[Illustration: PLATE II. FIG. 2.--These Canadian lads are enjoying their first lessons in live-stock management. We call their conduct play, but surely no one was ever more in earnest than they.] IS THE HUMAN STOCK COMPARATIVELY SOUND? There are now among the students of the home problems many who are seriously interested in the matter of breeding a better human stock. Many noteworthy conclusions have already been reached, and ample proofs have been produced to show that the human animal follows the same general lines of evolution as do the lower animal orders. It is shown in general, for example, that little or nothing that man has learned or acquired during his life is transmitted to his offspring. That is, even though a man devote many years to the intensive study of music or mathematics or the languages, such study will not affect the ability of his child in the study of the specialized subject. The same unaffected result obtains in respect to any other form of expertness of the merely acquired sort. For example, the fact that a man through long practice becomes expert in the use of the typewriter does not affect the character of the child in respect to such ability. It is a no less difficult task for the child to learn to master the use of the typewriter keyboard. On the other hand, it is shown very conclusively that physical and mental characters inborn in the life of a parent tend at all times to be transmitted to the child, although many traits are known to be wanting in the first generation of children and to appear in the second or successive generations. According to the law of Mendel, the traits of the parents are transmitted to the child about as follows: one-half of the elements of one's physical and mental natures are inherited from his parents, one-fourth from his grandparents, one-eighth from his great-grandparents, and so on. In any given case, however, there might be great variation from this rule of the averages, just as actual men and women vary more or less widely from the average human height of so many feet and inches. There is no thought here of discussing the intricate problems of eugenics. The purpose of this brief dogmatic sketch is that of attempting to induce parents to believe that the great mass of our American-born children are comparatively sound in their physical and mental inheritances. The pathologists profess to be able to prove that nature is most kind to the new-born child in respect to inheritance of disease. In fact, it is shown that very few diseases are directly transmitted through the blood, and that many once so regarded are now found to be infectious in their natures. There is considerable indication, however, that the children of the diseased--tuberculous parents, for example,--inherit a weakened power of resistance for such disease. But this matter is somewhat foreign to our present discussion.