PRENATAL TRAINING
=One-half trained before birth.=--This chapter will be devoted to the
training of children before they are born. It is believed by some
students of eugenics that heredity is fully as potent as environment and
that a child often receives one-half its training before it is born.
Oliver Wendell Holmes often said, “A child’s training should begin with
his grand-parents.” The proverb, “Train up a child in the way he should
go and when he is old he will not depart from it,” to be proven to be
absolutely true, must include both prenatal and postnatal training of a
child. In other chapters reference is made to what children may inherit
from their grand-parents and parents. In this we shall refer to the
influence of parental conditions at the creative moment, and the mental
and moral influence of the mother during gestation.
=Transmission of acquired characteristics possible.=--The transmission of
fixed characteristics is accepted by all. The transmission of acquired
characteristics is quite generally accepted. The materialistic student
does not accept it, claiming that the only relation between the mother
and the child is that of nutrition. We admit that the nervous system of
the mother is not connected with the nervous system of the child, but we
insist that “the blood is the life.” The mother’s physical, mental and
moral life is in her blood. Through her blood the mother furnishes the
child not only with air, water and food, but with life. In the chapter,
Reproduction and Heredity, we explained how the blood is affected by the
transient mental states. Love and anger, joy and fear, grief and
jealousy all change the character of the blood and influence the vital
energy. The new psychology is rapidly demonstrating that one mind may
influence another independent of physical communication. By one or both
of these methods, acquired characteristics of the father and mother are
transmitted to their children.
=Drs. Fowler and Cowan.=--Fowler says, “All existing parental states are
stamped on the offspring.” Dr. John Cowan says, “The fundamental
principles of genius in reproduction are that through the rightly
directed wills of the father and mother, preceding and during antenatal
life, the child’s form of body, character of mind and purity of soul are
formed and established. In its plastic state during antenatal life, like
clay in the hands of the potter, it can be molded absolutely into any
form of body and soul the parents may knowingly desire.”
=An example.=--The origin of the Setter, Pointer, Hound or Shepherd dog
will illustrate the transmission of acquired characteristics. The
peculiar characteristics of all these dogs were once acquired. For
example, some hunter observed that his dog would “set” or “point” when
game was located by the sense of smell. This hunter encouraged his dog
in the practice of this characteristic. He knew that some of the
offspring of this dog would tend to do the same thing. By breeding with
a view of developing a variety of dogs with this characteristic we have
the Pointer dog.
=The father should co-operate.=--While the father’s direct hereditary
influence over his child ceases at conception, his responsibility for
what the child receives up to its birth is fully equal to the mother’s
responsibility. He can help or hinder the mother in her work of prenatal
culture. Where the husband fails to supply his wife with all that is
necessary to her health, strength, mental and moral activity, and
happiness, he becomes largely responsible for the bad effects on the
child.
=The order of training.=--The prenatal culture received by a child grows
out of the physical, mental and moral states and activities of the
mother during gestation. The physical organism of the child forms
first. The brain, in which the mental and moral natures are to reside,
develops last. This would indicate the periods when greatest stress
should be placed upon the physical, mental and moral training of the
child. The physical outlines of the body first become organized during
the first four or five months, then the brains and nervous system.
=The mother’s preparation.=--The physical condition of the child at birth,
well formed or deformed, healthy or unhealthy, strong or weak, will in
no small way be determined by the mother’s being provided with plenty of
nutritious food, pure air and water, pleasant exercise, and such
clothing as will give the body perfect freedom and comfort. The mental
and moral tendencies and capacities of the child will depend much on the
mother’s continuing the advice given in the chapter on Parental
Preparation.
=Inventive genius.=--During a lecture course in a western city, a young
machinist called me into his shop and showed me three inventions he had
patented and a most intricate piece of machinery that he was then
working on. He was only twenty-two years old. He and his parents had
often wondered why he was the only member of the family, on either side,
as far back as they could trace, with an inventive turn of mind. Under
my lectures the parents had solved the mystery. Ten or twelve months
prior to the birth of this young man, the father had worked on a
prospect or invention for several weeks with all the enthusiasm of
anticipated success. He laid the matter aside and the very fact of his
once being interested in an invention had seemed to fade from his
memory. The father’s intense mental interest during those weeks so
influenced his life-giving blood that he was able to transmit the
hereditary gift of inventive genius to his son.
=Two girls.=--I am intimately and personally acquainted with a family
where there are two girls. Prior to the birth of the first the mother
kept house, did light work, read the best literature and was systematic
in her devotion. In case of the second girl, the professional life of
the father had changed and this made it necessary for the mother to be
guest and hostess of many social functions. The parents had made a study
of the laws of heredity and in both cases tried to apply these laws. The
children are now thirteen and fifteen. They are obedient, intelligent,
and religious, but the different environments of the mother are fully
registered in the children. The first has strong business tendencies, is
an all-round student, but limited in her social gifts; the second one
takes to art, elocution, music, has a fine memory which enables her to
advance well in all her studies, and she can entertain anything from a
baby to an old man or woman.
