40 Heredity and Child Culture 



continued efforts, that measure can be trans- 

 mitted only by yourself to your descendants, 

 and whatever honor these descendants achieve 

 in the future, that honor will be your honor. '^ 



It must be confessed that a discussion on the 

 proper conditions of mating is always largely 

 academic as marriages are usually not con^ 

 tracted by reason but by passion or self-inter- 

 est. The preliminaries are approached as the 

 result of affinity or hking and not with the idea 

 of breeding in mind. As the race advances in 

 knowledge and control, however, the latter 

 will be kept more in view. After all, 

 it is what to avoid in mating that assumes 

 the principal importance. 



Some States are now beginning to require a 

 medical examination and certificate before 

 marriage is permitted. This is good as far as it 

 goes, but it must be remembered that the dis- 

 eases for which the examination is especially 

 made are not passed along by organic inheri- 

 tance. They are infections that, in an active 

 state, can be passed directly from one parent 

 to the other, or from mother to child before, 



