking and dreaming of battles, and of husbands, fathers or brothers who had gone to the war.

"I found as great a difference in the character of those inmates born before and after the Civil War as exists between a civilized and a savage nation.

"Those under my care the second time were much more difficult to control, more quarrelsome and defiant, less willing to work or study. The crimes for which they were sentenced were as different as their characters.

"It was not uncommon for them to be sentenced for breaking and entering with deadly weapons.

"This difference was not confined to inmates of reform schools, but it was manifest throughout all classes.

"After the war crimes increased rapidly. In Boston garroting was common, and was only checked by Judge Russell sentencing all such subjects to the full extent of the law.

"Before the close of the Civil War the State Prison at Charlestown, under Mr. Gideon Haynes, was, according to Dr. D. C. Wines, D. D., the model prison of the United [202]States. Since that time it has been almost impossible to maintain proper discipline, owing, no doubt, to the more desperate character of the inmates.

"Let us try to trace these effects back to their causes, and prove, if possible, that whatsoever a man (or nation) soweth, that shall it also reap."

But there are other ways in which war militates against the noblest motherhood. Camp life is a school for vice and prostitution. In Camp Chickamauga, which is a sample of them all, during the war with Spain on account of Cuba, the amount and baseness of the prostitution by the soldiers, with both black and white women, exceeded description. In a single day forty-one cases of specific disease applied to the physicians at the hospitals for treatment. These things were not reported in the daily papers; they were too vile. The place was a hot-bed of vice, rather than a school of virtue and patriotism. In all European armies it is the same. In times of peace, soldiers from the highest to the lowest in rank, insist that facility shall be allowed them for the gratification of their passional natures. The officers, not being permitted to marry unless they or their wives have a certain income, keep their mistresses, and not a female servant near a camp is safe. The immoral influences here generated spread throughout society, lower the standard of morals among both men and women in private life, and jeopardize the interests of children born or unborn, morally and intellectually, as well as physically.

But there is another view. "Great standing armies," [203]says the Czar of Russia, in his note to the Powers, "are transforming the armed power of our day into a crushing burden which the people have more and more difficulty in bearing."

That is to say, the tax imposed upon the individuals of any nation to support its army pauperizes or keeps on the verge of poverty a large portion of the race. It is war, far more than any other cause, which has created the burden of taxation. In some European countries almost every man carries a soldier or sailor on his back, that is, he must labor not only to support himself and family, but a soldier or sailor who devotes his life to a murderous profession. Is this not a grievous burden which cripples or paralyzes his life and reacts on his offspring?

Now, the poverty caused by this burden is a serious obstacle to the production and training of the young, and especially is this the case in the more populous countries—France, Spain and Italy are examples. These lands were once the most powerful in Europe; they are so no longer. They gloried in war, and spent immense sums of money upon their armies and burdened the people with taxes which should have been reserved for the use of fathers and mothers in educating and providing for the needs of their offspring. War has crushed out the best life of these countries, and other nations which follow in the same path will in the end come to a similar fate. They may hold out a long time, but not forever. "The mills of Gods grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small."

It is because war is an enemy to the highest motherhood [204]that women should array themselves against it. It is one of the greatest foes to the development and welfare of the children they love so well. Women should insist that all governments should settle their differences by peaceful rather than by warlike means. The industrial age may have its difficulties, but they are not insurmountable. In it the fathers and mothers may have the time and the means to study and learn how to improve the race through a wiser parentage. I believe that thoughtful women, when they come to see the evils of war in their true light, as they have seen the evils of prostitution and intemperance, will be its greatest foes.

Cases of Prenatal Influences.

Alfred Russell Wallace gives in Nature a few cases of prenatal influences sent him by his correspondents. The first experience is from a mother residing in Australia. She writes:

"I can trace in the character of my first child, a girl now twenty-two years of age, a special aptitude for sewing, economical contriving and cutting out, which came to me as a new experience when living in the country among new surroundings, and strict economy being necessary, I began to try to sew for the coming baby and myself. I also trace her great love of history to my study of Froude during that period. Her other tastes for art and literature are distinctly hereditary.

[205]"In the case of my second child, also a daughter, I having interested myself prior to her birth in literary pursuits, the result has been a much acuter form of intelligence, which at six years old enabled her to read and enjoy the ballads which Tennyson was then giving to the world, and which at the age of barely twenty years allowed her to take her degree as B. A. of the Sydney University.

"Before the third child, a boy, was born, the current of our lives had changed a little. Visits to my own family and a change of residence to a distant colony, which involved a long journey, as well as the work incidental to such changes, together with the care of my two older children, absorbed all my time and thoughts, and left little or no leisure for studious pursuits. My occupations were more mechanical than at any other time previous. This boy does not inherit the studious tastes of his sisters at all. He is intelligent and possesses most of the qualifications which will probably conduce to success in life, but he prefers any kind of out-door work or handicraft to study. Had I been as alive then as I am now to the importance of these theories, I should have endeavored to guard against this possibility; as it is, I always feel that it is, perhaps, my fault that one of the greatest pleasures of life has been debarred to him.

"But I must not weary you by so many personal details, and I trust you will not suspect me of vanity in thus bringing my own children under your notice. Suffice it to say that in every instance I can, and do, constantly trace what others might term coincidences, but which appear to [206]me nothing but cause and effect in their several developments."

Mr. Wallace then gives extracts from other correspondents as follows:

Mrs. B—— says: "I can trace, nay, have traced (in secret amusement often), something in every child of mine. Before the birth of my eldest girl I took to ornithology, for work and amusement, and did a great deal in taxidermy, too. At the age of three years I found this youngster taking such insects and little animals as she could find, and puzzling me with hard questions as to what was inside of them. Later on she used to be seen with a small knife, working and dissecting cleverly and with much care and skill at their insides. One day she brought me the tiniest heart of the tiniest lizard you can imagine, so small that I had to examine it through a glass, though she saw it without any artificial aid. By some means she got a young wallaby, and made an apron with a pocket inside which she used to call her 'pouch.' This study of natural history is still of interest to her, though she lacks time and opportunities. Still, she always does a little dissecting if she gets a chance."

Another Case.—"I never noticed anything about P—— for some years. Three months before he was born a friend, whom I will call Smith, was badly hurt, and was brought to my house to be nursed. I turned out the nursery and he lay there for three months. I nursed him until I could do so no longer, and then took lodgings in town for my confinement. Now after all these years [207]I have discovered how this surgical nursing has left its mark. The boy is in his element when he can be of use in cases of accident, etc. He said to me quite lately: 'How I wish you had made a surgeon of me!' Then all at once it flashed in upon me, but, alas! it was too late to remedy the mistake.

