The Washington times., 1923-09-20
Does Environment Shape
Destiny?
Mr.. LaMarche Wants to Know

LanGarche who lives 90 White street. COhoes X,
question asked by the people that first
settled Valley thousands of years before Mr. La
Marche born It has been asked by As1atc, Greek,
Roman, French, German and English philosophers.
surroundings and the circumstances Of
fe realizing destiny in spite of them? Or are we the
products of surroundings and circumstances7 Eow much
anything do receive at birth that cannot be taken away
from us by environment?
Napoleon who wasted little time reasoning and
queny died on the Island ST. Helena brushed the question
aside.
Circumstances make circumstances said he And he
did, for awhile Then England made circumstances for him.
put him Of her ships put him the island and
he died there
Everything influences u.s. every ancestor going back hun
bred thousand years. millions Of grandfathers and grand
mothers Every thought influences us merely
vronment and ancestry but detail Of ancestry and
every detail Of environment.
II Won had taken the famous French scientist Madame
Curie iscoverer Of radiu when she baby and put
her live little ice hut among the Esqumaux in the
Attic Circle keeping her there all her life she would
naturally have discovered radium Her environment would
have made it IMPOSSIBLE.
II on the other hand you had at the same time taken little
Esqumaux girl baby moved that infant to Poland given It
exactly the education that Madame Cuie got from her
learned father and had then sent the little Esqumaux lady
Paris married her the scientific that Madame
Curie married. that Esqumaux substitute for Madame Cue
would NEVER have discovered radium
It would probably have been difficult to make her under
stand what the word raum meant after HAD been
discovered.
The surroundings Of Esquimaux the environment
ice would have stopped the greatness any individual
in history probably But likely that Of all the Esqumaux
living not under possible circumstances with any
possible environment would have been tenth rate In
civilizations records. #
Imagine chickens egg and ostrich egg side by side
the ostrich egg in the sand in hot desert You will have
ostrich Put the chicken egg in cold storage and you viii
hayvn 0nly an inf 0unelQf
But nothing that you could possibly do to the chicken egg
would make it break open its she'll and become young
ostrich And nothing that you could do to the ostrich egg
would keep it from being ostrich it matches at all
What you get BEFORE birth necessarily infinitely more
important than anything you get AFTER BIRTH although
absolute lack of education opportunity for instance lack Of
the power read lack Of eyeght hearing after birth
may make useless all inherited qualities.
That ancestry is more important than environment you
Immediately admit You remember that the influence Of
cesty goes back million years And the influence Of
vironment lasts only throughout this short life
Thousands Of years ago. long before the beginning Of the
Stone Age your ancestors living in holes in
the ground platforms built the lakes hiding
swamps from savage animals At that time they
ceivng Impressions developing character courage building
up the PERSONALITY that is written the brain that you
carry around with you today.
Every race even the oced pure races represent
mixture The mixture Of America with which
we are famiar-Irsh, Scotch, English, French Italian
Spanish Russian Hungarian Jewshare nothing compared
with mixtures that have gone hundred thousand years
behind every of those mixtures human beings
have added different lot of impressions and past experiences
the human being about to be born.
Ancestry the great thing and that need discourage no.
body For by ancestry not the money
that ancestors had THINKING that the ancestors
did FEELINGS that they experienced And after
you back for three generations all ancestry
very uncertain.
This however is to be remembered AN
CESTRY. We control at least improve, environment
full grown improve surroundings especially
by better choosing Of those with whom
the books the plays the pictures with which associate
We take ourselves from cities asphalt pavements and
stone walls that dull the mind and the country
the real earth.
Provide better environment for the children without
moving. For environment chiefly MATERIAL,
The child that the pleasant smile of mother
her loving words better off than another child two