270 



MENTAL AND PHYSICAL RESULTS. 



reached at 14 or 15, the average age of reproduction is at 32 or 33, 

 and, among the healthy individuals, the average length of life is 

 60 to 70. The first point of attack is to increase the average age of 

 reproduction by discouraging very early marriages and teaching 

 the older individuals that their best children are produced com- 

 paratively late in life. With the child produced, the next step is to 

 encourage him in physical and mental activity. At this point comes 

 the test of parents' good sense, for nothing can be more vicious 

 than to push the mental development at the expense of the physical. 

 The two should go together, and if anything the physical should 

 be in advance of the mental because, by its nature, the mental de- 

 velopment is slower than the physical and is dependent upon it 

 for the length of time it is continued. A precocious child is an 

 interesting object, but using him for display and flattery is a pro- 

 cess of injuring him and killing his children. 



The remark of Oliver Wendell Holmes to the effect that a 

 man's education should begin with his grandfather is literally true, 

 and should be extended to include both grandfathers in their early 

 childhood. If it also includes a considerable education accumulated 

 by the great-grandparents, then the son will become a man of great 

 mental power, and the amount of mental power will be proportional 

 to the accumulation during these three generations. As great ac- 

 cumulation is the result only of long time, this means that we must 

 have functional activity accompanied by late, reproduction. Men 

 of today are exerting themselves to give their sons education and 

 opportunities greater than they themselves had, and they take much 

 private satisfaction in the prospective prosperity of these sons. As 

 these sons will in due course of time feel in the same way toward 

 the next succeeding generation, it is evident that the man who has 

 his children's happiness at heart should aim at his grandchildren 



