Excerpt from Report on Education, 1880, Vol. 8 Pre-natal impressions need not be of a depressing order to leave their mark. Elation of feelings or high aspirations may too impress the foetus morbidly, as well as otherwise. Example: A couple of artists marry under the most exalted feelings of their art. Their first daughter, now oet 12, is a dreamy thing, with a brilliant but vague eye, Her ordinary movement is of brushing up and away, as in the act of smoothing the tones of an oil painting; in her hands, searching for delicate contrasts, and unable of muscular exertion, her idiocy seems to be concentrated. In the process of development of this artist-couple music became the ideal, and their second daughter is extraordinarily gifted in it; otherwise an ordinary child - Later, the same elation of art-feeling soaring in a larger horizon, the third daughter is an exponent of the philosophy that all art culminates in the elevation of man himself. She, only 4 years Old, intuitively prepares her own personations of excellence in artistically studied attitudes, after hav ing arranged, on and around herself, the luxuries of the house most befitting her part; an ordinary child, too, in other respects, The impression, resented by the mother, may be transmitted to her infant, and die away or not, when he is weaned. Example: Madam R now of r1th street, New York, being alone with her sick husband in a country-house, saw, at night, somebody, wrapped in a sheet, trying to force an entrance. She, unarmed and unaided, cried out, pushed and piled heavy furniture against the door, and succeeded in repulsing the intruder. She soon after gave birth to a healthy male child, but who, at the hour at which this struggle had taken place, would scream as if in terror. At all other times he was good-humored, but no medical treatment could prevent him from awakening and screaming at that precise hour. Thishabit disappeared, when he was taken from the breast of his moth ther. Become a man, he has shown endurance and bravery. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.