12 Heredity and Child Culture 



These opinions are becoming displaced in the 

 minds of many biologists by what may be con- 

 sidered a more modern view. 



Independent life begins by the union of two 

 cells, the ovum and sperm cell, which is known 

 as conception. The influences of heredity are 

 then closed as far as this individual life is con- 

 cerned and any further influence upon develop- 

 ment must come from environment. It has 

 been well said that after conception the mother 

 is only a nurse to the child. The modern biol- 

 ogist, however, lays the greatest stress upon 

 the nature and influence of these germinal cells. 

 This germinal substance, minute as it is, as 

 distinguished from the rest of the body, is en- 

 tirely distinct, and little, if any, influenced by 

 the other tissues. A radical distinction is thus 

 drawn between the germ and the soma, as the 

 rest of the body is called. The only character- 

 istics that can be passed along by organic in- 

 heritance are such as have been contained in 

 the germinal substance of the egg and the 

 sperm cell. The direct implication from this 

 doctrine is that the condition of the body as a 



