The Dalles daily chronicle. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1890-1948, 1895-12-03
At tho msthodIst church Last Night.

Prof. N. N. Riddell's lecture in the
N. E. church last night on "Heredity
ard Prenatal Culture" drew crowded
house. The professor is one of the
pioneers on the American platform in
handling this theme before mixed
audiences and is doing untold good to
humanity by popularizing subject on
which knowledge is of such vital impor-
tance to the welfare of the race.
The speaker in opening dwelt on the
great Importance of men of science turn
ing their attention to the study of hered-
ity as applied to man. It is the opinion
of reformers and men who have studied
the needs OF suffering humanity that we
will never be able to deal with crime
and insanity till we turn our attention
to the study of those laws that tend to
make man better born. Every person is
what they are from two causes: first,
from inherent tendencies, and second,
from education and force of environ
ments. These are both of vital impor-
tance to the welfare of the individual,
and neither can ever take the place of
the other. To be we'll born is to receive
the greatest gift within the power of
man. Great men are born so or they
never become great.
A scientific explanation was given of
the gradual unfoldment of the child's
brain from single cell up to the COM
plete and complex brain. The active,
strong characteristics of the parents be-
came the native marked traits in the
child's character. This law has received
careful attention by many with results
most satisfactory and have given us
poets, musicians and orators who were
born SO. If men would only give more
attention to these things, we would not
have go many children that are mere
ciphers with the rims rubbed out.
Many apt illustrations were cited show
ing why people were what they were.
The mother of Napoleon had a strong
love for battle and went into the thickest
of the fray and most bloody conflicts
and before Napoleon was 10 years old he
was found on the battle field. Italian
beauties nearly all conform to the one
ideal type, the Madonna, likeness of
which occupies the walls of nearly every
home in Italy, has made vivid impress
sion on the brain OF the mothers of this
fair land, with the result as we know on
the offspring. The time will yet come,
the speaker thought, when none will be
allowed to marry until they are educated
on the laws of heredity, nor will any be
granted this privilege who have criminal
or idiotic tendencies.
In closing the speaker urged the i'm
portance of life of social purity as
equally binding upon man as woman.
The young man can go astray, SOW his
wild oats and when he has disgraced
everything that is pure and holy in his
manhood and then repent and society
will give him its sweetest smile. Il
woman is treated with severity when
she has made a mistake, then let hel
brother suffer a like condemnation. i
two sinners have gone astTay let then
suffer like condemnation at the hands
of society, as they must at the judgment
bar of God, until the kind hand of mercy
shall reclaim them both.
Tonight the professor will lecture OF
"Love, Courtship and Marriage" anc
close his address with a double wedding
For Home Seekers.