FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 167 



tioned. To it he gives thought, study, work and money. Frequently 

 men and women are more diligent to get a healthy crop of potatoes, and 

 wheat of the largest berry, apples that bear to the fullest all of sun- 

 shine, aroma and lusciousness, free from blotch, speck or worm; herds 

 that shall be of the highest type; to this the service of years are given,, 

 books are written, rules laid down, arguments and facts presented that 

 do insure deliuite results; the child alone is neglected; its nature left 

 to be regenerated by God. If more thought, study and care were given 

 to generation, there would be less need of regeneration. There is a 

 cry of anguish going up all about us. It is the cry of the child of the 

 past who is the man of today. We hear it as he reels from saloon 

 doors, in the moans of humanit}^ who have had as their heritage diseased 

 bodies and minds. We hear it in the sentence of guilty that falls from 

 jurors' lips, because there were tares sown instead of wheat by it& 

 ancestry. We hear it in the voice of her whose wages are death, be- 

 cause her father was a libertine, and we who are holier than those pass 

 by on the other side, pronouncing sentence, not knowing how fierce was 

 the struggle, and that she failed because she could not help it. Bad 

 from life's history. And the children of the future are crying: give, oh 

 give us as our heritage healthy bodies, strong minds, pure hearts, and 

 we will take care of the rest. 



Children inherit not only lands, money, position, but they inherit 

 morals and impulses, form and features, habits and tastes; yes, the 

 bodies and souls of their parents. 



What can be done to remedy some of these wrongs, or what shall 

 we do in order to begin a reformation? We might better ask, how shall 

 we give the children good breeding? We often shirk, ourselves, from 

 effort, and point to a higher power outside of ourselves that in some 

 mysterious, miraculous way shall bring order out of chaos, right out of 

 wrong. We speak reverently when we say that we are not limiting the 

 power of God. But a Divine Wisdom has laid down an inflexible rule 

 that applies as well to children as fruit. You cannot gather grapes- 

 from thorns nor figs from thistles. Men and women must study the 

 laws of life and health, and obey those laws. Their bodies and souls 

 must be disciplined wisely and conscientiously, in order that they may 

 become healthy parents of healthy children, body and soul. The pre- 

 vention of disease and crime by giving to a child a good, clean, healthy 

 birth is far more effectual than all the legislation that can be enacted 

 to the same effect. It is better to give to a child a sound body rather than 

 to make it sound after birth. Parents must exhibit a rational, loving, 

 thoughtful care in giving existence to children. They must be conse- 

 crated to the high office. Marriage must not be entered upon thought- 

 lessly, recklessly. Children must not be the offspring of chance. They 

 must be born of love and loved before they are born. Of all the sad, 

 pitiful victims of depravity, none so appeal for sympathy as the un- 

 welcome, undesired child, and of all the wrongs that can be inflicted 

 upon it in after life none can equal the wrongs done to it before its 

 birth. To be well bred is their birthright. Shall we dare refuse? If 

 the body is deformed or diseased, the mind depraved, the whole ten- 

 dency of its being toward that which is false, sinful and frivolous, it is 

 frequently laid to the door of an overburdened Providence instead of 

 where it rightly belongs, to the unwholesome and unholy lives of its 

 ancestors. 