"Before the birth of the third child I passed ten of the happiest months of my life. We had a nice house, one side of which was covered with cloth of gold roses and bougainvillea, a garden with plenty of flowers, and a vineyard. Here we lived an idyllic life, and did nothing but fish, catch butterflies and paint them. At least my husband painted them after I had caught them and mixed his colors. At the end of this time L—— was born. This child excels in artistic talent of many kinds; nothing comes amiss to her, and she draws remarkably well. She is of a bright gay disposition, finding much happiness in life, even though not always placed in the most fortunate surroundings.

"Before the birth of my next child, N——, a daughter, I had a bad time. My husband fell ill of fever, and I had to nurse him without help or assistance of any kind. We had also losses by floods. I don't know how I got through that year, but I had no time for reading. N—— is the most prudent, economical girl I know. She is a splendid housekeeper and a good cook, and will work till she drops; has no taste for reading, but seems to gain knowledge by suction." Such cases are so numerous that they should be collected and scientifically studied.

Luxury and Parentage.

In all ages of luxury, fine ladies try to avoid maternity. They detest it in theory only, for women are controlled by the instinct of the race. In the circles of which we are speaking, the instincts of the race for children have vanished. Life has lost its serious meaning. Responsibility of any kind is a mere nuisance, and the idea of bringing up a new life, with all its bonds and its charm, is as repellant as the idea of a new bonnet is enticing. For such women the world has no use. Beautiful, in the great sense, they are not. Incapable, in any great way, of either loving or being loved, they are at best the painted bubbles on the stream of life. Such women will always be far inferior as mothers, and less capable of bringing into the world noble offspring than those women in the humble walks of life who live naturally, who love the family ties and are fond of the young.

Great mothers must have a certain sort of hardihood which comes from a wise physical culture, not necessarily an artificial one,—a life in the open air, and the avoidance of all social dissipation.

Degeneracy of the Breasts and Motherhood.

A sign of degeneracy is pointed out by Hegar, who appeals to young men on behalf of posterity to choose for wives women with well-developed breasts; he quotes statistics to prove inability to nurse a child a sign of [209]degeneracy which produces degeneracy in the offspring. Among other facts he points out that in a district of his knowledge, which supplies a large number of wet nurses to the city, the percentage of men incapable of military service amounts to 30 per cent., while in the neighboring districts, where the mothers remain at home with their families, it is only 18 per cent. He remarks upon the surprising number of deformed nipples encountered in the hospitals. Fehling mentions "hollow nipples" as occurring in 6.7 of his obstetric cases. He warns mothers not to allow the clothing to constrict the growing breasts of their daughters, and urges general hygiene as the best method to develop them.

In this connection the question may be asked, Is it possible for women with defective breasts to become mothers of a virile race of men and strong women. In most cases it is not. A defect in this part of their nature is evidence of a weakened constitution. It may be said, that the breasts do not always develop before marriage and parentage. This is true, and if the health is robust, and the constitution and ancestry good, the mother will, in most cases, be able to nurse her child. If it is known in advance that such cannot be the case, and it may generally be known, then the responsibilities of motherhood should be undertaken with the greater precaution. In modern times we have far better means of bringing up children by hand than formerly. Still, a mother able to nurse her own children should always be preferred.

Location of Birth.

In Manchester, England, in 1892, 37,674 boys out of every 100,000 died before they reached their fifth year. In healthy districts only 17,314 out of 100,000 died. About the same condition prevails in other places. The lesson it teaches us is, that we should choose a healthy region in which to live if we would rear the healthiest offspring.

Evolution.

This word means progress and progress implies improvement, without which there could be no evolution; but improvement of the human race will not be further possible unless the marriage relation is regarded from a higher stand-point than that of sexual indulgence.

The practical superiority of man over animals consists in his knowledge of the aim of his conduct. Animals exercise the reproductive function instinctively at particular seasons, but man knowingly always; and thus, unless the latter subordinates his passion to reason he is worse than a brute, as he knows himself to be such.

The difference between the chaste marriage of affection and the unchaste marriage of passion, is analogous to that between education and instruction, as explained by Elder Evans of the Shaker Community. Instruction imparts knowledge, such as is associated in Eastern lore with the sexual passion, but education embraces the whole disposition, which is rendered more beautiful and spiritual [211]through a marriage of chastity, and as thus affected is transmitted to the offspring, who exhibit the disposition of their parents at the time of conception. Sexual excess not only tends to produce offspring of a weakly constitution, but it interferes with the organic growth of the parents. It is as wasteful as burning a candle at both ends at the same time.

Parents should bear in mind that the mental plan on which their children shall begin life, depends on the desire by which they are governed when they beget their offspring; and as desire depends on disposition, they should aim at requiring harmony of character and conduct.

If we think less of ourselves and more of the race to which we belong, we shall have a better chance of improving both ourselves and the race as represented in our offspring.

We are all members of a great organism, which is constituted by the whole of human kind, past, present and future, and it is our duty to act in such a manner that the whole shall be benefited by our conduct; which it cannot be if we are careless as to our own disposition or as to the character of our offspring.

Our Aryan ancestors were conscious of their duty towards the race, and probably to this fact was largely due the high physical development the white race attained. Only by acting in their spirit can we hope to maintain the race at its high level or prevent its deterioration and decay.

The important influence which the gratification of the sexual impulse has had over the development of the [212]aesthetic side of Nature has been often insisted on; and there is no reason why its gratification should not be attended also with the development of the highest mental qualities, if these are made use of in the formation and exercise of the marriage relations between the sexes.—C. Staniland Wake.

Too Little Fatherhood.

The modern child is threatened not with too much mother but with too little father, and this danger is heightened by the sudden release of womanhood from the ban of conventionality and of the domineering power of physical force. Let her not too readily accept as complimentary to herself the church's adoration of Mary. Woman is made of no purer stuff than man, her companion, man her father. She cannot transmit from her own veins or her companion's veins any purer life stuff, any finer impulse to her daughter than she does to her son. We need more fathers in the home, more men teachers in our public schools; and if our homes and schools are not organized so as to evoke and direct this masculine investment, then let them be reorganized. It is not true that mothers are peculiarly the divinely appointed teachers of children, that to them is especially entrusted the intellectual or spiritual destinies of the young. That argument is based upon the analogies of the past; it is a reversion to primitive conditions, an illustration of the law of atavism, like the return to six fingers and toes in some people, or the restoration in others of the [213]muscle that can move the ear. The highest reaches of evolution point to a double responsibility and a double potency. In the interest of the child, then, let us lift him out of a mother rule into a father and mother rule. Let the home be girdled with masculine order and justice as well as with feminine love and tenderness. Let there be strength as well as tenderness. Let there be in it mind as well as heart, vigor as well as sympathy. All these are spiritual children which cannot be born except in the bi-sexual realm.—Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones.

