74 THE NEXT GENERATION 



inherited by oncoming generations of girls, this was the one. 

 Mothers and grandmothers, great-grandmothers and great- 

 great-grandmothers, back in direct line through all these 

 generations, had done what they could to compel Chinese 

 women to have small feet. And what success did they have ? 

 Each baby born in each generation had as perfect feet as 

 if no ancestral bones had ever been deformed. Moreover, 

 when those feet were allowed to grow, they became as large 

 and well shaped as if there never had been any foot-binding 

 in China. 



This illustrates the fate of acquired characters. Facts show 

 that they are not passed on. A woman may crimp her hair 

 from the cradle to the grave, but unless she marries a man 

 with curly hair, or unless there has been curly hair some- 

 where back in the ancestry of the father or the mother, she 

 will not succeed in giving curly hair to her children or to her 

 children's children. 



Other characters are acquired, too. Eyes that have been 

 weakened through overstrain ; hands calloused through rough 

 work ; faces tanned through exposure ; firm or flabby muscles ; 

 bent or straight backs; stiff or limber joints these and many 

 others are acquired characters. They can never teach the next 

 generation through inheritance. 



In the flower gardens of Japan there are trees so dwarfed 

 by human art that orange, pine, and plum are in full bloom 

 and bearing fruit when they are no more than a foot high. 

 Judging from appearances, these trees are a race by them- 

 selves, and one would expect to find nothing but dwarfs 

 among their descendants. But, strange to say, no seed of a 

 tree that was dwarfed ever grows into a dwarfed descendant. 

 Each successive generation has to be crippled and deformed 

 and compelled to stay small by the aid of man. 



