Parent and Child Vol. III. | Page 2

and whole in
mind. To be given anything short of such a good beginning is to be
handicapped throughout life. Education and training cannot make up
for the defects imposed on the child by the sins of the fathers, which,
the Good Book tells us, are visited upon the children unto the third and
fourth generation.
It is a fact to challenge attention that the child is the product of the

entire past. His essential nature is comparatively fixed at birth and is
beyond the power or caprice of parent or environment to change in any
fundamental particular during the short period of a lifetime. This
assertion must not be wrongly interpreted; the possibilities of training
and education are great, but they can do little to overcome all of the
defects placed upon the child by heredity.
Science tells us that normal children are born with the same number
and kind of instincts. By instinct is meant the tendency to do certain
things in a definite way without previous experience. In all children, for
example, we find the instinct of fear, the instinct for play, for
self-preservation. These instincts begin to manifest themselves more or
less strongly as the child develops.
Children also have certain capacities. Capacity may be defined as the
possibility to develop skill in certain directions. One, for instance, may
have a greater capacity to develop musical ability than another; so with
art or business, or ability for any other work. Capacities, more than
instincts, seem to depend on the characteristics of parents or immediate
ancestors. Thus a child may take after father or mother, or grandparent
in this or that particular ability. Instincts, on the other hand, seem to be
his inheritance from the race. But whatever his gifts from parent or past
the child is born a distinct individual. This is true not only with regard
to his physical organism but in respect to his spiritual nature. The
relative strength of his instincts, added to the number and quality of his
capacities determine what is called individuality. This is what makes
each child differ from all others, and this distinctive nature cannot be
essentially changed, within our brief lives, though it does possess
marvelous powers of development and adaptation. For illustration:
Cultivation may develop a perfect specimen of a crabapple, but no
amount of careful training could change the crabapple into a Johnathan.
Likewise, no system of education can hope to change a numskull into a
Newton, or to produce a Solomon from a Simple Simon.
The first vital concern of parents, therefore, should be to see that the
child is not robbed of his sacred birthright to be well-born.
It is a matter of regret that the white race generally is such a sorry
mixture of humanity. The good and the bad, the intelligent and the
ignorant, the feeble-minded and the strong, the criminal and the
righteous, have been combined so frequently and in so many ways that

the marvel is that more of the human race are not degenerate as the
result of contamination. Since the great characteristic of heredity is to
breed true and thus perpetuate its kind, and since training and education
must take the individual as he is, with only limited power to change his
intrinsic nature or to develop any capacity not present at birth, it
becomes a matter of serious importance that parents do all in their
power to guide properly the mating of their children. The teaching of
the Gospel on this point is most significant.
Heredity determines to a great extent the kind and the nature of the
individual, and thereby sets limits, which the environment may not
overcome. Among these limitations are the following:
1. The relative strength of instincts.
2. The number and kind of capacities.
3. The form, size and quality of bodily organs.
4. Susceptibility to, or power to resist disease.
5. The possibilities of mental attainment.
6. The possibilities of emotional and spiritual response.
7. The possibility to execute undertakings, to control situations, and to
govern self as well as others.
Heredity also endows a person with his peculiar temperament, with his
good or bad looks, and with the chief components of what is called
personality. On the other hand, training and education have almost
everything to say respecting the relative standing of the individual
among the members of his kind--whether or not he shall be a blighted
or a perfect specimen. A fine, sweet, juicy crabapple is more desirable
than a scrubby, diseased Jonathan.
It is the province of training and education to take the individual as he
is born, and endeavor to make of him a perfect specimen of his kind.
"A child left to himself bringeth his parents to shame." If left alone or
improperly trained, a child is almost