The Flat-Head Indians and Heredity.

Amongst the round-head tribes woman holds a higher position, whereas amongst the flat-heads she is a mere drudge. In by-gone days it was common to see a tired-looking woman walking behind her husband carrying a heavy load, while he walked on before with nothing.

Again, the round-heads have a remarkable mythology, while the others have a poor affair.

Mr. Dean has informed me that the flat-head, which would be an acquired character, is never transmitted to offspring—another argument against the Lamarchian theory, that acquired characters are transmitted.

That whatever injures the physical or intellectual health of parents tends to degrade their offspring has long been evident. I think we have a good race illustration of this in the effects of flattening and deforming the skulls of children among the Flat-Head Indians, who for centuries [214]followed this precedent. Information has been furnished me by special request by Mr. James Dean, of Victoria, B. C., bearing on this point. He writes:

"Among the children the mortality seems to be greater with the tribes which flatten the heads of their children than in those who do not. I have long noticed that there is a very marked intellectual difference between them."

The Hidery tribes of Northern British Columbia and Southern Alaska, who never flattened their heads, have long been famous for their works of art, such as elaborate carvings in wood and stone.

Suggestion as an Aid in the Training of Children.

Within a few years an old subject, that of hypnotism, formerly called mesmerism, has received new attention under the name of suggestion, or, in medical language, "suggestive therapeutics." It was used in a rude way by Mesmer in the cure of disease. Later it was employed much more effectively by Braid and others for the same purpose, and especially for the prevention of pain in surgical operations. Want of space forbids our going into any extended historical detail as to its application for these purposes, but a few points will be considered, which bear on the subject.

It was found that when a person had contracted a bad habit, as, for instance, smoking or drinking, it could often be broken up by placing him in the mesmeric sleep, and [215]telling him he would no longer desire to continue the habit, but would even loathe them. The habit of sucking the thumb, a bad temper, lying, stealing, dullness and lack of ambition, etc., were amenable to this treatment. To illustrate: A boy fifteen years old, always at the foot of his class, was put into the hypnotic sleep, and told that he would be able to study harder and learn his lessons better, so as to go to the head. This was continued daily for several weeks, and, sure enough, he accepted the suggestion, and outstripped every scholar in his class, and kept at the head so long as these means were used; but, unfortunately, when they were discontinued he relapsed into his first state. The suggestions had not been sufficiently thorough to take deep root, and become a part of his nature, as might have been the case with a better knowledge as to how to use them. So long ago as in 1892 Dr. Bérillon, Editor of The Revue de l' Hypnotism, read a paper before the Second International Congress of Experimental Psychology, in which he stated that he had observed the beneficial effects of hypnotism in education in some 250 cases, including nervous insomnia, night terror, sleepwalking, kleptomania, stammering, idleness, filthy habits, cowardice and moral delinquency. He also stated that other observers had similar experience. My friend, Dr. B. Osgood Mason, of New York, working on the same lines, has had similar experiences. I will quote a few illustrative cases furnished by him. The first is of a school-girl fifteen years of age, a pupil in one of the grammar-schools [216]of New York—intelligent in many ways; a good reader of such books as interested her—history, biography, and the better class of novels; but for the routine of school studies she had no aptitude, and she was constantly being left behind in her classes. She could not concentrate her mind upon details which did not specially interest her. If she succeeded in learning a lesson she could not remember it, or if she remembered it until she arrived at the classroom, when she arose to recite, it was instantly gone; her mind became a perfect blank; she had not a word to say, and was obliged to sit down in disgrace. She could write a good composition, but could never stand up and read it before the class. Teachers had been engaged to give her special lessons, so as to enable her to pass her preliminary examination, which would allow her to come up for entrance to the Normal College. After months of effort they reported to the mother that it was utterly useless to go on; it was impossible for her to pass her preliminary examination, and they did not think it right to take her money without any such expectation. She was then brought to me to inquire if anything could be done to help her. I proposed hypnotic suggestion. It was then March 30; the first examination was in May. I commenced treatment at once. The patient went into a quiet, subjective condition, with closed eyes, but did not lose consciousness. I suggested that she would be able to concentrate her mind upon her studies; that her memory would be improved; that she would lose her excessive self-consciousness and timidity, and in their place she [217]would have full confidence in herself and be able to stand up before the class and recite. She was kept in the hypnotic condition one-half hour at each treatment, and the same or similar suggestions were quietly but very positively made and repeated at intervals during that time. She at once reported improvement in her ability both to study and recite. She had six treatments, and on May 25 she reported that, greatly to the surprise of her teachers, she had passed her preliminary examination with a percentage of 79, which entitled her to come up for the college examination. In June she passed her examination for entrance to the Normal College with a percentage of 88; entered the College and is at present doing well, though the suggestions have not been repeated since May.

Another case from the same author was that of a boy "so bad as to be perfectly unmanageable, and his temper so outrageous, that his mother begged me to come to the house and see if I could do anything with him.

"Having secured carte blanche for whatever course I chose to pursue, I went. He was in the back room, his grandmother urging him forward, he kicking and resisting. Without speaking, I went directly to him, seized him firmly by one wrist, and brought him topsy turvy through two intervening rooms, gave him a thorough shaking, and set him down violently in a chair. He smoothed down his bang, whimpered a little, and gruffly remarked that I had rumpled his hair. I told him I had not intended to disturb his hair, but that as he had never [218]obeyed anybody I had come to the house for the express purpose of making him obey me, and I should most certainly do it. After a few moments I said, quietly, 'Now go and lie down on the bed in the next room.' He started, walking toward the bed, but when near it he set off on a full run past it and into the back room. I brought him back and again ordered him to lie down on the bed. He went toward it as if to obey, but suddenly sprang under it, and clung to the slats underneath with hands and feet, and hung there like a monkey. I dislodged him, pulled him out, gave him a spanking, and surprised him by tossing him vigorously upon the bed, with the command to lie there quietly until I gave him permission to move. He obeyed. Presently I ordered him to go into the front room and sit down again in the chair he had before occupied. Again he quietly obeyed, I said: 'All right; now you understand you will obey me. I don't want to hurt you. I want to be a good friend to you, only you must obey me.'

"I then in a pleasant way gave him a short lesson, picturing to him very plainly the course of a boy such as he was, and where it would be likely to end; and also showing what he might be if he would change his course. I told him I should be at the house again in a day or two, and I should expect him to meet me pleasantly, shake hands with me, and do whatever I directed him.

