TWO VIEWS OF HEREDITY.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2431, 29 November 1892, Page 3

TWO VIEWS OF HEREDITY.

Bjiirnsen in his last book (says a writer in the Sydney Daily Telegraph), strikes a different note in regard to heredity from that of Ibsen. BjiJrnsen’s “ Heritage of the Kurts,” and Ibsen’s “ Ghosts,” are both pourtrayals of a modern problem. Both depict a widow fighting with hereditary tendencies in her son to his father’s excesses. But Ibsen, noble and powerful as he is, is hopeless. “It is Kismet,” he says, “ the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children,” and the children fall under the curse.” “ Not so,” replies Bjornsen, “ One inherited quality combats another.” One need not be so desponding. In the course of time all families are so mixed together that any legacy of evil, has almost always beside it a legacy of good, which may be strengthened by use. Be watchful, be untiring in effort and courage, and the evil may be so modified as to be almost unrecognisable, if not exorcised altogether. The mother in Bjorn son’s book docs not exorcise it. The boy is violent, ungovernable, halfsavage in his instincts. “Very well,” says the widow, “he shall be brou" 1 entirely with the girls ;» And the little girl; : - iised to boat ]linij a]ld hail <n(- •until lie fell in love with one of the small tyrants ; after which he used to fight desperately for her. Bjornsen believes strongly in the united education of the sexes, and full confidence between parents and children on all points. He would have every boy, every girl, know what life and its dangers mean, before leaving its mother’s knee. “ Then heredity will be revealed,” not as an iron fate, “ but a potent steram of tendency, to be curbed and guided by the power of a mother’s love.”