Similarly, peculiarities that seem to be wholly physical may thus be handed on from father to child—characteristic gestures with the hands, pursing of the mouth when reading, shrugging the shoulders, etc. Even left-handedness, often conspicuous as a family trait, is probably, in a certain proportion of cases at all events, the result of imitation rather than heredity. In one interesting case cited by Doctor Waldstein (“The Subconscious Self,” pp. 56-59), an English lady, Miss X——, had lost her mother when less than three years of age. A year afterward, during her first attempts at sewing, it was noticed that she was threading her needle with her left hand. This had been the habit of her mother, and Mrs. X—— herself continued throughout her life to use her left hand in threading needles, although she was otherwise right-handed. “Surely,” said she to Doctor Waldstein, “this is an example of inheritance, for I could not have been taught to sew by my mother.” When, however, he inquired closely into this lady’s mental make-up, he soon discovered that she was most impressionable, easily and unduly affected by her surroundings, full of prejudices, and given to sudden likes and dislikes. Manifestly, if in adult life she was so suggestible, she must have been even more suggestible in early childhood, and Doctor Waldstein promptly asked himself the question: “Is it not more natural to assume that the mother’s habit of threading a needle with her left hand, witnessed daily during the first three years of childhood, left its effect upon the ductile memory of the child, so that she adopted the same habit in the absence of other teaching, than to assume a needle-threading centre on the right side of the brain of this particular individual?” In view, then, of the extreme suggestibility of childhood, and in view of the fact that under ordinary circumstances the impressions most forcibly impinging on a child’s mind are those emanating from his parents, a good parental example is the first essential in utilising the power of suggestion as an aid in education. This may sound trite, but how many parents appreciate all that it involves? It means the regulation of the whole family life with the special purpose of creating for the child a ceaseless flow of suggestions which, being subconsciously absorbed by him, will give a desirable “set” to his mind. Not merely in their dealings with the child but in their intercourse with one another, with all other members of the family, even with casual visitors, the father and mother will have to be constantly on the alert to manifest only those traits which they desire to see dominant in their little one. If they wish him to be courteous, they themselves must be courteous; if they wish him to grow up industrious, they must be models of enthusiastic industry; if they wish to develop in him sentiments of unselfishness, they must banish selfishness from their hearts.