"Next day there came a telephone message begging me to come up; M. was outrageous again. I went. He was backward in greeting me, but at length came and shook [219]hands. I afterward learned that there had not been the slightest improvement in his behavior; and the cause of his mother's sending for me was his outrageous conduct at the table, when, in a fit of anger, he had thrown a plate at his grandmother. I talked to him pleasantly a moment, and then said very quietly, 'Now go and lie down on the bed.' He did so at once. I sat down beside him, and taking his two thumbs firmly in my hands, I said: 'Now, M., I want you to look steadily at that little stud in my shirt-front; keep your eyes very steadily fixed upon it.' He did so, and I never secured better or more concentrated attention from any patient.

"In five or six minutes his eyelids quivered and soon dropped. I closed them, suggesting sleep; and directly he was in the sound hypnotic sleep. I then presented the two pictures again—the bad and the good course—and suggested that they would always be present, distinct in in his mind, that he would dislike the wrong course and desire to avoid it, and choose the good one. I suggested definitely that he would be kind and considerate to his mother, and obey her as well as me. I repeated these suggestions very positively, let him sleep ten minutes, and repeated them again, and then awoke him by counting.

"The effect of this treatment was very marked; his whole manner at home was changed, and he became comparatively docile and manageable.

"He came to my office for his next treatment, which was perfectly successful. I have given him in all six treatments, and the improvement has been maintained [220]and increased. He is not yet by any means perfect, but his general behavior is changed, and I am suggesting such definite improvements in his conduct, and impressing such pictures upon his mind, as I think will help to develop his better nature and qualities. He is a lover of flowers, and on two occasions has brought some of his own choosing to me. He has lost none of his boyishness; he is full of life; is mischievous, playing tricks even upon his mother; but he is affectionate and generally obedient. His will is not broken, but he has self-control, and he is far more considerate of others than formerly. In short, he is a fair example of one of the educational uses of hypnotism and suggestion."

The only other case I will quote is one of night terrors.

"A little girl, five years of age, went soundly to sleep when first put to bed, but after two or three hours she awoke screaming and trembling with terror, on account of the hideous black man whom she saw in her dream. The impression of the dream was vivid and persistent, and her screams kept the household aroused and alarmed for hours every night, and this state of things had already continued for months. One day, when she was perfectly bright and happy, I placed her in her high chair in front of me; put my hands gently upon her shoulders, and asked her to look steadily at a trinket easily in her view, and quieted her with passes and soothing touches until her drooping eyelids denoted the subjective condition. I then commenced in a gentle, sing-song manner to suggest that she would go easily to sleep as usual at night, but [221]that she would have no frightful dreams; that she would see the dreadful black man no more, but would sleep quietly on the whole night through. It was repeated over and over in the same gentle manner.

"That was a year ago; she has not seen the black man since, and her sleep and health have been perfect. There was no repetition of the treatment."

From these few cases, and many not quoted, it appears evident that we have in hypnotism, or suggestion, an agent which, when fully understood, will be of great usefulness to parents in the early training of children. That it should be used wisely no one will deny.

The question will naturally arise, How is it that a suggestion to a child while passive or in the hypnotic sleep is more effective than when awake. The answer is not so easy to give; but it is possible that in this state the subliminal self, the higher self, or, perhaps, the spiritual nature is appealed to; and as the active, every-day nature, the conscious self, is now dormant, it receives this appeal more seriously. Perhaps a quotation from Prof. Frederic W. H. Myer, who has given the subject profound attention, will help to make the subject clearer. He says: "In waking consciousness I am like the proprietor of a factory whose machinery I do not understand. My foreman, my subliminal self, weaves for me so many yards of broadcloth per diem (my ordinary vital processes), as a matter of course. If I want any pattern more complex, I have to shout my orders in the din of the factory, where only two or three inferior workmen hear me, and they shift their [222]looms in a small and scattered way. Such are the confined and capricious results of the first, the more familiar stages of hypnotic suggestion.

"At certain intervals, indeed, the foreman stops most of the looms, and uses the freed power to stoke the engine and oil the machinery. This, in my metaphor, is sleep; and it will be effective hypnotic trance if I can get the foreman to stop still more of the looms, come out of his private room, and attend to my orders—my-self suggestions—for their repair and re-arrangment."

To make this a little plainer. The subliminal self, the foreman, is the one who manages the machinery of the nervous system, and turns out this or that sort of conduct or behavior in the child, or the man or woman, as he is told to turn out by the conscious self. But in the hypnotic trance this subliminal self can take orders, or suggestions, for other kinds of conduct or behavior; alter the action of the brain, so as to make another sort of creature; for he is not so occupied then but that he can receive these orders. As in the kaleidescope, the pictures presented depend entirely on the arrangement of the pieces of glass. So in daily conduct, character depends on the combination and activity of the brain cells. By suggestion in the hypnotic state we are able, to some extent at least, to alter this combination so that new conduct is presented.

The question now arises, How can the parent make use of this agent in altering the nature of a child from one that is not desirable to one that is? Probably the best way [223]to proceed would be to take it while sleeping, and make the suggestion then; for ordinary sleep is not different from hypnotic sleep, except in degree. As the child is in the act of going to sleep, let the mother, or whoever is to make the suggestion, sit by its side, take it by the hand and gently soothe it with pleasant words or music, in a firm but agreeable voice. Let her say slowly: Now you are going to sleep, sleep, sleep. You will soon be sleeping sweetly. How nice it is to sleep and rest our bodies so that we can feel well and strong on the coming day. This sleep is going to do you a great deal of good. You will not have bad dreams. You will not see ugly faces or wake up with a fright. Tomorrow you will wake up good-natured, full of life, and will be good boy (or girl, as the case may be), and do your best to make mother happy and proud of you. You will want to play and enjoy the fresh air and sunshine; relish your food; not eat too much, etc., etc., according to the needs of the child. If it is timid and fearful of thunder, or dogs, or horses, or other harmless things, you can say to it, Now, you will not be afraid any more of thunder but like to hear it. This, like all other suggestions, must be repeated several times, so as to make an impression. If afraid of strangers, say, now, you will not fear men, or persons you don't know; repeating it slowly over and over again. If the child uses bad language, say, Now you will not want to use bad words any more, and will be careful how you speak. If it has a cold, put the hand over the chest and say, Now your cold will get well quickly, and not grow worse. If it [224]has the unfortunate habit of wetting the bed at night, even this can be broken up, often by one suggestion, and surely by several repeated so as to take deep root in the mind. This latter is necessary to produce any effect. In case of disease, even serious disease, when a physician is necessary, suggestion may be used by the nurse or parents, or the physician, if he has learned the art, to advantage; but if the parents are anxious or weary, they had better leave it for those who are not weary or anxious; otherwise they may transfer their own condition instead of one of health. The state of mind and body of the operator should be a stable, equable and wholesome one.

