The Douglas independent. [volume] (Roseburg, Or.) 187?-1885, 1883-07-21


Why their name is legion. A treatise on
the neurotic disorders now makes one of
the largest works in a physicians IL
brary. It is an age spendthrift alike in
brain and material. OF the heat and
power that have been slowly accumu-
lated IN the coal measures through the
cons of geologic time, which would last
with careful consumption for myriad
generations, we take per cent. for our
purpose, sending the remaining 90 per
cent. to be dissipated in warming inter-
stellar space. To the charge of wasteful
expenditure, modern science answers that
future generations can make available
the energy of the tides and keep warm
by electricity stored up in reservoirs
whose feasibility is even now being de-
monstrated. They will need it, for the
ruthless destruction of the forests will
not even leave them the luxury of a
wood fire. Yes, power is convertible
into everything short of mind, but that
doubt. The "Promethean heat" once
exhausted, the vital energy of race de-
stroyed, science, that tells us SO much.
knows Of no way to restore it, and his
tory points us only to the Huns and
the Cloths.
The danger to our civilization to-day
lies In the direction Of nervous exhaus-
ton. know that those who believe that
we are just on the dawn of an intellect
ual and material millennium will smile
at this, and they will tell YOU
that never in the history of
the world was there higher
manhood, or time when the individual
man was so grandly cared for and had
such possibilities as at present, The
world. In it's successive epochs of civil
ization, has always shown q elimination
OF prosperity and an intellectual bios
soming just before its decline. Witness
the Augustan era and that age of gold of
Spanish conquest and renown. This is
the age of brain; the marvellous discov
cries of science are utilized to intensity
oar struggle for wealth, for vantage
ground, to make all the universe tribu.
tary to the little span of our human life.
The luxuries of the last generation have
become the necessities of this; wealth is
only relative, and power never brings
content; there is constant increment of
strain, and woe to the brain that goes
halt or manned into that battle.
Do you say this is the mere vapary of
an alarmist, the Cassandra-like ory that
finds no believers? Ah, but while it was
in the infinite DEGREES that Cassandra
should not be believed in that fated citv.
none the less did the divine aflatus com.
pei her to prophesy, none the less were
her forebo1ings true. Do not under
stand me to mean that our school educa-
ton Is responsible for all this; no. not
even for any considerable part of what
we are pleased to call the spirit of the
times; but what do say is that it is the
duty of the teacher, instead of drifting
with the tide and accepting the tendeno
c1es OF the age as something inevitable
and not to be overcome, to stand up in
the dignity of his great Office. and of his
manhood, and call q halt to this on.
rushing madness, and to so instruct the
coming generation, the youths who shall
take our places, those who ssshall he
kings hereafter" as to lead them into a
"more excellent way
In truth, We are sponsors for the fu-
ture as well as possessors of the present.
and are morally bound to transmit this
earth, which is ours to-day and the viQor
OF this human life, which for span we
hold, unimpaired to those who in the
endless procession shall come after us. as
the miller may use the water in the river
to turn his wheel and pass it on to an.
other, but has no right to divert the
channel or poison the stream.
This brings me to what I have to saw
on heredity, subject which concerns
you as educators in the broadest sense.
not OF children alone but of communi.
ties. just now, for the purposes of a
certain trial, the newspapers, those blind
oamsons IN the cause of popular educa-
tion, have given out that there is no such
thing as hereditary disease, that the
most eminent experts have so stated
Well, what my brethren who stand awav
up at the head of the class did saw. try.
ing to be very exact in the use of Ian.
guage, feeling that they were under
oath, was, that the tendency to INSANITY
was hereditary, not the disease itself. |
The rose by any other name"-but in |
common parlance we say, and properly |
say, hereditary disease; and where a
great truth is involved We cannot afford |
20 be misled by any su btleties of exact |
definition. And here take occasion to |
'ay, In answer to this newspaper dictun,
mat the hereditary character of insanity |
8 perfectly well established fact in
medical science, and is recognized as
'uch by the profession, and that. |
'ctlng as the remote cause, hered.
tary predisposition has prob
bly, more to do with the
!evelopement of insanity to-day than all
he assigned immediate causes put to-
ether. Visiting the iniquities of the
athers upon the children unto the third
nd fourth generation" is not a mere
letaphor of oriental language, it is a
act; 1t was true three thousand years
go, it is true now. We say this child
oes not learn because he has no head.
ut the real trouble is the father was
cephalous before him? what q thousand
ltles such father ever had q son: the
'ol-k1ller was an important agent in the !
Wight dawn of civilization which we !.
Mss at Its MONDAY. From Lycurgus to .
nrlstlanlty is an immense advance: he :
aret for the race and forgot the individ. !.
al; but may we not be in danger of for .
citing the race entirely in our care for !
le individual? Christianity came down /,
'om heaven with its divine mission TO :.
le poor and the outcast, and its promise
that the meek shall inherit the :.
arth. but should we not draw the line |
detectives, and stop the intermarriage
the insane?
Impress upon those who look to Won
u instruction and guidance that, while
their tender care and sympathy for G
lese unfortunates, they will do we'll to