=Golden hair.=--In a Missouri town a mother invited me into her husband’s
store and gave me her experience. From her early teens she had
entertained a wish that should she ever become a mother, her child might
have golden hair. When she discovered that she was to be a mother she
asked her husband to get her two pictures--one to be the picture of a
perfect boy, the other, the picture of a perfect girl, each to have
golden hair. While in St. Louis purchasing a stock of goods, he secured
the pictures desired. She placed them in her room where she could
frequently see and admire them. She called my attention to the dark hair
of her husband and self, then, proudly, to the golden hair of a
five-year-old son.
=Testimony of a doctor.=--At D----, Mo., an old physician told me of a
family in his practice where the wife had been married twice. She and
her second husband have black hair. The first child born to the second
marriage had red hair. The doctor had a way of accounting for the red
hair of the child to me that was not satisfactory. I said, “Doctor,
which of the two husbands was the superior?” “Oh,” he said, “there was
no comparison, the contrast was so great. The first husband was in every
sense a very superior man and the second one was very inferior.” Then I
replied, “Prior to the birth of the red-haired child the mental pictures
of the two men were constantly in the stream of mental consciousness.
The mental picture most conspicuous and most admirable was the first
husband.”
=The effects of a mother’s dishonesty.=--I have studied a number of
kleptomaniacs. In almost all cases, where facts could be obtained,
dishonesty was found in one or both of the parents. I studied a case in
a Kentucky town. The mother would sit up until her husband had retired.
Then she would slip a small amount of change from his pockets. This was
continued during gestation. When the girl, born under these conditions,
was eighteen years old, she could not keep from stealing money, jewelry,
and other things she desired. She was never arrested. The parents would
pay for or return what she had stolen.
=The effects of a mother’s anger.=--While preparing this book for the
printers, I am in a Missouri city, where I have become personally
acquainted with the following incidents: A wife, thinking she had passed
the “change of life,” was much surprised and greatly disappointed when
she found she was again to become a mother. Her love for her husband
turned to hate. The period of gestation was one of regret,
unpleasantness and anger. From birth her child was uncontrollable.
Teachers could not manage him. He was a source of danger on the
playground. Neighbors would not allow their children to visit him. When
he was fourteen he tried to kill his mother with a butcher knife. A
year later he assaulted a visiting pastor. When he was angry he would
froth at the mouth and scream as a madman.
=A born criminal.=--At the close of a lecture on heredity, a reliable and
aged doctor told me the following incident: “When I was a young doctor,
a father came for me to call to see a sick member of his family. His
little girl met us at the front gate, threw her arms about her father’s
legs and looked wistfully into his face. He picked her up in his arms,
carried her into the room and while I looked after the patient she
caressed and kissed her papa. The brother, some two years older, had
found his sister’s paper dolls and was tearing off their heads with a
vengeance. Looking up, he noticed the pet cat entering the room. Leaving
the mutilated and scattered dolls and seizing a long splinter from the
wood box, he caught the cat, and holding it to the floor with his left
hand, he tried to cut the cat’s head off with the splinter. Soon the dog
entered; releasing the cat, he stood by the side of the cringing dog and
was trying to cut his head off. When my services were finished, the
father followed me out to the front gate and asked me whether I had
noticed the difference in the children. I told him I had. Then he
explained that the little girl was wanted in the home and the boy was
not. I lived to see that boy sentenced for a term of years in the
penitentiary for a crime he had committed.” Many suicidal and homicidal
tendencies are received in this way.
=Lasciviousness transmissible.=--No morbid conditions are so fully and
generally transmitted as are the results of uncontrolled sexual desire
among married people. Most children are the result of uncontrolled
desire and their prenatal rights are not respected. This explains much
of precocious sex awakening in childhood, the stormy period of
adolescence and the fearful wreckage of virtue in youth and middle life.
We have inherited from our ancestors and are transmitting sensual
tendencies to our children. We can never solve the problems of social
vice until the initial of childhood is intelligently planned for,
prenatal rights are respected and the child given proper sex
instruction.
=We are slow to learn.=--“Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make
you free.” Even the wisest and best of the human family are slow to
learn this truth, and were it not for the consequences of long practiced
errors, we should perhaps never learn some truths. We are learning
slowly that sexually exhausted fathers and mothers do not parent
superior children. This is causing thousands of thinking people and
conscientious parents to inquire for the truth that will bring freedom
from sensual slavery.
=Sexuality and sensuality.=--Sexuality, or the sexual instinct, is one
thing, and sensuality, or sexual perversion, is another. One is
God-given and God-honored; the other is a human product resulting from
bad heredity, a false education and a misuse of the sexual function. The
first is to be appreciated, the second to be suppressed, and, as far as
possible, eradicated.