The age at which suggestion may be of use is hardly yet known. Certainly so soon as the understanding has become developed it may be employed, though the language should be simplified for the childish understanding. Before this it is of doubtful utility; but some experiments which have been made intimate that good health may sometimes be transmitted from a healthy person to a very young sick child by thought transference.

Thought transference is the transference from one to another person of some feeling, sensation or idea. The person from whom the thought is transferred is the active agent, and the one who receives it is the passive one. Often this phenomenon takes place spontaneously, as when one is in trouble, or at the point of dying, a knowledge of it may sometimes be transferred to an intimate friend who is in sympathy. In the hypnotic state, thought transference can sometimes be induced artificially; and [225]the point here to be considered is the transference to the child of healthy normal sensations to replace the abnormal ones which may have taken possession of consciousness and caused trouble.

The important thing always to have in mind in using psychic forces on children is to instil natural, or normal, conditions, not unnatural or abnormal ones. To this end to produce the best results, the active agent should be a normally healthy person, having good common sense, and living a normal, natural life. Those with sickly, sentimental or fanciful notions, if they try to use suggestion may transfer these states to the child, which would do harm rather than good.

[admin]

INDEX.

Acquired characters, inheritance of, 71, 73, 77 et seq., 79, 90, 109, 111, et seq.
Acquired characters not transmitted, 213
Adaptation to environment necessary for health, 149
Aesthetic sense displayed by animals, 28
Aesthetic surroundings during gestation, 95
Air, regarded as food, 174
Alcohol, as a poison, 91
Alcohol, effect of, on offspring, 171
Allen, Joseph A., observations of, as to effects of war on children, 200
Allen, Grant, 34, 48, 51, 180
Amphimixis, theory of, 76
Ancestral ids, 75
Ancestral tendencies, correction of, 126
Animals, practical superiority of man over, what?, 210
Animal flesh, supposed effect of eating, 63
Atavism in relation to disease, 83

Baby, a theoretical, 185 et seq.
Bad habits, broken up by suggestion during mesmeric sleep, 214
Bad temper cured by hypnotic suggestion, 217 et seq.
Beauty, reference of sexual selection to, 28
Bees, instincts of, 122
Bérillon, Dr., on beneficial effect of hypnotism over bad habits, etc., 215
Birthmarks, 59, 68, 94
Blood, healthy, purifying influence of, 92
Blood, study of the, 140, 151
Bones, modification of certain, through sitting, 116
Boys, mortality among larger than with girls, 136
Breasts, best methods of developing, 209
[227]Breasts, defective, women having, incapable of becoming mothers of a virile race, 209
Breasts, development of, after marriage and parentage, 209
Breasts, degeneracy of the, and motherhood, 208
Breeding in and in, Noyes' first principle for race improvement, 38

Camp life, evils of, 202
Cases of prenatal influences, 204 et seq.
Cells, sexual, 110, 162
Chandler, Jennie, 97
Character, dependence of, on arrangement of nerve cells, 222
Character, improvement by suggestion, method to be employed by parents for, 223
Character of children affected by war, 201
Characteristics, origin of, through sexual selection, 134
Charles, Havelock, 116
Chickamauga Camp, prostitution at, 202
Children acquire special aptitudes from mothers, 205
Child bearing, best age for, 170
Children, breeding of, in Plato's Republic, 11, 12
Children considered as belonging to the State, 10 et seq., 22
Children, deaths of, in New York city, 139
Children, healthy, essentials for having, 168
Children, interests of unborn, 199
Children, characteristics of, in the Oneida Community, 39
Children in the Oneida Community, care of, 38
Children, mortality among, 136
Children, obstacle of war to production and training of, 203
Child training aided by suggestion, 214 et seq.
Children, training of, 16 et seq., 52
Civil War and how it affected the character of children, 201
Co-adaptation of parts as evidence of transmission of acquired characters, 116
Coalescence of sperm and germ cells, 166
Concentrative power, want of, cured by hypnotic suggestion, 216
Conduct, knowledge of its object, not possessed by animals, 210
Congenital characters, transmission of, 177
Congenital deformities, 80
Consanguineous marriages among the Greeks, 23
Consanguineous marriages, regulations as to, among uncultured peoples, 21, 42
Consanguineous marriages, effect on offspring, 42
[228]Constitution, bodily, improvement of the, 150
Consumption, causes of, 176
Consumption, tendency to, whether a bar to marriage, 176
Contentment, value of, 95
Continuity of germ-plasm, 107, 118
Co-operation, hygienic value of, 156 et seq.
Cope, Prof. E. D., 59, 69
Cousins, marriage between, 43
Couvade, custom of the, 63 et seq.
Crimes, increase of, caused by war, 201

Darwin, Charles, 28, 30 et seq., 73, 75, 85, 100, 105, 106, 109, 141, 179, 184
Death, causes of, 150
Deformities, congenital, 80
Degeneracy of the breasts and motherhood, 208
Degeneracy in offspring due to maternal degeneracy evidenced by inability to nurse a child, 208
Degeneration, evidence of, 140
Development of breasts after marriage and parentage, 209
Diseases, influence of hygiene over, 159
Diseases, inheritance of, 80
Diseases which affect offspring, 175
Disposition spiritualized through marriage of chastity, 210
Disproportion between accidental causes and effects, 68, 90
Diversity between offspring and parents, causes of, 58
Domestication of animals, 9
Doutrebente, Prof., 92
Drink, influence of, over offspring, 16
Duncan, J. C. Mathews, 170

Education, beneficial effects of hypnotism in, 215
Education and heredity, 111 et seq.
Education and non-transmission of acquired characters, 124
Education of Spartan children, 15
Education, Plutarch on, 17
Education, study of laws of evolution, as part of, 125
Educational uses of hypnotism and suggestion, 220
Egg. See Ovum.
Eimer, Dr. G. H., 71, 79 et seq., 90
Embryo, how parental properties communicated to, 69
Embryology, importance of, 103
[229]Energy, bodily, use and abuse of, 153
Environment, adaptation to, necessary for health, 149
Epigenesis, theory of, 104
Esquirol on the effects of the French Revolution over children, 200
Ethics of the body, hygiene as the, 160
Evolution, a superior race produced by, 130 et seq.
Evolution, meaning of the term, 210
Evolution of the horse, 102
Evolution, study of laws of, as part of education, 125
Evolutionary theories, conflict of, with humane sentiments, 145 et seq.
Example, influence of, over children, 18
Exercise, transmission of effects of, 111
Experiment in race improvement by Noyes, 37 et seq.
Explanation of the action of hypnotic suggestion, 221

