y not
only degrade and ruin _themselves_, but transmit the elements of like
degradation and ruin to their posterity. This is no visionary
conjecture, the fruit of a favorite and long-cherished theory. It is a
settled belief resulting from observation--an inference derived from
innumerable facts. In hundreds and thousands of instances, parents,
having had children born to them while their habits were temperate, have
become afterward intemperate, and had other children subsequently born.
In such cases, it is a matter of notoriety that the younger children
have become addicted to the practice of intoxication much more
frequently than the older, in the proportion of five to one. Let me not
be told that this is owing to the younger children being neglected, and
having corrupt and seducing examples constantly before them. The same
neglects and profligate examples have been extended to all, yet all have
not been equally injured by them. The children of the earlier births
have escaped, while those of the subsequent ones have suffered. The
reason is plain. The latter children had a deeper animal taint than the
former."--_Transylvania Journal._

Physiologists in general coincide in the belief that a vigorous and
healthy physical and mental constitution in the parents communicates
existence in the most perfect state to their offspring, while impaired
constitutions, from whatever cause, are transmitted to posterity. In
this sense, all who are competent to judge are agreed that the Giver of
life is a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the
children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate him or
violate his laws. Strictly speaking, it is not _disease_ which is
transmitted, but organs of such imperfect structure that they are unable
to perform their functions properly, and so weak as to be easily put
into a morbid state or abnormal condition by causes which unimpaired
organs are able to resist.

My last quotation on this point is from a lecture delivered by Dr.
Warren before the American Institute of Instruction, copied into the
"Schoolmaster," a work published in London under the superintendence of
the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge:

"Let me conclude by entreating your attention to a revision of the
existing plans of education in what relates to the preservation of
health. Too much of the time of the better educated part of young
persons is, in my humble opinion, devoted to literar