among vegetables, fruits and domestic animals, and this appalling degeneracy among men? Love of money and pleasure explains the one; man’s fallen condition explains the other. Dollars and pleasure in one; sacrifice, manhood and womanhood in the other. =Heredity versus environment.=--If there is nothing in heredity, and all in the environment, given the same environment, the offspring from the vicious horse will be as easily broken and be as safe as the offspring from the docile horse; the offspring from the horse that can make a mile at best in six minutes can be trained to trot as fast as the offspring whose parents could make a mile in less than two minutes. My contention is that the same intelligence that has produced the beautiful fragrant rose, the splendid vegetables, the luscious fruits and our present improved varieties of domestic animals, can produce similar improvements in the human family. =Heredity applied by the early Romans.=--In the early history of Rome, custom and law made it a special honor to be a Roman mother. She was surrounded by examples of courage, bravery, strength, power, heroism and purity. Special homage was shown her on the streets, at the arena, and when viewing the marching victorious armies. Such treatment and such environment made it possible for the Roman mother to become a real help in making Rome the mistress of the world. Had this courtesy, gallantry, manly attention, respect and reverence for girlhood, womanhood, wifehood and motherhood continued, Rome might never have fallen. Have we the gallantry, courtesy, respect and reverence for womanhood as in former days? A quarter of a century ago it was indeed a rare thing that a man would be so thoughtless as to smoke or swear in the presence of a woman; now it is a very common occurrence. =Plato’s views.=--Plato, a heathen philosopher, born more than two thousand years ago, who never heard of the Bible or the Savior, made a careful study of the laws of heredity, and for the improvement of men suggested laws that would do honor to our day. In his Republic he suggested that parentageable married people be prohibited from the use of wine. Wine included all alcoholic drinks. He also suggested that the inferior classes should be restricted in marriage and that marriage should be encouraged among the superior classes. Under the teaching of Plato, Lycurgus, in his reign, assuming that children were more the property of the nation than of their own parents, sought to have all children well born. In two hundred years that small nation is said to have produced twenty-eight of the master minds of the world. =Genius is hereditary.=--Aristotle’s father was a scholar and a philosopher. Beecher’s father was a scholarly preacher. William Pitt’s father at the age of twenty-seven was at the head of the English government. Lord Bacon’s father was a great scholar and statesman. Darwin was the product of several generations containing a number of geniuses.