The Gospel of Heredity. TO THE EDITOR.

Otago Witness, Issue 2161, 25 July 1895, Page 59

The Gospel of Heredity. TO THE EDITOR.

Sir, — Atavism is an ugly fact. Men and women are learn ins with a shudder the truth of the words which they have so often glibly repeated, that there is a jealous God who visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation, but there is a gospel of heredity. In Bjornstjerue Bjornson's "Heritage of the Kubti," the hero comes of a line' of boisterous profligates:, wild and headstrong, though occasionally generous. His mother springs from a sounder and taner stock. Her married life only lasts long enough to enable her to realise the moral madness of her husband, when he is mercifully removed. The young widow devotes herself to eradicate the curse of the Kusts from the nature of her boy. This is the battle of her life. Her struggles with the imperious child ere vividly portrayed She conquers him by love. As he advances towards his teens she has the story ofUiis father's life told him— its violence, its vice, _its shame, its ruinwithout reserve. She trains him in her own girls' school, then sends him, frankly taught, to study in the universities at home and abroad. He oomts back to join his mother as teacher in the same girls' school. He marks his entry into office by an inaugural lecture to which par.nts only are admitted. This is really a lay sermon on Herbert Spencer's words that the most important form of knowledge which a man can acquire is the knowledge how to regulate his own life ; the next, how to regulate the Jives of tho3e that come after him. The aim of his school is, he declares, to impart this knowledge and to dispel the ignorance which is fatal. People rave about the innocence of ignorance, he says. That innocence which knows what the danger is, and has fought against it from youth up, that innocence alone is strong. All education which tends to further the object must have, as an absolute condition, full confidence between the child and its parents. What, compared to this, which really means the preservation of body and soul, are, oay, a knowledge of languages, instruction in the piano, or feimniae neatness but mere luxuries. His remedy is a knowledge, fraukly and scientifically conveyed, which arouses a holy admiration for all that is healthy, fresh, natural— a reverence for nature. This straight speech of h!s, together with outspoken condemnation of prevalent corruption in the town, creates a great storm of odium against the strange teacher and his school, but both bravely weather the storm. A peculiarly trying hour in his own life, and a much sadder experience in the life of a pupil, bring out the need of sympathy as well as science, of fellowship as well as truth, if hereditary tendencies are to be overcome. His thought of heredity had once been wholly depressing ; qow his opinion of heredity was simply this, that one Inherited quality combats another. In the course of time all families are so mixed together that any legacy of evil (which one must strive to reduce to impotence) has always beside it a legacy of good which in»y be strengthened by use. In his own family there was a pre-dispo'ition to insanity. Every caEe which be could trace showed plainly that only when the weakness which led to insanity had been allowed to increase did this infirmity break out. When this weakness was opposed by the inter-mixture of fresh blood, by education, and by self education, that person was saved for his work in life. Heredity was not a destiny, but a condition And I venture to believe that few parents can read these honest pages without feeling what a crime it is to leave their children to face in solitude and in blank ignorance the crucial crisis of youth. — I am, &c, July 13. F. F. Twemlow.