BLUE EYES OR BROWN.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1491, 13 July 1912, Page 11

BLUE EYES OR BROWN.

Many people will remember reading, some time-ago, of an experiment being tried in Russia,' where a scientist, to prove certain theories.' .of his on. eugenics, sought out couples who were as nearly rfect,! morally, mentally, and physicalas could be, and married them, with the hope. of : seeing their progeny reproduce the. virtues for which their parents were chosen.. That experiment was not quite as .successful as it deserved to be, perhaps because the man of science was years ahead of- , his time. But, America is handling eugenics'now, and in'such an. instructive wav that few can. resist becoming interested'in. it. Thereare few mothers who have not from time to time faced the mystery of inheritance .with fear. Nature works in inscrutable ways. Pot , why was it that income families' a trait would come down through years and' then, perhaps, miss a generation, only, to reappear when least expected ? ■ Naturally, a deal of superstition came to be attached to these strange vagaries of Nature. But now we know that there is'reason behind it all, and the science' of eugenics, discovered by Francis Galton, js being eagerly read and studied in all progressive countries. Eugenics explains why • some children have blue eyes and some have brown. All mothers ■ will instantly become interested in tiis phase, of the subject. Ethel C. Macomber, in the "Delineator," explains it as follows:—.

"Eugenics is still very young. But it is old enough to explain why two parents with clear .blue eyes cannot expect to have a browri-eyed, child, and why parents whose eyes are brown-may have a child whoso eyes are blue. It cau also explain why children in the same family differ from' each other and from the parents. First let it be made clear that children do not-inherit traits of any kind from their parents alone, nor, indeed, from any person.' Traits may be transmitted by parents who show no signs of the traits themselves. Tiat is because there is no inheritanoefrom'persons, but only from ,the sex germ-plasm. , Eyes are blue because they lack brown, pigment. When'a blue-eyed' man marries a blueeyed woman, the' brown pigment is entirely lacking in their germ-plasm, and hence is lacking in the germ-plasm transmitted to'their-children, and all their descendants"will have-blue eyes so long as they mate with blue-eyed people. Browneyed parents, both' of whom belong to pure brown-eye strains, will have only brown-eyed ; children. But brown-eyed parents, , each .of whom had one parent with blue eyes, will, on the average, lhavo one bltfe-eycd child to 'three with brown eyes. Thus certain proportions in hereditary tendencies are fixed. . Oiirliness and colour of hair and skin are. inherited similarly. It' is as' though all the traits !of the entire ■ lino of boCh parents were 'put into a hat," shaken up, and drawn out in Various combinations by the children." Thus it -is important that young people contemplating marriage should consider not only carefully the characteristics of each other, but'pf oaclr other's relatives as well. And the lesson for parents is not to restrict children in their acquaintanceship. At'the-mating age, give them every opportunity of seeing all kinds of young people.- For tho greater difference between the traits, affirms, the same writer; whidh they and-their friends exhibit, tho smnllor is tho chance that the samo weakness will be found in each. ■