190 PRENATAL CULTURE. 







should be cultivated. To do this it is well to 

 devote a little time each day to planning, draft- 

 ing, drawing, tool-using, building, making, cut- 

 ting, fitting or the consideration of mechanics, 

 * machinery, architecture, literary construction, etc. 

 If the parents will study these things, and espe- 

 cially, if the mother will continue the practice 

 of them during pregnancy, the child's natural 

 mechanical ingenuity will usually be superior to 

 that of its, parents. 



Inventive genius and creative fancy are the 

 gifts of the few. Many who pass for inventors 



really have but little originality. They have the 

 Inventive t . , . . . . 



Genius* mechanical ingenuity to put things together and 



thus produce new combinations from the old; 

 but originality of conception and design is rare. 

 No power of mind is more desirable. Inventive 

 genius is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, 

 factor in the development of civilization. Take 

 out of the world the inventions of Archimedes, 

 Gutenberg, Fulton, Stephenson, Davy, Daguerre, 

 Morse, Watt, Whitney, Arkwright, Edison, Tesla, 

 Bell and Marconi, and the business, commercial, 

 social, educational, and even the religious world 

 would be at a stand-still. There is scarcely a 

 thing that we do that is not dependent upon some 

 one or more of the great inventions. 



All parents should strive to increase inventive 



in their offs P rin g- Not all > to be sure > 

 should expect, or even attempt, to produce a Ful- 

 ton or an Edison, but all should think, study, ori- 

 ginate, strive to create, to get new ideas, to 

 work old patterns into new designs, to plan ways 



