Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1906-07-12

tOo many CAuCeTS among your OnceS-
tors, l shall not recommend your pro-
posal. You must not only submit to a
rigid physical examination Of your own
lungs, but you must also testify con-
corning the lungs OF your father and
grandfathers.' Why will we not be as
rigid in dealing with our own physical
health and In recognizing our own
physical limitations az are the life in
surance companies when we come to
them for insurance.
When we examine the records, of
your family we find that several rela-
tves have died Of CONSUMPTION. Tho
mother had 1t before you were born.
For years you have had a weak throat
and have been kept in the house every
winter for months on account df Il
cough. Now, what is the use of trying
to live in New England or In Chicago
or Minneapolis! What is the use Of
your taking clcrkship in dark store,
out of the sunlight, where you have to
be housed day in and day out? Why
not go to Texas or Florida or Colorado
or California, where you can work and
live out of doors all the time? Or per-
haps your ancestral weakness is found
in the digestion. You inherited n weak
stomach from your father. What are
you doing for it? Are you dieting
yourselfi Do you take care that you
have the proper kind of food to eat and
perhaps your ancestral weakness is a
weak nervous system. Do you see that
you cease to work at the right time
and go off regularly and systematically
to rest? We can poohpooh all we like
at our ancestors. but some of their
bodies. with all their physical strength
and weaknesses. are reproduced in our
own. Whose son art thou thou young
man" Were YOU we'll born physical
ly? If you were not we'll born, are
you guarding against the physical
weaknesses you inherited from your
father and grandfather and reat-great-
grandfather?
Another Kind of Inheritance.
But l take a step further in my sub
.Lct and assert that we inherit our an
cestors' mental acumen as we'll as their
strength Of lungs and stomach and
heart and liver. We inherit the gray
matter in our brain as well as our
depth of chest and cearness Of vision.
We inherit the ability Of our minds to
think and to reason as well as the con-
formation of our craniums. within the
dome of which that brain is protected
and thinks and plans and studies the
problems Of life. We recognize the in
hertable qualities of the mind in which
the lower orders of animals are pro-
to grant that man inherits his mental
acumcn also?
You can take one Of the most ordin2-
ry animals, if you WILL away from his
parents when he is very young and
never let him associate with his kind,
and vet that animal will develop the
mental characteristics of his family,
not one member of which, perhaps, he
has ever seen since he was n few
weeks old. Some years ago a friend
was talking to a professor of one of the
New England colleges. lie said, II do
not believe all this stuff told about
beavers being able to build dams" The
few weeks later he sent his skeptical
friend a little baby beaver, which he
had bought from a hunter. This bea
YER became Il tame pet in the family.
The beaver. if rightly domesticated, be-
comes as lOvable as q little dog. All
went quietly for time. The little baby
beaver did not seem to have any desire
pail was put In the back kitchen. No
sooner did the little animal see it than
he ran out in the yard and brought
back n chip in his mouth and began to
build a dam. The skeptical friend of
the professor came in and saw the
creature at work. He ordered the pail
to be left just where it was and kept
full Of water. AS the water continued
to leak out Of the pail the little beaver
continued to work at his dam. And,
says the Lewiston Journal, from which
the account was taken, within four
weeks that little beaver, who had new
or seen another beaver building. con-
leaking pail.
The Theory of Mental Inheritance.
So it is with the inherited abilities Of
the human mind. A child may be taken
from his parents when young, vet that
chld's mind will to certain extent
be a reproduction of some ancestors
mind, whom he may never have seen
or heard Of This fact can be demon
more impressed with this theory Of
mental inheritance than when, some
years ago, was studying the statis-
tics and the records of some of our
insanity experts. DR. Hammond tells
us of one family record which he in
vestigated. \ man had three children.
One night while taking n warm bath
the father committed suicide by cutting
his throat with n razor. Time passed
on and the children grew up to mSn-
hood and wOmanhood. When the eldest
boy reached the age at which his father
died he killed himself in the same way.
At the same age the second son killed
himself with razor in warm bath.
At the same age the only remaining
child, Il daughter, committed suicide in
the same way. And, stranger still, the
only child Of the daughter, at about
the same age. killed himself with
razor. Dare any one affirm that the
suicidal tendency of this father was