The Republican., 1890-11-21

WIN w po CduSuG III all the pubic
schools. When such knowledge shall
have become universal in the country,
1t IS uncomfortable that these poisons
will be permitted to blast and blight
and destroy as at present. The law of
heredity is believed by many to be an
tagonlstlc to the theory advocated in
these papers. BY this law parents
transmit to their osterity physical,
mental and moral traits, characteris-
TICS and tendencies. Even acci-
dental deformities and appendages,
as six fingers and toes, the
appearance of peculiar excrescences
resembling porcupine quilts, the
appearance of diiferent-colored bunch
OF hair on particular part of the head
and other similar peculiarities that
have been transmitted through several
generations, illustrate the power of
heredity to mold and fashion the off
spring after the pattern of the parent.
If this be true of accidental characters,
1t is much more so of fundamental and
permanent ones. The features, shape
and movements, as we'll as mental
traits and moral feelings, are thus trans
mltted from parents through countless
generations. The acquisitiveness of
Abraham, by which he became "the
richest man of all the East" is seen in
his descendants - the Jews - to-day.
The richest family of the world-the
RothschildS-are Jews Various fami-
lies have been noted through many
generations for special ability in liter
ature, in craftsmanship, in learning, in
science, in music etc. But what con-
Germs us more in this study is the in
fuence that heredity eXerts on lon.
gevity. 1t is we'll known that many
families are almost without exception
short lived, often dying at about the
same age. Others are equally noted for
the number of very old people found in
them. There seems to be difference
in the stamina or life vigor in different
families by which some are carried
much farther along the way of life than
others are able to travel. Yet even
this difference may be the accumu-
lated results of favorable or unfavor-
able environments acting on the an
ccstors of the different families; or it
may be the result of the accumulation
or dissipation of the original life vgor
of the ancestry of the different families
by different modes of life during sue
cessive generations. There can be no
question but that diseases engendered
by the violation of hygienic laws are
transmissible to posterity; and when
the causes in which the disease
originated continue to operate in the
offspring the evil goes on with accumu-
lative force till the family Lecomes ex-
tinct. This gives an awful significance
to the declaration of the Almighty,
where he says: For l, 1.-The Lord thy
God, am a jealous God, visiting the in
iquity of the father upon the children
to the third and fourth generation of
them that hate me-" Pulmonary
phthisis and alcoholism may be named
as illustrations of diseases tranSmissible
by Inheritance which, without the most
determined resistance, go on increasing
in force and destructive power till in
the third or fourth generation they
cease only for want of victims. No more
terrible legacy can be bequeathed by
parent to his child than alcoholism. 1t
is more certain, permanent and blasting
in its effects than scrofula, syphilis or
tuberculosis, and is less susceptible of
remedy. L. j. Templin, in States
man,