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Our Duty to the Children: 58 total pages.

children when first impressions are received, and the first tender developments of affection and intelligence ap­pear, are all full of precious opportunities. It is even known that influences affect the child be-fore his birth; yes, that the responsibility of parents goes back of this to the attitude towards good and evil which they have assumed in their own lives. Let us begin at the beginning and 4 HEREDITY inquire how heredity bears upon our duty to the children. By heredity we do not mean an arbitrary title to virtue or to sin, supposed to have descended to us from Adam. We mean nothing arbitrary nor exceptional, but simply the same kind of transmission of qualities and of traits of char­acter from parent to child which we recognize as a law of all generation. The seeds of plants and trees bring forth after their kind. When we plant wheat we know that wheat will grow, and corn from corn, and not thorns and thistles. Not only are the general characteristics of a species perpetuated in successive generations, but special qualities.

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