438 THE MEANS OF PREVENTION. 



questionably going to subject their children. Were children not 

 the result of marriage, it would then make no difference. The 

 Church '•' Out-Herods Herod." Her ministers neither set a becom- 

 ing example, nor do they warn, as prophets of the true God, the 

 people of their duties in this regard. 



The purpose of marriage (natural) is to produce children. " So 

 God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he 

 him ; male and female created he them." 



" And God blessed them, and God said unto them. Be fruitful, 

 and multiply, and replenish the earth." * 



The science of parentage is an undeveloped branch of universal 

 science. It is still awaiting the appearance of its first prophet. Its 

 primers are as yet unwritten. Man scarcely knows the meaning of 

 the first letter of its alphabet. It is the science par excellence. All 

 others sink into insignificance in comparison with it. They all 

 form but stepping-stones to its development. Thousands and thou- 

 sands of years old, yet cultivated 'man does not know enough to 

 marry. The real duties of parentage are still too much for hu- 

 manity to bear and faithfully carry out. 



Physical fitness is the indispensable necessity. The " affinities" 

 (an inexact term), a matter of secondary importance. Respect for 

 each other's intellectual capabilities, and interest in the life-work of 

 each other, is a far better foundation for a true marriage than the 

 fancy mistakenly called love, which now, too frequently, leads to 

 it. In every child, soon after birth, the elements of these charac- 

 ter-centers in the brain begin to assume a certain fixity of form, 

 which, under normal conditions, gradually increase with the years. 

 This fixity in the elements of the centers referred to gives occasion 

 to the idiosyncratic ability of the individual. This point is the pole, 

 the center around which the entire personality of the individual is 

 to revolve during life. Its develojpment, the ultimo of the science of 

 parentage. The study of it, by means of its developing phenomena, 

 the so-called " tastes " of the child, the imperative duty of every 

 parent and every teacher of youth. It is the ohjective jpoint upon 

 which each parent should fix his or her attention from the day of 

 birth to that of the maturity of each child. It is the magnetic needle 

 which Nature places in each child to indicate to parents the course 

 they should pursue in the education of the child. The development 

 of this one point is not, however, the single duty of parents in di- 

 recting the education of a child ; but, like a skillful general, who 

 supports his crack corps in a desperate attack with all his other 



* Gen. i, 2*7, 28. 



