HER CHOICE OF ANCESTORS.
By Priscilla Leonard
[Priscilla Leonard, in the Classmate.] "HEREDITY makes me feel so helpless," said a little girl the other day; "for I can't help what my ancestors have been, and I have to accept the disposition and the qualities they have handed down to me. It doesn't leave me any choice, as far as I can see, as to what I can do and be." Her friend, a bright-faced young woman of the same age, looked at her quizzically. "Why, Dorothy, you've lots of choice in the matter. I reasoned that out for myself long ago, and I'll prove it to you. How many ancestors have you in, say, six generations back?" "Dear me. What a sum in mental arithmetic!" said Dorothy. "Let me see—two, then four, then eight, then sixteen, then thirty-two, then sixty-four—wait till I add up—why, one-hundred and twenty-six, I suppose. I had no idea how spreading a family tree was, Jean." "That's just it," replied Jean with a twinkle. "Out of one hundred and twenty-six ancestors, one can get a good wide range of choice. I used to be discouraged about heredity until I counted them up, and then I felt that there was safety in numbers. They couldn't all be disagreeable and lazy and ill-tempered, you see." "Of course not," said Dorothy, "but—" "But then," went on Jean, "if they weren't all full of bad qualities, some of them had to be nice, kind, upright, hard-working, useful men and women, don't you see? So I went over the list and picked out the good ones; and then I said to myself every day, I am a descendant from all these good men and women, and I inherit their dispositions and qualities to some extent, and I'm going to develop my inheritance. Sometimes it was a little hard, when grandfather's quick temper was boiling up in me, to remember that great-grandmother was the most amiable woman possible, and that I was her descendant as much as his; but I knew it was true, and so I kept my mind fixed upon it. Out of my four great-grandfathers, as far as I can find out, two were very industrious and two were extremely lazy. I don't see why heredity wouldn't make me just as industrious as lazy, and so I choose to remember the two ancestors who worked, and I try to forget the two who shirked. O, there's a choice in ancestors, my dear, and one has a perfect right to make it." Dorothy smiled. "It's a new idea, Jean," she said, " but I must say it is helpful as to the heredity problem. I've been looking at the question the wrong way. Now I'll try your way. I am going home to count up and classify my hundred and twenty-six forbears, or as many as I can find track of, and then I shall follow your example and make my choice among them." "You'll find a saint somewhere in the line," said Jean. "There always is one. My trouble about ancestors isn't that they've handed me down so many bad qualities, but they've been so good that I can't live up to my inheritance. Heredity is responsibility, my dear Dorothy, when you come to study it up." And Jean was entirely right.