it
may so upset her health that her child is not properly nourished, its
development is arrested, mentally as well as physically, and it is born
defective. H. H. Goddard, for example, tells[28] of a high-grade
imbecile in the Training School at Vineland, N. J. "Nancy belongs to a
thoroughly normal, respectable family. There is nothing to account for
the condition unless one accepts the mother's theory. While it sounds
somewhat like the discarded theory of maternal impression, yet it is not
impossible that the fright and shock which the mother received may have
interfered with the nutrition of the unborn child and resulted in the
mental defect. The story in brief is as follows. Shortly before this
child was born, the mother was compelled to take care of a sister-in-law
who was in a similar condition and very ill with convulsions. Our
child's mother was many times frightened severely as her sister-in-law
was quite out of her mind."

It is easily understandable that any event which makes such an
impression on the mother as to affect her health, might so disturb the
normal functioning of her body that her child would be badly nourished,
or even poisoned. Such facts undoubtedly form the basis on which the
airy fabric of prenatal culture was reared by those who lived before the
days of scientific biology.

Thus, it is easy enough to see the real explanation of such cases as
those mentioned near the beginning of this discussion. The mothers who
fret and rebel over their maternity, she found, are likely to bear
neurotic children. It is obvious (1) that mothers who fret and rebel are
quite likely themselves to be neurotic in constitution, and the child
naturally gets its heredity from them: (2) that constant fretting and
rebellion would so affect the mother's health that her child would not
be properly nourished.

When, however, she goes on to draw the inference that "self-control,
cheerfulness and love ... will practically insure you a child normal in
physique and nerves," we are obliged to stop. We know that what she says
is not true. If the child's heredity is bad, neither self-control,
cheerfulness, love, nor anything else known to science, can make that
heredity good.

At first thought, one may wish it were otherwise. There is something
inspiring in the idea of a mother overcoming the effect of heredity by
the sheer force of her own will-power. But perhaps in the long run it is
as well; for there are advantages on the