=Vitality determines results.=--Man has a three-fold nature; physical,
mental and moral. In this life these natures are related and dependent.
The sexual instinct has its seat in the physical nature, but in its
functions it is closely related to the mental and moral. Whenever the
sexual life is misdirected the mental and moral natures suffer. The
sexual nature produces life--physical, mental and moral. It is by
restraining this life force, this psychic force, this vital energy,
within the body, and learning to direct it properly, that physical
health and strength are attained and maintained; that intellectual vigor
and brilliancy are realized; and that our emotional nature is developed
in its expressions of tender feelings, purest love, truest sympathy, and
passionate interest in the welfare of our fellow men. No one can have
intellectual and moral development or enjoy a high degree of
intellectual and spiritual life, if the sex function is abused. Parents
with strong, healthy sexual natures parent the most perfect children.
=Young married people should understand sexology.=--Thousands of young
married people have never received any instruction from books, parents
or doctors regarding correct sexual relations in the married life. Many
of these have learned from sad experience that marriage does not mean
unrestricted sexual liberty. Many who have sought the needed information
from friends and books have been confused by conflicting opinions.
The husband and wife who desire to be anything, physically, mentally or
morally, must retain in their bodies as much as possible their sexual
energy. In this is found the elasticity and strength of the muscles,
versatility of the mind, strength and vigor of the constitution, which
lend an indefinable charm to the masculine and feminine graces.
All sorts of drugs and contrivances have been used by many married
people to dodge the natural consequences of the sexual relations. Every
attempt of this kind has resulted in some form of physical, mental or
moral injury to those who have tried it, and it has strewn their pathway
with a horde of physical weaklings and moral degenerates. All preventive
and abortive methods, drugs and contrivances cannot be too severely
condemned. Legitimate indulgence in the marital relation is allowable
only when the act can be made a complete one; when, should conception
occur, it would be a welcome result. An occasional union between husband
and wife, if prompted by pure love, is not necessarily injurious or
morally wrong. But when indulged in, it creates an unnatural desire and
substitutes lust for love.
=G. Campbell Morgan= says, “Animalism has been for ages the curse of the
marriage relation.” Seventy-five physicians of New York City signed the
following statement: “In view of the widespread suffering from physical
diseases and moral deterioration inseparable from unchaste living, the
undersigned members of New York and vicinity unite in declaring it as
our opinion that chastity, a pure and continent life for both sexes, is
consistent with the best conditions of mental, physical and moral
health.”
=The Wesleyan Methodist= says, “The open and absolute assertion that every
wife has the absolute right to determine her relationship to motherhood
may make trouble, but it is the kind of trouble which must come in some
homes before wifehood becomes anything more than a form of the basest
kind of slavery.”
=Dr. Winfield Scott Hall=, in Reproduction and Sexual Hygiene, says,
“There is another sacrifice, if it be so called, which the husband is
called upon to make during the pregnancy of his wife; namely, to abstain
absolutely from sexual intercourse. All other animals observe this
period of continence. Nature demands that man observe it. The author
submits this question to all fair-minded men; is it not due the wife
that she be not asked to satisfy the recurring sexual desires of the
husband during the period when her life and its energies are so sacred
to the race, to society and to the family? The author submits this
question because some men are known to transgress this law of nature.”
=Prof. N. N. Riddell= says, “The present ethics of marriage licenses that
which degrades the affections and destroys the possibilities of harmony.
The abuse of the generative function is the chief cause of domestic
inharmony, divorce and shame, inherited lascivious tendencies and the
vices and crime which follow. Three-fourths of the race have their
origin in uncontrolled desire, while less than one-half of the remainder
are as well-born as they might have been.”
=A suggestion.=--The author would suggest that the reader pause one moment
before he criticises or rejects the opinions of the great and godly men.
What right has a married man to preach, teach and demand continence
among young people, his sons and daughters, if he cannot practice
self-restraint on a level with the savage and the lower animals? The
violations of the laws of sex are the chief causes of human degeneracy.
Where married people have been falsely educated in the idea that
marriage means unrestricted indulgence and under this delusion have
created unnatural demand, a horde of evils will follow. If this
unfortunate class care only for a selfish pleasure, the children will
follow each other closely and will receive a poor heredity. If they use
preventive means to restrict the size of the family, the few children
born into the home will receive an unfortunate heredity. Excess in
marriage impoverishes the body, mind and soul and unfits for true
parentage. Every device used to prevent conception or to destroy
unwelcome life will injure the parents and the occasional accidental and
unwelcome child will receive a most unfortunate heredity.
The mental and moral states, as well as the physical condition of the
parents, for months before and at the initial moment and during
gestation, must necessarily become a part of the child.