HEREDITY AND THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN.--The next question which comes up for consideration is that of the education of children and its relation to heredity. This brings us at once to the problem as to whether acquired characters are transmitted to offspring or not. If acquired characters are transmitted, the relation of heredity to education must be very close and important. If acquired characters are not inherited, then heredity and education have a very different relation. That acquired characters are transmitted has long been believed. It was the belief of Lamarck. He tried to explain the structure of the organism by this principle. The illustration of the long neck of the giraffe is familiar to every one. It originated by the constant stretching of this part to obtain food from the trees. In times of scarcity, he had to exert himself in this way still more to reach the higher branches. The young of the giraffe had longer necks than their parents because of the efforts of the latter in this way. So the keen sight of birds, it was argued, was acquired in the same manner. The hawk had to exercise his eyes most vigorously to discern his prey at a distance, and his offspring inherited this keenness of sight acquired by the exercise of his ancestors. Darwin believed that the effects of the exercise of any part were transmitted. He says: "We may feel assured that the inherited effects of the use and disuse of parts will have done much in the same direction with natural selection in modifying man's structure of body." We may say that this belief has been held by the common people, uneducated in science. They not unfrequently get at truths in a rude way long before the scientists do. Many parents tell us their children are strongly influenced by some particular occupation of the mother during pregnancy. So strong is this belief, that many mothers are in our times trying to influence the character of their unborn children by special modes of life, by cultivating music or art, or science, in order to give the child a love for these pursuits. It is by Herbert Spencer that this has been most ably presented. Indeed, he holds that there is no explanation of evolution without the transmission of the effects of the use and disuse of parts. His words are: "If there has been no transmission of acquired character there has been no evolution."