The Washington herald., 1919-01-24

4 disgruntled woman, on whom
! the gods have lavished their good
| gifts, Is forever complaining OF her
| kind and generous husband. her
| lovely children. her beautiful homo,
| her furniture. her automobile. her
| servants. Nothing ever quite salts
fes her.
Il should think you would be
ashamed to be so unErateful as to
| be dissatisfied with all you have.
| said a friend to her.
oh" replied the woman by way
OF excuse. Il can't help being dis
cOntented. | inherit It from my
mother. We spent our lives moving
| from place to place, and throwing
away things and buying new ones
in their place, because she was d s.
| pleased with everything as soon as
she got it l get my dissatisfied
disposition from her"
Huh" commented the friend.
why don't YOU believe II
hercdity:'' inquired the woman.
"Ccrtainly," replied tn" friend.
but believe in hcredity as a
crown OF glory and a red lantern
of warning. not as a scapcEOat, and
1 think it. a weak and cowardly
lnlIe 10 dump y bul 'N II Slli7 ~ II
on your ancestors. and hold them
responsible for your being rOtter
and a Qujtter.
The man who invented the lay
it-on-my- y-fathCr-Or-mother theory
must be the patron saint Of all the
wcakIings that cucumber the earth,
for heredity furnishes them with
blanket excuse with which they
cover up their own lack Of in
telligenCe, spinelessness. sclhshncss
and self Indulgence.
"Of course it's a fine thing to
have a good heredity, to have been
born of parents who have given you
a strong body, and a sane mind. an
eQuable disposition, the natural in
clination towards walking in the
straight and narrow path. An in
heritanCe like this is something to
thank God for, and should be an in
centive to live up to our ancestry.
But if we realize that we've got
a bad ancestry and inherit certain
moral or physical weaknesses. the
thing to do is not to suCCumb to the
situation, but to fight IL It's up to
US, you know. If you come Cf mar
row Chested race, and havN had a
grandmother and grandfather or
two. and a bunch of auntS and COuS-
ms who have died of tuberculosis
you can sit down and have the L.
B. too, or you ca nrecognlzc your
hereditary danger. and live in the
open air. and build yorself up with
good food. and finally pass away al
30 of senility
THE main thing about the hcred-
ity theory is that it sounds siren
of warning. If we know that We
are born with an inclination to fall
into certain pits it gives us chance
to watch our step, and keep clear or
the danger zone. So there is really
less excuse to be made for our eX-
hibiting hereditary faults than any
other kind of faults. We might ac-
cidentally stumble into slOughs of
which we had never heard, but we
can make no apology for wallowing
in the very ones that we have seen
mapped and charted by the members
of our family.
Take the drunkard, for instance.
How often you will hear a man say
| in extenuation of his own intemper-
ance, that he cannot help it. That
he inherited the tendency to drink
from his father, and he expects us
to pity him because he has followed
his fathers footsteps into the gut
ter.
Instead of condoning his weak
ness we should condemn him for it,
because he knew the weakness he
had to guard against, and he re-
fused to do it. Just because his
father was a drunkard was the rea-
son he should never have touched
alcohol. The danger that other
men might dare with impunity was
a deadly peril to him. and this
knowledge should have guaranteed
his safety. Insted. he makes of ii
his justification for being a sot.
"And the same thing can be said
about women and temper. Did you
ever know a shrewish woman who
didn't lay her temper on her
mother? She seems to think that
in saddling her irritable disposition
and bitter tongue on her mother
that she absolves herself from all
blame for being virago.
But she only adds to her offense.
If she knows that she has inherited
a quick temper. and jangling nerves,
and a tendency to stab with words
it is more important that she should
conquer herself and learn self con-
troll than it is to any other woman
in the world.
I It's a good thing 70 believe in