A few minutes later my attention was called to the rattling of the gate. Turning, I beheld two fine specimens of physical manhood and an equally fine specimen of physical womanhood. On closer acquaintance I found they were leaders in all their classes, leaders in the best circles of society and leaders in church work. Dinner over, the young people returned to college; dishes were cleared away, and father, mother and I sat in front of that same cottage home; the conversation naturally drifted to heredity and to the young people. The father humbly but proudly said, “Professor, if wife and I should sell all we have, including our wardrobe, we could not raise $1,500. We have never been ambitious for broad acres of land, a palatial home or heavy deposits in the bank. We have had just one all-controlling purpose in our married life, and that has been to give to the world a family of children who will honor us after we are dead, be a blessing to the world and glorify God.” My reply was, “You have certainly erected to your memory three splendid monuments, monuments far grander than if you had worn out your muscle and brains in the production of sordid silver and gold and had left to your children a round million, and they, out of their gratitude, had erected to your memory a marble shaft piercing the very sky.” I said it then, I have repeated it many times since, “I wish I had the money to pay the transportation and hotel bills of this family on my lecture trips and at the close of a lecture on heredity, could call this family to the platform as a living example of intelligently applied principles of eugenics.” If the initial moment of every child born into this world were intelligently planned for, its prenatal rights respected, its advent warmly welcomed, its environments wisely chosen and it were early led to accept Christ, every family would be equal to this family, and the next generation much superior to this. Will you, gentle reader, model your ideals after this home, teach these truths to others, and teach them to teach these truths to still others? If you will, then you will have done your part towards the world’s redemption. CHAPTER XLV CHOOSING A COMPANION =Indications of constitutional degeneracy.=--Feeble-mindedness, epilepsy, insanity, scrofula, cancer, rheumatism and gout are the outward indications of constitutional degeneracy and inherited tendencies which are often transmitted from one generation to another of a deteriorating family. These conditions in nearly every instance were due either to strong drink or to sexual sin. In most cases consumption may be added to the above list. =Choosing a degenerate companion.=--If you and your family have a clear record of physical, mental and moral health, you can form habits of vice or marry into a family addicted to vice or into a family constitutionally degenerate and hand down to your posterity hereditary conditions and tendencies.