The Hawaiian gazette., 1910-11-29
HOW FUNDAMENTALS
MAY Be PRESENTED
Necessity Of Teaching Children
the Facts Of Life and
Truths Of Heredity.

BALTIMORE, Maryland, November
l1.-Dr. Llewellys 4. Barker, Of the
Johns Hopkins Medical school, and
chairman of the committee on eugenics
of the Medical and Chirurgieal Faculty
of Maryland, said: "The healthiest
mode OF approach to questions related
to sex is through study of plant and
animal life. The two great factors of
life, heredity and environment, can be
brought before students in a wholly
of human life is so obvious that the
principles learned win almost surely be
transferred in due time by the learner
to the human domain.
Conservation and experiment, even
if limited to few fundamental points,
will be far more fruitful than didactie
lectures. Let teachers-to-be observe for
themselves the influence of external
conditions in causing changes in the
structure of plants and animals, let
them note the responses of living sub
stances to heat, light, oxygen, food sub
stances, poisons and infectious agents,
and they will quickly realize the i'm.
portance of well.regulated environ
ment for the welfare of human life.
i
microscopically, observe the process Of
plant fertilization, and the development
of the plant embryo, or permit them to
watch frogs eggs, fish eggs, hen Is
eggs, and to follow the embryos through
their various stages and you have
chosen the easiest way to initiate them
normally into a knowledge of the mys-
te1es of sex, of impregnation and con-
= H.
! Experimental hybridizing in sweet
peas or in colonies of mice quickly
| opens the mind to the significance of
heredity, and surely nothing Us more
/ likely to awaken conscience to the duty
and privilege of the human race OF
improving the quality of the children
born than some acquaintance with the
laws of heredity, and especially with
the rules of Mendel regarding the in
heritance of particular qualities.
u "Teachers trained in biology can in
J diligently instruct pupils in personal
and public hygiene; and will do much
4 often in an indirect way, to make il
clear to children that the future of the
], race depends on the quality of the chill
dren born, and this depends on the in
herent qualities of their parents.
IL JllG ltdCHtEo III SCuOOIS hubN
that drunkards, lunatics, idiots, prosti,
} tutes, and habitual criminals are sucf
! because in the majority of instances
, they have been born with defective
| nervous systems; and if they knew thai
such drunkards, lunatics, idiots, prosti
: tutes, and habitual criminals are more
/. likely to breed their kind than to have
, healthy offspring, we should have take1
. a large step forward in that education
4 of public opinion, which will be neces
/ sary before we can pass laws which will
e prohibit parenthood to the notoriousl.
e unfit.
4 eff these same teachers knew tina
a family record of good stock on tn
e husbands side and on the wife's sid
t is the best guarantee for the birth o
Q physically, mentally and moral.
n healthy children, they could do nue.
E toward the development of that san
h opinion about marriage which those VIII
Q have the good of the people at hear
o hope may soon displace She abnorma
4 ideas now prevalent, not only amonI
: young people, but among their parents
I who should know and teach their chill
:, dren better