Family life, abolition of, in Plato's Republic, 10
Father rule should be combined with mother rule, 213
Fatherhood, too little importance assigned to, 212
Feeble constitutions prevent numerous offspring, 147
Fertilization essential to true germ plasm, 165
Fertilization, nature of, 166
Fison, Lorimer, 42
Fitness for survival, characteristics of, 140
Flat head Indians and heredity, 213
Flat head and round head tribes, comparison between, 213
Flat head not transmitted to offspring, 213
Flattening the skull, injurious effect of on health, 214
Flint, Dr. Austin, 88
Food, how it affects germ plasm, 173
Food (certain) injurious influence of, 94
Foot, compression of, by Chinese ladies, 20
Fosterage, 96
French Revolution, evil effects of over children, 200

Galton, Francis, 46, 50, 73, 106, 135, 170
Gemmules, essential to pangenesis, 105, 106
Generation, influences over, at time of conception, 57, 58
Generation, influences over, subsequent to conception, 58
Generative powers, debilitation of the, 84
Germ plasm and heredity, 107, 162
[230]Germ plasm, continuity of the, 73, 74 et seq., 107, 118
Germ plasm, how affected by food, 173
Germ plasm, modification of the, 76, 80
Germ variations, causes of, 81
Gestation (period of) importance of pleasant surroundings during, 93
Gestation, maternal influence during, 96
Gestation, strong emotion during, effect of, 63, 94
Gestation, uterine disturbances during, 93
Girls, physical training of, among Spartans, 14
Girls, mortality among, smaller than with boys, 136
Great mothers, how constituted, 208
Group marriage of Australian natives, 21

Hæckel, Ernst, 109
Harvey, 103
Haycraft, John Berry, 143
Head flattening, 20
Health, action of nature in relation to, 130
Health, transmission of, by thought transference, to young sick child, 224
Healthy localities enable the healthiest offspring to be reared, 210
Health, adaptation to environment necessary for, 149
Health, ideal of, 148
Health, importance of, in relation to marriage, 135, 168, 171
Hearn, Professor, 67
Hedonism, New, 48
Hereditary tastes of children, 204 et seq.
Heredities, antagonistic, of two parents, 58
Heredity among Flat-head Indians, 213
Heredity, definition of, 100
Heredity and education, 111 et seq.
Heredity, evils arising from, may be cured, 35
Heredity, exceptions to law of, 58
Heredity and germ plasm, 107
Heredity, importance of knowledge of, by teachers, 125
Heredity, modification of law of, 99
Heredity, preponderating influence of, 69, 89
Heredity, rational view of, 109
Heredity, spectre of, 127 et seq.
Heredity, theories of, 73 et seq.
Heredity, transformation of, 83
Hering, Richard, 70
[231]Hidery tribes of British Columbia, 214
High-pressure, effects of living at, 152
Hypnotic sleep, differs from ordinary sleep only in degree, 223
Hypnotic suggestion, value of, as aid to education, 216
Hypnotism as suggestive therapeutics, 214
Horse, evolution of the, 102
Human selection, plans for, 135 et seq.
Human kind, regarded as a whole, should be benefited by our conduct, 211
Human race, further improvement of impossible, if marriage relation be regarded only from standpoint of sexual indulgence, 210
Humane sentiments, conflict of, with theories of evolution, 145 et seq.
Husband and wife, tendency to resemble each other, 89
Huth, A. H., 42
Hygiene, modern, as opposed to natural selection, 142 et seq.
Hygiene, as the ethics of the body, 160
Hygiene, promises of, 158 et seq.
Hygienic laws, punishment for infraction of, 161
Hygienic surroundings, importance of, 139
Hygienic training, value of, 151

Ideal of Health, 148
Idiots, education of, 25
Illustrative cases of prenatal influence, 60 et seq.
Imagination, effect of, on unborn offspring, 55 et seq.
Improvement of race. See race improvement.
Incas of Peru, consanguineous marriages among the, 23
Income, bodily, importance of living within, 152
Individual, the, as the beginning and end of the race, 50
Individuality, development of the, 126
Infanticide among Spartans, 15
Infanticide, former general prevalence of, 19
Infanticide in Plato's Republic, 11
Infanticide not morally permissible, 24
Inheritance of acquired characters, question as to the, 71, 73, 77, 79, 90, 109, 111 et seq.
Inheritance, organic, wonders of, 101
Injuries during life, transmission of, 79 et seq.
Injury to health through flattening the skull, 214
Instinct, explanations of origin of, 121
[232]Instincts of the race for children, loss of, 208
Instruction and education, difference between, 210
Intelligence affected by head flattening, 214

Jacob, rods of, 56
Jeune, Lady Mary, 47
Jowett, Professor B., 25 et seq., 34

Krafft, D. Von Ebing, 82, 84, 91

Lamarck, 111
Lamarchian theory of transmission, 213
Language, not transmitted to offspring, 119
Leeuwenhock, 103
Limitation of offspring, 179 et seq.
Locust, egg-laying instinct of, 123
Luxury and parentage, 208
Lycurgus, marriage regulations of, 13 et seq., 22, 27
Lyman, Dr. C. W., on treatment of a baby, 185 et seq.

Man, variations undergone by, 138
Man, practical superiority of, over animals, what, 210
Manufacturing life, unhealthiness of, 152
Manufacturing mills, deterioration caused by, 158
Marriage, consanguineous, ideas as to, 21, 42
Marriage customs among Spartans, 18, 19
Marriage, early, disadvantages of, 137
Marriage, importance of health in relation to, 135
Marriage, regulations as to, in Plato's Republic, 22, 25
Marriage of weak and worthless, 137
Marriage, a sacred state, 52
Marriage of chastity, disposition spiritualized by, 210
Marriages of affection and passion, difference between, analogous to that between education and instruction, 210
Mason, Dr. R. Osgood, on beneficial effect of hypnotism in education, 215
Maternity, avoidance of, 208
McGee, Dr. Anita Newcomb, 37
Memory, endowment of reproductive cells with, 70
Memory, improvement of, by hypnotic suggestion, 210
Mental dullness, curable by suggestion during hypnotic sleep, 215
[233]Mental emotion of mother, injury to unborn child through, 200
Mesmeric sleep, effect of suggestion during, 214
Mesmerism, now known as hypnotism, 214
Method to be employed by parents for using suggestion in child training, 223
Microbes, selective action of, 143
Mind of operator, state of, necessary to successful suggestion, 224-5
Modification of certain bones through sitting, 116
Modification of the organism during descent from first ancestors, 71
Modification of sense of touch, 114
Modification of toes, 112
Modification of the whale, 115
Molecular structure of sexual cells, 110
Monogamy, return to, by the Oneida Community, 40, 41, 53
Moral nature, growth of the, 146
Mosaic regulations as to unclean animals, 63
Motherhood, highest, war an enemy to, 204
Motherhood and degeneracy of the breasts, 208
Mothers, not peculiarily the divinely appointed teachers of children, 212
Musical talent, not transmitted to offspring, 120
Mutilations, not transmissible, 119
Myer, Prof. Frederic W. H., on hypnotic suggestion, 221

