160 THE CHILD AND HEREDITY 



tained that a child may inherit from vicious or dissolute 

 parents a disposition to evil. It matters not, we are told, 

 what influences may be brought to bear upon it, sooner or 

 later the original strain will manifest itself in act. The 

 vicious life breaks out in due time almost as surely as oak 

 leaves upon an oak tree. And so strong is this conviction, 

 so fully does it seem to be maintained by evidence gathered 

 from all quarters of the animal kingdom, that it has been 

 a main obstacle in the way of one of the most desirable 

 and promising of social reforms. I refer to the adoption 

 as members of well-doing families of the derelict waifs of 

 the great cities. No one can deny that our sporadic and 

 intermittent benevolences are futile for the purposes of 

 the real moral education of such children ; or that the too 

 remote care and cool affection spent upon the children in 

 poorhouses and other charitable institutions lack the re- 

 generating force of a virtuous home. Nor do I believe 

 it possible to deny that in this country and these times, 

 where the sense of pity and of social responsibility is so 

 much quickened, adoption might not be more general than 

 at any other time in the history of the world. But the 

 fear of hereditary predisposition paralyses the benevolent, 

 and paralyses their action the more, the more they place 

 value upon character. They cannot face the risk of twin- 

 ing their affections around children who may have brought 

 with them into the world the tendencies which destroyed 

 their parents. 



Nevertheless, in other departments of personal and social 

 reform the accent is laid upon the environment, as if 

 heredity signified but little. Nearly all the more important 

 public reforms are advocated from this point of view. Let 

 but the institutions of society be changed, and it is believed 



