A LECTURE ON MENDELISM 



It is never easy, and sometimes impossible, to explain 

 the facts of any science without using its technical language. 

 For technical terms used by scientists are not, as is 

 commonly supposed, arbitrary conventions designed for 

 the exclusion of the layman, but are really abbreviations 

 and simplifications which enable the student to handle in 

 single terms complicated sets ot ideas and associations. 

 I will, however, do my best to avoid these technicalities 

 and will only use them when their content has been made 

 clear by the course of the narrative. 



As Darwinism is the theory of the origin of species 

 which takes its name from Charles Darwin, so by Men- 

 delism we mean the biological theory of heredity first 

 propounded by Mendel. 



Gregor Mendel was born on the 27th July, 1822, at 

 Heinzendorf in Austria. His parents were peasant farmers. 

 They were enabled to send him to Vienna to pursue his 

 studies, and there he took a University degree. When 

 twenty-one years old he joined the Augustinian Order, and 

 three years later was ordained priest. Soon afterwards he 

 removed to Brunn, a few miles north of Vienna, and here 

 he taught natural science in the Realschule from 1853 to 

 1868, when he was appointed abbot of the Monastery. 



During the years he was teaching science in the 

 Monastery School at Brunn, he spent a great deal of time 

 in his little garden, working quietly, patiently, and alone, 

 engaged in his favourite hobby, the cultivation of the edible 

 and the sweet pea. He made careful observations, and 



