Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1906-07-13

to live in New England or In Chicago
or Minneapolis? What Is the use OF
your taking clerkship In n 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 a weak
stomach from your father What are
you doing for it? Are you dieting
yourself? Do you take care that you
have the proper kind of food to eat and
that you masticate it very slowly? Or
perhaps your ancestral weakness Is q
weak nervous system. Do you see that
you cease to work ut the right time
and so or 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
manr' Were you well born physical
ly? IL you were not well born, are
you guarding against the physical
weaknesses you inherited from your
father and grandfather and great-grest-
grandfather?
Another Kind Of Inheritance.
But take a step further in my sub
ject and assert That we inherit our an
cestors' mental acumen as well 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 clearness OF vision.
a tr,h tho oh 81 fv..I g.
think and to reason as well as the con-
formation OF our cranlums, within the
dome OF which that brain Is protected
and thinks and plans and studies the
problems of life. We recognize the In
heritable qualities of the mind in which
the lower orders OF animals are pro-
duced. Why should we not be willing
to grant that man inherits his mental
acumen also?
You can take one of the most ordina-
ry animals, IL you will, away from his
parents when he Is very young and
never let him associate with his kind,
and yet that animal will develop the
mental characteristics of his family,
not one member of which, perhaps, he
has ever seen since he was a few
weeks old Some years ago n friend
was talking to professor of one OF the
New England colleges. He said, 81 do
not believe all this stuff told about
beavers being able to build dams" The
professor said nothing at the. time A
few weeks later he sent his skeptical
friend little baby beaver, which he
had bought from hunter. This bea-
yer became a tame pet In the family.
The beaver. IL rightly domesticated, be-
comes as lovable as a little dog. All
went quietly for time The little baby
beaver did not seem to have any desire
to build a dam. But one day q leaky
pail was put in the back kitchen. No
sooner did the little animal see 1t than
he ran out I'm the yard and brought
back chip in his mouth and began to
build dam. The slseptical friend OF
the professor came in and saw the
creature ut work. He ordered the pail
to be left just where IL 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
err seen another beaver building, con.
structed a solid dam all around that
leaking pail.
The Theory of Mental Inheritance.
So IL is with the inherited abilities Of
the human mind. A child may be taken
from his parents when young, yet that
child's mind will to a certain extent
be reproduction OF some ancestors
mind, whom he may never have seen
or heard OF. This fact can be demon
strated In many ways. / was never
more impressed with this theory of
| mental Inheritance than when, some
years ago, was studying the stats
tics and the records of some OF our
insanity experts. DIR. Hammond tells
us OF one family record which he In
vestigated. a man had three children.
| One night while taking warm bath
the father committed suicide by cutting
his throat with n razor Time passed
on and the children grew up to man
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 q razor i'm q warm bath
4 ~ s%~~ rs<<iNr NV tbG rOniy
child, daughter. committed suicide In
the same way And, stranger still, the
only csild OF the daughter, ut about
the same age, killed himself with O
razor. Dare any one affirm that the
suicidal tendency OF this father was
not inherited by the three children and
by tire grandchild? Dr. Strahan, Ia
that wonderful book entitled "Suicide
and Insanity" gives Illustration after
Illustration OF parents afflicted with
suicidal mania whose children and
grandchildren and great-grandchildren
have suffered from the same Il tai az
Fiction.
Now, IL We can inherit the rnental
weaknesses OF our forefathers we can
also inherit their mental strength. 1t is
surely something more than a coinci-
dence that we have had In our national
history statesmen and patriots whose
sons or grandsons have served their
country with the ability of their an
cestors and have resembled them In
mental caliber. The Adamses, father
and son, the Harrisons, grandfather
and grandson, In our list of presidents,
are conspicuous Illustrations. So we
have seen the Beechers produce min
listers because their ancestors were
ministers. and the Rothschilds produce
bankers because their ancestors were
bankers 1 always did admire the pol
Icy of the presidents Of the United
States, which Is to give preference
to the sons OF the noted American
soldiers when they make their appoint
ments to West Point. AS rule it Is
far easier TO make o soldier out OF .
boy whose father and grandfather were
soldiers than to make soldier out OF
| the son OF a merchant or out OF one