The education of the child should begin two hundreds years before it is born. - Oliver Wendell Holmes.
We are apt to think of this science as modern. On the contrary it is as old as the hills. It has been the subject of discussion and law enactment in every civilization the world has known. Holy Writ is replete with reference to its laws, culminating in the solemn warning, "The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children even unto the third and fourth generation." In his work, "The Model Republic," Plato advocates the mating of the great and noble strains as often as possible;
and the mating of their opposites rarely if at all.
The investigations of Galton, Davenport, Goddard and others, amply prove the importance of careful mating if the offspring are to possess the first and inalienable right, i. e. - to be well born. The astounding record of criminal and pauper families-the Jukes, the Israels and others, with their thousands of depraved, feeble-minded, prostitute, pauper progeny - must impress all thinking persons with the importance of legal interference in regard to the propagation of unfit strains of humanity.
Two methods for the accomplishment of this purpose have been advocated. Segregation and simple methods of sterilization which in the male at least, are not necessarily permanent, as by a simple operation the parental function may be re-established.
However, the problem is a complex one not easily solved; but the general concensus of opinion among those most capable of judging is that both methods, together with a general eugenical education of the normal and intelligent people, will be necessary before we stem the tide of production of the unfit to any appreciable extent.
Normality. - Compare the family history of the Jukes or Israelis with that of another American family of which it can be truly said that from the time the original couple landed in America until the present, not one case of criminality, prostitution or other form of degeneracy has appeared among its members, while many have filled with honor the highest positions in educational, religious, political and business life.
The inspiring message of Eugenics is, that the virtues as well as the sins of the parents are inherited by the children. Every struggle to overcome defects of character or weakness of body; all earnest self discipline and noble endeavor, bless not only the individual, but entering into that mysterious something we call inheritance, strengthen and perfect the offspring.
The Lamarckians and Weismannians have not yet settled the great question of transmission of acquired characteristics; but I heard Luther Burbank declare that all characteristics are transmitted whether it takes one generation or a hundred. Professor Alpheus Hyatt of Boston, believed in the transmission of acquired characteristics and held that the organism is plastic and irritable, responding to external stimuli by internal reactions which manifest themselves as hereditary modifications of structure As to the connection between mother and unborn child, we may safely say that if it is close enough to nourish and purify the blood of the foetus, it is reasonable to suppose that psychic impressions can also be transmitted. Tower and McDougal have shown that artificially produced changes in the environment may affect the germ cells and produce hereditary modifications of structure. Luther Burbank, the miracle-worker in the plant world, declares that:
My own observations prove that all characteristics that are inherited have once been acquired, and that heredity is only the sum of all those past experiences which, if impressed upon the environment long enough and strong enough in any specific direction will become a part of heredity itself. *** The change may come in the first generation and it may not; but patience and constant attention will finally be rewarded.
Eugenical education is necessary, not only to arouse normal people to a realization of the vital need of wise legislation and regulation of the reproduction of the unfit, but also that they may realize that even normal parents may produce degenerate children. Mobius declares that "a passing delirium in a parent may establish inextinguishable marks of degeneracy in off· spring." English scientists unhesitatingly assert that the degeneracy of the urban population in that country is largely traceable to the use of stimulants on the part of both parents prior to conception; and of the mother during gestation and the nursing period.
It is well to remember that any violent emotion, whether of grief, fear or anger, or any great exhaustion of body or mind, has a disastrous affect upon the child conceived at· that time. According to the report of a Swiss census taken some years ago, it was estimated that there were then nine thousand defectives in the institutions of that country, many of them first born children, the fruits of the two great festival seasons-the Carnival and the Vintage. At those seasons many marriages are consummated and many people, especially the peasants-use intoxicants immoderately, reveling in every manner of dissipation with the result that a large number of those so unfortunate as to be conceived at these seasons are "idiots, neurotics, inebriates -in fact, weaklings and degenerates of every description." An eminent alienist declares that "in no essential respect do we differ from the Swiss. Our data are not so exact in this one regard; but without doubt, our prisons, alms houses and asylums for the insane are full of weaklings who would have been strong, healthy men and women had their parents known when not to use alcohol." America may well take warning and resist with might and main every effort of those who are determined to re-establish the liquor traffic.