LWEI,LYS F. BARKER, M. D. 301 



sex, of impregnation and conception, of birth and development. 

 If the course can be extended so as to include illustrations of 

 experimental hybridizing- so much the better; observation of 

 the effects of hybridizing in sweet peas or in some colonies of 

 mice will quickly open the mind to the significance of heredity 

 and, surely, nothing is more likely to awaken the conscience 

 to the duty and privilege of the human race of improving the 

 quality of children born than some acquaintance with the laws 

 of heredity and especially with the rules of the Abbot Gregor 

 Mendel regarding the inheritance of particular qualities. 



A teacher thus trained in biology will be able intelligently to 

 instruct her pupils as to the importance of personal and public 

 hygiene for the good of society, and she will do much, though 

 often in an indirect way, to make it clear to children that the 

 future of the race depends upon the quality of the children born 

 and the quality of the children born depends upon the inherent 

 qualities of their parents. If the teachers in our schools knew 

 that drunkards, lunatics, idiots, prostitutes, and habitual crimi- 

 nals are such because in the majority of instances they have 

 been born with defective nervous systems and if they knew 

 that such drunkards, lunatics, idiots, prostitutes, and habitual 

 criminals are more likely to breed their kind than to have healthy 

 off-spring we should have taken a large step forward in that 

 education of public opinion which will be necessary before we 

 can pass laws which will prohibit parenthood to the notoriously 

 unfit. If these same teachers knew that a family record of "good 

 stock" on the husband's side and a family record of "good stock" 

 on the wife's side is the best guarantee for the birth of phy- 

 sically, mentally and morally healthy children, they could do 

 much toward the development of that sane opinion about mar- 

 riage which those of us who have the good of the people at 

 heart hope may soon displace the abnormal ideas now prevalent 

 in the matter not only among young people but among the 

 parents who should know and teach their children better. 



The Chairman: Dr. Barker mentions only the need of instructing 

 women teachers in biologic laws. All these educational efforts we 

 are considering for health and for homes reach girls and women more 

 than boys, or than men who alone are the lawmakers and the law 

 enforcers in all but five States. Wholesome scientific instruction is not 

 needed less by voters than by non-voters. One of the greatest 

 hindrances to the efforts for putting hygiene and home-making, with 

 their auxiliary sciences, biology, physics, and chemistry, on an effec- 

 tive basis in popular education is the lack of intelligent comprehension 

 on the part of those in control whose training has been narrowly 



