The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-05-10
MYRON W. REEDS SERMON.
Peculiarities of Race and Of Inherited
Traits, and Their Influence on Life.
People Will Not Be Forced Violently Out of
Their Natural Ways and Tendencies
How to Train Child.

Preached in Denver. Col. May 8.
TExT-Proverbs xxi, 6. sTran up . child in the
way ne should go, and when he is old he win not
depart from it."
Gail Hamilton says that she never vet found
passage of Scripture that taught favorite doc
trine of hers that some man did not proceed at
once to say that in the original Greek or Hebrew
the passage meant something else What Solo
mon said in the text was this ''Train up child
in his natural bent and when he is old he will
not depart from it." That is train him in the
line of his faculty, his taste. Then we have
two powers working together nature and habit
Train an Indian boy in hunting and when he is
old he will hunt The natural groove is made
and training deepens it, and the wheels will not
leave the track. But agriculture is better than
hunting. Now try to turn hunting Indian
suddenly into farmer and see which is the
strongest, nature or education Doubtless what
we inherit is stronger than what we make.
Here is a German student son of student,
son of long line of scholars He can sit and
read and think philosophy sixteen hours a day,
and eat well. and sleep well, and live long.
Emanuel Kant had servant who woke him at
in the morning with the summons Professor,
the hour has come" The Professor arose and
drank cup of coffee and went to his books, and
he stayed with them two-thirds of his life, and
his life was long Now, when an American
student reads that, he thinks he can do it. After
three or four hours his head aches and he finds
that he must take to the open air. He is the son
of long line of out-of-door men--hunters, SOL
diers farmers, sailors When he was born he
did not begin living cut off from the past He
brought with him natural bent to live as his
father had lived and tochange that is a warfare
and three or four generations are necessary to
revolutonize family life. The child seems to
look back to some great grandfather often looks
like him, has his walk, gesture, eyes, tone of
voice, temperament.
One cannot wisely treat that boy as new, orig
inal thing The most of him is the old. You
must be satisfied with gradual change and not
be surprised at an occasional backset The
Mississippi river had it's own way long time.
Once in a while an engineer thinks that he will
reform the river, make it 60 straight to the gulf
But the river is willful, asserts itself, breaks
the levee and finds the old channel. Men re-
| trieve from nature swamp and build city.
But when the river takes notion to resume, to
flow again in the old wide path, then DO ats can
sail on city streets. 1t is slow job tanning
river, or tiger, a man. Every once in a
while there is return to the old way.
| girl from the country Isl taught TO cook in
| the city, becomes an expert and marries and
goes to the country again, and the next time
you see ner she Is trying Deefsteak and making
| yellow biscuit in the bad old way
Our coored people hesitate to strike out for
| themselves in the professions and the trades If
| your father had been slave and your grand
father a savage, you would hesitate to strike out
The AneloSaxon energy and power upon self
| assertion is an Inheritance Always an inherit
ance. The power of race is greater than any
| power of training. A Chippewa Indian goes to
an Eastern college and graduates, taking honors,
and the next thing we hear of him he is in moe
n.,.., -
human beast The undercurrent has seized him.
Scratch Russian and you find Tartar is a
saying by Wendell Phillips. The old savage is
close to the surface The history of the
stream that often turned backward.
They were on the march, but they
often turned backward and thought backward
and halted. 1t required years to get them away
from Egypt few days journey. It was not
even zigzag journey 1t was not seldom re-
treat. A man starts with effort, marches with
effort does good with effort but he fails simply
by letting 60, and easily drifts into the old
Steep and narrow is the way to new order of
| life. The way to old-fashioned death is broad
and smooth.
Thus it is with us. In the race most men are
| handicapped by their inheritance. Some Of us
were not born at an equal distance from good
and evil. So that it was as easy to choose one
as the other. 1t is not so. What's done we
partly may compute, but know not what's re-
sisted My four hours with the pen costs me
more than the sixteen hours of Emanuel Kant.
He was not tempted by pine woods
nothing to him. The chief regret of German
scholar was that he had not devoted all his life
| to the dative case. l am not alone in my
trouble Ihave 'heighbors who become now and
then weary OF city that is builded and long to
be in a the beginning of city as all their fathers
were. The child born in a canvas covered wag-
on never sees one without curious sympathy
and desire for new camp every night
The gyysies show US what race will do
touched by all nations and all times, but never
mingling and never changed. The children Of
Ishmael still collect toll from the children of
their fathers brother. The fire that famed in
the heart of the child banished by his father,
! but remembered by God, flames yet in the heart
of race.
1t is noticed that all Scandinavians move west
as near their own parallel as they can. They like
the pine better than the sycamore. They are
scattered thickly in Minnesota Dakota and Mon
tana. The Hollander found as near what he left
as he could and settled in the Valleys of the Hud-
son and Mohawk rivers, and there built house
like the one he remembered.
Strong is the power of the old; heavy the pull
of an Inheritance; and in training children into
men it must be remembered whose children they
are. When 80 great as Socrates, often
ridiculing the gods and idoltry of Greece all his
life his last day of life tells his friend to sac
rifce chicken to a god-I forget which one-we
! need not be surprised if now and then a poor
fcauuWlcu lSldHuer WHOSE name Is on the roll or
Christian church, goes back tosome superstition
of his fathers.
notice this tendency to revert to the old and
dismissed, in others and in myself. Make an
argument, convince man, bring him over to
your opinion; is it certain that he will stay
there? Oh, no. He will go back, and the thing
must be done over again. / have ftful affec-
ton for all the superstitions that were dear to
amy grandmother Her omens, and signs and pre-
monitions can with an effort dismiss, but they
haa I Ennx uhar,
new moon had rather turn to it with my right
shoulder / am more and more satisfied to make
haste slowly. Any attempt to be violent with
the Mississippi river will be promptly resented
The river must be slowly persuaded, coaxed
and lured to go orderly to the gulf
And so must nations, and SO must men. In
men there is no moral quality that is question
of taste; merely let the individual have his own