ACQUIRED CHARACTERS 159 



of this sort. ]Miss Vicari' has carried out for two 

 years a careful set of experiments with mice, extend- 

 ing over four generations. The records of each indi- 

 vidual and its pedigree were kept. The outcome 

 shows that no such effects as those reported hy Paw- 

 low appeared. INIacDowelP also carried out at Cold 

 Spring Harhor extensive experiments on the possi- 

 hle effects of alcohol in inheritance as tested by ability 

 to learn a maze, and, as a control, kept records of 

 related rats that had been trained by the same tests 

 used for the alcoholics. His data, recently published, 

 show no improvement in the offspring of trained 

 individuals over those not trained. Halsey Bagg^ has 

 published significant data on mice tested in a maze, 

 data that cover three generations, and here too there 

 is no evidence of improvement resulting from 

 training. 



It may be objected that the methods employed 

 were not the same as those used by Pawlow, and, 

 that we must wait for his evidence. This is not to be 

 denied; but, on the other hand, the American data 

 warn us not to generalize as to the inheritance of 

 training. Our human experience, too, teaches cau- 

 tion; for how simple would our educational questions 

 become if our children at the sound of the school bell 

 learned their lessons in half the time their parents 



2 Science, Vol. LIX, 1934, p. 303. 



3 Science, Vol. IJX, 1924, p. 30-2. 

 ^Archives of Psychology, Vol. XXVI, 1930. 