Natural selection, 9, 115, 138, 142
Natural selection, always operative, 147
Nature, action of, in relation to health, 130
Nerve cells, constitution of, alterable by hypnotic suggestion, 222
Nervous system, debilitation of the, 84
Night terrors cured by hypnotic suggestion, 220
Nipples, deformed, common occurrence of, 209
Nisbet, J. F., 90, 92
Non-nursing of children a sign of degeneracy, 208
Normal conditions only should be transferred by hypnotic suggestion, 225
Nose molding, 20
Notes, 199 et seq.
Noyes, John Humphrey, 37 et seq.
Nucleus of cell, essential to reproduction, 167
Nutrition, action of, on germ cells, 151
Nutrition (arrested) organic effect of, 77

[234]Obedience the basis of education among the Spartans, 15
Offspring, effect of alcohol on, 171
Offspring, effect of consanguineous marriage on, 42
Offspring, influence of locality on health of, 210
Offspring, injuriously affected by sexual excess of parents, 211
Offspring, inception of, the starting point of stirpiculture, 52
Offspring, limitation of, 179 et seq.
Oneida Community, 37 et seq.
Ovum, 163 et seq.
Ovum, the beginning of animal life, 101, 163
Ovum, developmental tendency of the, 110
Ovum, effect of gestation on the, 102
Ovum of different animals, apparent similarity of the, 163

Paget, Sir James, 148
Pain, prevention of, in surgical operations, 214
Pangenesis, experiments in, 106
Pangenesis, theory of, 75, 105, 109
Panmixia, theory of, 78
Paper mill (New England), 154
Parentage and luxury, 208
Parentage and war, 199
Parentage, responsibility in, 49, 181
Parentage, Plato's restrictions on, 11
Parentage, sacredness of, 93
Parents, how to make use of suggestion in the training of children, 222
Parents, organic growth of, injuriously affected by sexual excess, 211
Parental life, influence of, over offspring, 95
Perfectionists of the Oneida Community, 37 et seq.
Phillips, Wendell, 128
Physical culture, 160
Physical training of girls among Spartans, 14
Physical weakness may be associated with mental greatness, 34
Plato, Republic of, 10 et seq., 25
Plutarch, 13, 16 et seq.
Poisons, actions of, on the sexual cells, 91
Poverty, obstacle of, to production and training of the young, 203
Preference, as exhibited among animals, 131
Preference, as exhibited among men, 133
Preference, first principle of sexual selection, 131
[235]Prenatal culture, 55 et seq.
Prenatal culture, illustrative cases of, 60 et seq.
Prenatal influence, 112
Prenatal influence in telegony, 85
Prenatal influences, cases of, 204 et seq.
Principles on which sexual selection is based, 38, 131
Progress in organic life, 9
Promiscuity regulated in Oneida Community, 37
Promiscuity regulated in Plato's Republic, 11
Prostitution, camp life a school for, 202
Psychical diseases, heredity of, 82 et seq.
Psychological laws, uncertain effect of, 68
Psychological research, laboratories for, 160

Quatrefages, M. de, 59

Race (human) deterioration of the, through hygienic action, 143 et seq.
Race, improvement of the, aim of, 36
Race, improvement of the, based on spiritual sympathy, 58
Race improvement, experiment in, of the Oneida Community, 37 et seq.
Race improvement, failure of compulsory attempts at, 27
Race improvement, Grecian methods for, 10 et seq.
Race improvement, Grecian methods not suited for modern times, 24
Race improvement, natural factors in, 10
Race improvement, State aid to, 37, 53
Race should be thought of before ourselves, 211
Reproductive function, difference in exercise of, by animals and man, 210
Responsibility in parentage, 49, 181
Ribot, Th., 57, 68, 83
Romanes, G. J., 28, 73, 85, 87
Ruin of countries by the burdens of war, 203

Sacredness of parentage, 93
Saint-Hilaire, Geoffroy, 68
Sampson, mother of, 172
Science of true living, hygiene as the, 160
Scottish Co-operative Wholesale Society's manufacturing mill, 156 et seq.
[236]Selection, artificial, by man, 9
Selection, individual, by Noyes, 38
Selection, natural, see "Natural selection."
Selection, sexual, see "Sexual selection."
Selective action of female animals, 28 et seq.
Selective action of woman in marriage, 43 et seq.
Self-control, importance of, 96
Self-consciousness, excessive, cured by hypnotic suggestion, 216
Self-development, 48
Sense of touch, modification of, through use, 114
Sex-instinct, 51
Sexual cells, 162
Sexual cells, acquired powers of, 110
Sexual excess injuriously affects both parents and offspring, 211
Sexual impulse, gratification of the, consistent with the development of the highest mental qualities, 212
Sexual selection, 27 et seq., 131 et seq.
Sexual selection, action of, among primeval men, 179
Sexual selection applicable primarily to male characteristics, 30
Sexual selection by women, effect of, 44 et seq.
Sexual selection, influence of, 31, 33
Sick child, transmission of health to, by thought transference, 224
Sire, previous, influence of, on subsequent progeny, 86 et seq.
Sleep, ordinary, differs from hypnotic sleep only in degree, 223
Smith, Sidney, 121
Sobriety, importance of, in relation to offspring, 91
See "Alcohol."
Soldiers demand gratification of their passional natures, 202
Spartans, marriage relations among, 13 et seq.
Special aptitudes of child determined by prenatal influences, 204
Spectre of heredity, 127 et seq.
Spencer, Herbert, 4, 77, 78, 85, 87, 112, 115, 149, 169, 181
Spermatozoon, 162
Spiritual nature, appeal to, in hypnotic suggestion, 221
Spontaneous thought transference, 224
Standing armies, crushing burden of, 203
State, aid of the, to race improvement, 53
State, children regarded as belonging to the, 10 et seq., 22
Stirpiculture. See "Race, improvement of the."
Stirpiculture, meaning of, 10
Stirpiculture, good air and water as factors in, 175
Stirpiculture, Noyes' experiment in, 37 et seq.
Stirpiculture, starting point of, 52
[237]Strength as necessary as tenderness to bringing up of children, 213
Struggle, sexual selection through, 132
Studious habits transmitted to children, 205
Subliminal self, orders conveyed to, by hypnotic suggestion, 222
Suggestion as an aid to child training, 214, 221
Suggestion by parents to children for educational purposes, 223
Suggestion during mesmeric sleep, bad habits cured by, 214
Suggestion during mesmeric sleep, beneficial effect of, over mental dullness, 215
Suggestion, hypnotic, influence of, in developing self-control, 219
Suggestion, hypnotic, method of, employed by Dr. R. Osgood Mason for educational purposes, 215 et seq.
Suggestive therapeutics, 214
Superiority of offspring, where limited, 184
Surgical operations, prevention of pain in, by mesmerism, 214
Survival of the fittest, 9
Survival, what constitutes fitness for, 141
Sympathy, spiritual, as the basis of race improvement, 53

