Heredity and Education. 329 



kingdom. The four animal cells next so divide as to make a 

 cube of eight cells and then these so divide as to make a sphse- 

 roid of sixteen cells, the morula stage of the embryologist. 



It would not be germane to the purpose of this paper to 

 describe in detail the successive stages of development of this 

 little embryo. We must note, however, that the life of the 

 embryo child must act in accordance with its inherited tend- 

 encies, and decide at the morula stage that it will not cease 

 its development and become, perhaps, a pandorina ; at the 

 blastula stage, and become volvox ; at the simple gastrula 

 stage and be a hydra ; at the bisymmetrical, three-layered gas- 

 trula stage and be a worm ; at the still more complex gastrula 

 stage, with body cavity, notocord and nerve cord, and be a 

 fish, amphibian, reptile, or lower mammal ; nor at the higher 

 mammal stage and be an ape; but it elects to belong to the 

 genus homo. 



As the embryo child develops from the one-celled to the 

 many-celled condition, the daughter cells take nourishment as 

 they multiply, and the embryo child, in consequence, is many 

 million times larger at birth than the original eg^ cell. The 

 cells of the embryo become specialized in form and function as 

 they increase in number, in accordance with inherited tend- 

 encies, those of like form and function clinging together to 

 form tissues, and the tissues combining to produce organs of 

 the child to be. 



The list of organs acquired through heredity before birth 

 is as long as that possessed hy an adult, but the organs are 

 smaller, and at birth nearly functionless, merely the muscles 

 and those with vegetative functions being at all active. The 

 babe before its birth has mouth and tongue, but no teeth and 

 no sense of taste ; it has nose and nostrils, but no sense of smell ; 

 it has eyes, but it cannot see, and ears, but it cannot hear ; it 

 has hands, but it cannot feel, and feet, but it cannot walk. The 

 baby has a brain with a full complement of nerve cells, but it 

 has never used them in thought, and the cells are small with 

 few or no dendrites and axones. It has a good pair of lungs, a 

 complete alimentary canal with associated glands, a heart with 

 blood vessels, kidneys and various other organs — all prepared 

 before birth with plans and specifications acquired by its an- 

 cestors, some of them millions of years before, and handed 

 down the line from generation to generation. 



