332 Kansas Academy of Science. 



The inheritance of physical characteristics has long been a 

 matter of common observation. Little use has ever been made 

 of this knowledge of physical heredity except in cases where it 

 may be tribal or racial. In one other field, however, the shape 

 of the skull has been taken to furnish a clew not only to the 

 line of parental inheritance but also to the character of the in- 

 dividual. Most people judge of the abilities of strangers by the 

 shapes of their heads, as they are thought to show in a general 

 way the shape of the brain within. This method of determin- 

 ing character, when carried beyond its scientific bounds, led to 

 the temporary establishment of a pseudoscience known as 

 phrenology. Quacks practiced it, and it soon fell into disre- 

 pute; but the writer of this paper wishes to testify that the 

 elder Fowler gave him a character from the shape of his skull 

 and face which was wonderfully true to life. 



In more recent years the brain itself has been studied in a 

 scientific way and the entire surface of the brain has been di- 

 vided into areas having specific functions. Those areas which 

 control the activities of muscles have been pretty definitely 

 established, and so have likewise been located the areas of cells 

 which organize the percepts of some of the special senses. 

 There are, however, in each square inch about one million nerve 

 cells, most of which are functional. At least two-thirds of the 

 cells in man's brain (quoted from "Hall's Adolescence," part 1, 

 page 109) have nothing to do with the organs of sense or with 

 the muscles, but are concerned with reason, science, judgment, 

 moral and esthetic feeling, etc. Many of the areas, therefore, 

 have functions whose nature can, at the present state of our 

 knowledge, be conjectured merely ; and the same likewise may 

 be true of many of the cells in the areas whose functions have 

 been determined. 



Man's nervous system is first a hollow tube made from a fur- 

 row invagination of the ectoderm of the embryo along the back. 

 Secondly, there appear five successive enlargements of this 

 tube near its front end. From the walls of these enlargements 

 are developed the basic ganglia of the brain and the cranial 

 nerves. From the front enlargement bud the hemispheres of 

 the cerebrum. At birth the cerebral hemispheres are ready for 

 use in meeting the diverse conditions of the child's environ- 

 ments. The hemispheres continue to increase in size and depth 

 of convolutions till the age of forty or fifty. The brain cells in- 



