Heredity. 381 



I once heard a woman say impatiently to a petulant child, " Oh, 

 you're just like your grandfather ' : (on the father's side, of 

 course), and who could blame the pert little miss for replying, 

 " Well, who's to blame for my having such a grandfather ? I 

 guess I'm not ; I didn't pick him out ! " Of course, she was not 

 to blame, and she felt dimly the injustice of the reproof. Her 

 mother might have felt that her own choice of a husband threw 

 the moral responsibility for the child's nature partly upon herself. 



Every generation has a direct influence on three generations, 

 their own, their children, and their grandchildren. 



The old adage, " Like father, like son," has an extended mean- 

 ing. It is now said that traits of character are more often repro- 

 duced in the third generation, so the saying may read, " Like 

 grandparents, like grandchildren." 



People naturally train their children as they were trained. 

 Their children grow used to such an atmosphere. Their heredi- 

 tary nature grows into form according to their habit of life. I 

 often think a child's nature is, at first, like some of their bones, 

 in a cartilaginous state, which in time becomes bone. Their na- 

 tural tendencies, good or otherwise, harden into the principles of 

 their life, and so much depends on whether they are developed 

 rightly, left to grow wrongly or distorted by unwise pressure. It 

 is the old question: Which is stronger, Nature or Education? 

 But let me ask the question: Which is the most likely to pro- 

 duce a noble specimen of manhood or womanhood, one where edu- 

 cation has a constant struggle against nature with a possible chance 

 of failure after all ; or, one where nature and education are in 

 sympathy and work together ? 



Oliver Wendell Holmes showed his belief in the laws of hered- 

 ity, when he replied to the question, " When should the education 

 of a child begin ? " by saying, " Two hundred years before he is 

 born." 



A young lady once said, when remonstrated with in regard to 

 the questionable character of her lover's family, that " she cared 

 a great deal more where a young man was going to, than where 

 In' came from; " but it sometimes makes a deal of difference how 

 the family line is " headed." 



But, says one, " I do not believe in heredity. Look at the lives 

 of some who were of disreputable origin, surrounded with evil 

 influences, yet see what noble characters they have built up; far 

 better than many who have had the most favorable environments." 



