The Saint Paul globe., 1904-10-24
WORDS OF WISDOM FROM THE PULPIT
SAYS HRFDITY IS
A FALSE DOCTRINE
DR.. S. G. Smith insists Man
Can be Master of all
Possibilities

Schools are good, but they are not
ali important" declared DR.. S. G. Smith,
pastor Of the Peoples church. in the
course of a lecture delivered last even
ing at his church upon What Man
Can Do With His Inheritance 1t was
the second lecture in a series concerning
sHeredity'
'ToIa man that wants to amount to
anything DR.. Smith continued, schools
are OF little Importance.
I, sometimes hear it said Of a man.
What splendid fellow he would have
been if only he'd gone to college But
let me tell you if he isn't a splendid fell
low now, no college could have made him
one
There was Elihu Burritt. He was
merely a blacksmith. Yet he learned a
new language every year and continued
to do good blacksmithing. The fact is
we'd all learn much more than we do,
college or no college, if we weren't so
lazy. Weshaye had every. chance. We
have been alive-thats our chance. But
we like to loaf through this world in
stead of living through. it.
HChfldren<vveii Born
Nearly eyety child is vel! enough born
physically. To what I said upon that
statement by Dr. Chaplin of the post
graduate hospital, New York. He said,
not long ago, that he had investigated the
cases Of f. 500 children, patients at his hos
age. They were afflicted, when received,
/ by variouss diseases. Yet DR.. Chaplin found
that all Of these children except twenty
only twenty-lIad been well born physical
ly. Half of their mothers had gone out
to work again soon after the children's s
birth, and had not properly cared for
them. That accounted for half of the sick
babies: UnWholesome tenements, defec-
tive food-tfiese accounted for the other
hall.
You all have strength enough to do what
you really wish to accomplish. The doc
tors say no invalid ever dies. She doesn't
die because she learns s3to take care Of
herself, and she finds her strength suf-
ficient.
when Emmanuel Kant was growing
UP they told MIN he had no lungs.he
ought not to study. Kant decided that
he would simply ignore the fact that he
had no lungs. He became the illustrious
philosopher that the world honors, and
he died at the age. of eighty. Herbert
Spencer was 50 delicate a boy that his
folks didn't consider it worth while to
give him a regular education. Let no
man talk about not being strong enough
to accomplish anything.
Men Who Had the Chance
Eyes. everyone Is born well enough as
to body and mind and character, even II
chance, we see, is no good. 1t is no Sc
curity. oliver Wendell Holmes said that
to train a child well you must first pick
out his grandfather. Well, We did thai
with one American. His father was
president of Princeton; his grandfather
was Jonathan Edwards. one of God S. most
perfect men. Further back, even into old
Puritan I1ngfaspd. the line, Of ancestors
on both sides Mas ednally admirable. And
the boy, with these ancestors, with this
grandfather-the boy was Aaron Burr,
who shares with Benedict Arnold the con-
spicuousIess of American infamy.
II might add examples in Edward M.
Field arrested the other day in New York,
a hopeless tramp. He was the Well-born,
admirably educated son of the late Cyrus
w. Field. And again, there was mayor
of Davenport, Iowa, the president, three
times. of the Iowa Bankers association.
His father was none other than the au-
thor of my Country, 'Tis of Thee" Ana
this son confessed a few days ago thal
he had embezzled S120,000. He was sent
to the Anamosa penitentiary.
"Iet no man sneak away winning
against God. as if there was ne chances
for him; let no man do this until he can
cry aloud to the Almighty, l have exefted
ali the powers that Thou hast given me.
eWhen was a boy every child IN our
American schools was constantly told that
he might become, great man. q con
gressman,s a president. That was Amer1-
can doctrine But this heredity' doctrine
is simply the doctrine of the foreign ar1s- m
tocracy.give9 to blood its honors The
American doctrine Is that every man IS,
or can be free, noble, eminent, the mas
ter of all possibilities. If now we have lost
that ,birtl1fight we have lost the quicken.
ing force that has made our nag resplen-
dent and our nation great.