Taxation, burden of, created by war, 203
Telegony, 85 et seq.
Temper, bad, cured by hypnotic suggestion, 217
Tenderness to be combined with strength in bringing up children, 213
Theoretical baby, 185 et seq.
Thought transference induced artificially in hypnotic state, 224
Thought transference, nature of, 224
Thought transference, transmission of health by, to a young sick child, 224
Timidity cured by hypnotic suggestion, 216
Toes, modification of the, in man, 112
Touch, modification of the sense of, 114
Training of children aided by hypnotic suggestion, 221
Training of children, Plutarch on the, 16 et seq.
Transformation of heredity, 83
Transitory states of parents, effect of on offspring, 59
Transmission by mother to child of aptitude for hard work, 207
Transmission by mother to child of artistic and literary tastes, 204 et seq., 207
Transmission by mother to child of taste for study of natural history, 206
Transmission by mother to child of taste for surgical nursing, 207
[238]Transmission of acquired characters. See "Acquired characters."
Transmission of effects of exercise, 111
Tylor, E. B., 64, 67
Twins, resemblance of, 90

Unborn children injured by war, 199
Unborn children, interests of, 199
Unfit, elimination of the, 139
Unicellular organisms, 109
Uterine existence, disturbances of, 58, 68

Vaccination as a preserver of weak constitutions, 143
Vitality, surplus, production of offspring depends on, 169

Wake, C. Staniland, 21, 42, 66
Wallace, A. R., 44, 136
Wallace, Alfred Russell, on prenatal influences, 204
War and parentage, 199
War, effects of, on civilization, 199
War, effects of, on unborn children, 199 et seq.
War, enemy to the highest motherhood, 204
Weber, Professor, 114
Weismann, Professor, 72, 74 et seq., 78, 107, 118
Wet nurses, use of, accompanied by physical weakness, 208
Whale, modification of structure of the, 115
White race, superiority of the, due to consciousness of duty towards the race, 211
Wolf, Caspar Frederick, 104
Woman, condition of, among Flat head Indians, 213
Woman, first duty of, 47
Woman not superior to man, 212
Woman, selective action of, in marriage, 32, 43 et seq.
Women incapable of love inferior as mothers, 208
Women more numerous than men, 136
Women, preference for certain characteristics in men, 133

Xenophon, 15

Zeigler, Professor, 81, 91

[admin]

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:

The following corrections have been made to the text:

Page 19: visited her "with great caution and apprehension"[quotation mark missing in original]

Page 25: "that the difference between men and the animals is forgotten in them."[quotation mark missing in original]

Page 62: The Philosophical[original has Philosphical] Journal for October 5, 1895

Page 66: come to console him [original has extraneous quotation mark]for the pain

Page 82: distinguished psychiatrist, D. Von Krafft-Ebings[original has Kraft-Ebings]

Page 84: inconsistency in desires, sudden and variable will."[quotation mark missing in original]

Page 104: develop[original has devolop] other organs than those like the ones in which it was formed

Page 109: theories of heredity—Hæckel's[original has Heckel's], for instance

Page 112: without the transmission[original has transmision] of the effects of the use

Page 141: to give continuous[original has continous] food, warmth and protection

Page 164: the ape, the dog, the cat or other animal."[quotation mark missing in original]

Page 164: clear, round germinal vesicle[original has vescicle]

Page 167: they completely[original has competely] efface themselves

Page 176: often of an unusually[original has unsually] cheerful and hopeful disposition

Page 180: quoted Grant Allen as favoring abstinence[original has abstainence]

Page 182: must bring decay and ultimate extinction.[original has comma]

Page 199: children, both born and unborn.[period missing in original]

Page 200: capable of resisting the intense excitements[original has excitments]

Page 200: dimmed by the relation of such occurrences[original has occurrencies]

Page 203: Is this not a grievous[original has grevious] burden

Page 206: [original has extraneous quotation mark]Mrs. B—— says: "I can trace

Page 207: cloth of gold roses and bougainvillea[original has bougianvillea]

Page 210: only 17,314 out of 100,000 died.[original has comma]

Page 213: mind as well as heart,[comma missing in original] vigor as well as sympathy

Page 217: gruffly[original has grufly] remarked that I had rumpled his hair

Page 217: suggestions have not been repeated since May."[original has extraneous quotation mark]

Page 226: number "200" is below the entry for "Air" in the original, but it belongs to the entry for "Allen, Joseph A.", and has been moved accordingly

Page 228: page numbers for the entry on Darwin have been put in numerical order

Page 228: Eimer,[original has period] Dr. G. H., 71, 79 et seq., 90

Page 230: Hæckel[original has Haeckel], Ernst, 109

Page 232: Inheritance of acquired characters, question as to the, 71, 73, 77,[comma missing in original] 79

Page 232: Krafft[original has Kraft], D. Von Ebing, 82, 84, 91

Page 232: Leeuwenhock[original has Leeukwenhock], 103

Page 233: Jowett[original has Jewett], Professor B., 25 et seq.,[comma missing in original] 34

Page 233: Mason, Dr. R. Osgood, on beneficial effect of hypnotism[original has hynotism]

Page 233: Myer[original has Meyer], Prof. Frederic W. H., on hypnotic suggestion

Page 235: Quatrefages[original has Quartrefages], M. de, 59

Page 235: Race improvement, natural factors in, 10[original has 1]

Page 235: Saint-Hilaire, Geoffroy[original has Geoffory], 68

Page 238: Transmission[original has Tranmission] of acquired characters