Has she not herself demonstrated it?
She has not. But if she would examine the child's heredity, she would
probably find a taste for music running in the germ-plasm. Her study and
practice had not the slightest effect on this hereditary disposition; it
is equally certain that the child would have been born with a taste for
music if its mother had devoted eight hours a day for nine months to
cultivating thoughts of hatred for the musical profession and repugnance
for everything that possesses rhythm or harmony.
It necessarily follows, then, that attempts to influence the inherent
nature of the child, physically or mentally, through "prenatal culture,"
are doomed to disappointment. The child develops along the lines of the
potentialities which existed in the two germ-cells that united to become
its origin. The course of its development can not be changed in any
specific way by any corresponding act or attitude of its mother, good
hygiene alone need be her concern.
It must necessarily follow that attempts to improve the race on a large
scale, by the general adoption of prenatal culture as an instrument of
eugenics, are useless.
Indeed, the logical implication of the teaching is the reverse of
eugenic.
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