The Brunswick daily news. [volume] (Brunswick, Ga.) 1903-1906, 1903-05-24


modern, of the world sprung, Mr.. Red
field proves that the exceptionally
gifted individuals of the race have
been, as rule, the children of fathers
who married late in life.
Mr.. Redfeld goes further than DR.
Holmes, and says that ones education
should include considerable amount
accumulated by ones great-grandpa
rents, and that the amount of ones
mental power will be proportional to
the accumulation of the three genera
tions.
He predicts that the race which will
in future dominate the world is that
one which can increase in numbers al
the latest average age or reproduc
ton. The increase does not need to DE
rapid, but it must be actual. Feal
need not be expressed because some
more rapidly, for when the pressure OF
population becomes greater the earlier
reproducing and less intelligent races
will give way before the stronger and
more intelligent.
To prove his case he selects twenty.
mitted to the Hall of Fame, among
them Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln
Emerson, Longfellow and many distin'
guished jurists and statesmen. =. He
finds that George Washington's father
Augustin, was thirty-eight years old
n 10 nf hi cnnJe hirtl,. hai
Augustin was born of father over
thirty-three years of age, who was the
son of a man of thirty-four
Mr.. Redfield examined the ancestry
of each of these famous men in detail
Finally, by adding the ages of their
twenty-five fathers together and divid.
ing by twenty-five, he obtains an av-
erage age of fatherhood of thirty-six
years six months and twenty-five days,
four years above that of the whole
population.
By examining the records of great
men Of all ages and times, notably
Solomon born when King David was
fifty-three; Confucius, who was the son
of man between sixty-five and sew
enty; Alcibiades, whose father was
over fifty when his warrior son was
born; Augustus Caesar, whose father
age Mr.. Redfield roughly approximates
at fifty-seven, the author proves that
the overwhelming majority of the
worlds greatest inteilects were born
of fathers of mature years.
u-tr. Redfield assumes youth,
sss;SzTTg. healthy. :ctisszr<.s 1880 tasss'
average mental ability. and 4.sss@s-@sa his
life history.
AS he approaches thirty he interests
himself more in literature, art and
music He goes to theatres and to
concerts. At thirty-five he is the en-
bodiment of artistic taste.
AS he approaches forty he becomes
more interested in practical affairs.
He begins to work for dollars, not for
fame. He looks less at the beautiful
and more at the practical and useful.
He takes an active interest in politics.
When in his fifties he has passed the
heat and passions of youth and looks
more at the moral and philosophical
side of things. Craftsmanship, the
good of mankind, engrosses his atten-
ton.
Having established this typical ia
Their, Mr.. Redfield proceeds to study
what effect the different changes in
his character as it develops will have
on his offspring produced during the
different ages. Under strict inter-
probation of the laws of use-inheritancc
we should expect the sons of very
young men to be aggressive, active
and egotistical; that children born of
fathers between thirty and forty would
show love for the poetic and the
beautiful; that sons produced between
forty and fifty would be keen, prac.
after the half-century mark would be
philosophers, moral reformers and
philanthropists.
This Mr.. Redfeld declares to be very
largely correct. He instances Arts
totle, Bacon, Buddha. Confucius,
Franklin, Leibnitz, Moses, Seneca and
Solomon as born Of philosophic fathers
all over fifty years OF age.
The keen, practical business men and
statesmen born to fathers between
forty and fifty are illustrated by Bis
mark, Canning, Carnot, Cato, Crom-
well, Gladstone, Webster, Peter the
Great and Machiavelli.
Poets, musicians and artists whose
fathers We're between thirty and forty
years of age at the time of their birth
were Bach, Beethoven. Goethe, Schil-
Ter, Shakespeare, Angelo, Raphael,
Rembrandt, Carlyle, Goldsmith and
Macaulay, while the children born of
young aggressive fathers between
twenty-five and thirty We're Alexander,
Napoleon, Charlemagne, Charles XII,
Frederick Grant, Hannibal, Pompey
and many others.
In a chapter on Degeneracy, which
he defines as "a tendency toward a
development less perfect or less adj
vanced than that which is normal or
healthy" Mr.. Redfeld declares that
degeneracy as well as intellectual
strength appears most commonly in the
children of old parents.
He cites the history OF famous fam
lily of criminals and paupers. as given
by Lugdale, that of the "Jukes." In
this case the first generation is not
definitely located, but from the second,
consisting of five sisters, born about
1910, $40 criminal and pauper descend
ants were registered within 100 years.
The history of these $40 persons is a
long, revolving record of disease, pau
perism and crime.
From the study Of these families
Dugdale drew a number of conclusions,
Of which Mr.. Redfeld cites:
Crime as compared to pauperism