The Jewish child : its history, folklore, biology, & sociology / by W.M. Feldman ; with an introduction by Sir James Crichton-Browne.

  • Feldman, W. M. (William Moses), 1879-1939.
Date:
1917
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Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: The Jewish child : its history, folklore, biology, & sociology / by W.M. Feldman ; with an introduction by Sir James Crichton-Browne. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    xxiv Introduciicm Dealing with subjects Пке marriage and eugenics, heredity, racial purity and genetics, it is inevitable that Dr. Feldman should sometimes fail to carry his reader with him. He gives a full and admirable state¬ ment of the Mendelian theory, but his conclusion in connection with it, founded on an investigation by Dr. Salaman, that the Jewish type of face is a recessive character, will not, perhaps, obtain general assent. The numbers included in Dr. Salaman's inquiry are too few to justify any safe conclusion, and the decision as to whether a physiognomy was Jewish or Gentile must have been in many cases difficult and doubtful. The Kabbis are not always agreed amongst them¬ selves, so Dr. Feldman may be excused if he is some¬ times betrayed into inconsistency. He emphasizes the fact that the Eabbis, two thousand years ago, arrived at a conclusion essentially the same as that which living biologists have adopted—the conclusion that, whilst environment may have some slight effect in influencing the welfare of the child, its influence is small compared with that of heredity. It is Nature, he argues, and not nurture, that counts. But all the subsequent chapters of his book are devoted to insisting on the potent effects of a well-ordered environment on the Jewish child. He shows how nurture, according to Jewish methods, from the antenatal period up to puberty, confers, and always has conferred, signal advantages on the Jewish child, and may be instrumental in building up a vigorous and well-balanced constitution. And it is this part of his work that Avill attract most attention, and that is calcu¬ lated to make it useful. The people of this country cannot hope to share in the prepotency that Dr. Feldman claims for his race ; but they can profit by the experience