APPLIED EUGENICS

 BY

 PAUL POPENOE

 EDITOR OF THE JOURNAL OF HEREDITY (ORGAN OF THE AMERICAN GENETIC ASSOCIATION), WASHINGTON, D. C. 

 AND

 ROSWELL HILL JOHNSON PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURG

 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS ATLANTA - SAN FRANCISCO

 MACMILLAN & CO. , LIMITED LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA MELBOURNE

 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO

 1918

 _All rights reserved_

 COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

 Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1918. 

PREFACE

The science of eugenics consists of a foundation of biology and asuperstructure of sociology. Galton, its founder, emphasized both partsin due proportion. Until recently, however, most sociologists have beeneither indifferent or hostile to eugenics, and the science has been leftfor the most part in the hands of biologists, who have naturally workedmost on the foundations and neglected the superstructure. Although weare not disposed to minimize the importance of the biological part, wethink it desirable that the means of applying the biological principlesshould be more carefully studied. The reader of this book will, consequently, find only a summary explanation of the mechanism ofinheritance. Emphasis has rather been laid on the practical means bywhich society may encourage the reproduction of superior persons anddiscourage that of inferiors. 

We assume that in general, a eugenically superior or desirable personhas, to a greater degree than the average, the germinal basis for thefollowing characteristics: to live past maturity, to reproduceadequately, to live happily and to make contributions to theproductivity, happiness, and progress of society. It is desirable todiscriminate as much as possible between the possession of the germinalbasis and the observed achievement, since the latter consists of theformer plus or minus environmental influence. But where the amount ofmodification is too obscure to be detected, it is advantageous to takethe demonstrated achievement as a tentative measure of the germinalbasis. The problem of eugenics is to make such legal, social andeconomic adjustments that (1) a larger proportion of superior personswill have children than at present, (2) that the average number ofoffspring of each superior person will be greater than at present, (3)that the most inferior persons will have no children, and finally that(4) other inferior persons will have fewer children than now. Thescience of eugenics is still young and much of its program must betentative and subject to the test of actual experiment. It is moreimportant that the student acquire the habit of looking at society froma biological as well as a sociological point of view, than that he puthis faith in the efficacy of any particular mode of procedure. 

The essential points of our eugenics program were laid down by ProfessorJohnson in an article entitled "Human Evolution and its Control" in the_Popular Science Monthly_ for January, 1910. Considerable parts of thematerial in the present book have appeared in the _Journal of Heredity_. Helpful suggestions and criticism have been received from severalfriends, in particular Sewall Wright and O. E. Baker of the United StatesDepartment of Agriculture. PAUL POPENOE. 

 WASHINGTON, _June, 1918. _

 TABLE OF CONTENTS

 PAGE

 PREFACE v

 INTRODUCTION BY EDWARD A. ROSS xi

 CHAPTER

 I. NATURE OR NURTURE? 1

 II. MODIFICATION OF THE GERM-PLASM 25

 III. DIFFERENCES AMONG MEN 75

 IV. THE INHERITANCE OF MENTAL CAPACITIES 84

 V. THE LAWS OF HEREDITY 99

 VI. NATURAL SELECTION 116

 VII. ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE EUGENICS MOVEMENT 147

 VIII. DESIRABILITY OF RESTRICTIVE EUGENICS 167

 IX. THE DYSGENIC CLASSES 176

 X. METHODS OF RESTRICTION 184

 XI. THE IMPROVEMENT OF SEXUAL SELECTION 211

 XII. INCREASING THE MARRIAGE RATE OF THE SUPERIOR 237

 XIII. INCREASE OF THE BIRTH-RATE OF THE SUPERIOR 255

 XIV. THE COLOR LINE 280

 XV. IMMIGRATION 298

 XVI. WAR 318

 XVII. GENEALOGY AND EUGENICS 329

 XVIII. THE EUGENIC ASPECT OF SOME SPECIFIC REFORMS 352 TAXATION 352 BACK TO THE FARM MOVEMENT 355 DEMOCRACY 360 SOCIALISM 362 CHILD LABOR 368 COMPULSORY EDUCATION 369 VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE AND TRAINING 371 MINIMUM WAGE 374 MOTHER'S PENSIONS 375 HOUSING 376 FEMINISM 378

 OLD AGE PENSIONS 384 SEX HYGIENE MOVEMENT 385 TRADES UNIONISM 388 PROHIBITION 389 PEDAGOGICAL CELIBACY 390

 XIX. RELIGION AND EUGENICS 393

 XX. EUGENICS AND EUTHENICS 402

 APPENDIX A. OVARIAN TRANSPLANTATION 419

 " B. DYNAMIC EVOLUTION 421

 " C. THE "MELTING POT" 424

 " D. THE ESSENCE OF MENDELISM 429

 " E. USEFUL WORKS OF REFERENCE 436

 " F. GLOSSARY 437

 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

 FIGURE PAGE

 1. Four Baby Girls at Once 6

 2. The Effect of Nurture in Changing Nature 10

 3. Height in Corn and Men 12

 4. Why Men Grow Short or Tall 14

 5. Bound Foot of a Chinese Woman 42

 6. Defective Little Toe of a Prehistoric Egyptian 42

 7. Effect of Lead as a "Racial Poison" 63

 8. Distribution of 10-Year-Old School Children 76

 9. Variation in Ability 77

 10. Origin of a Normal Probability Curve 78

 11. The "Chance" or "Probability" Form of Distribution 79

 12. Probability Curve with Increased Number of Steps 80

 13. Normal Variability Curve Following Law of Chance 80

 14. Cadets Arranged to Show Normal Curve of Variability 82

 15. Variation in Heights of Recruits to the American Army 82

 16. How Do You Clasp Your Hands? 100

 17. The Effect of Orthodactyly 102

 18. A Family with Orthodactyly 102

 19. White Blaze in the Hair 104

 20. A Family of Spotted Negroes 104

 21. A Human Finger-Tip 106

 22. The Limits of Hereditary Control 106

 23. The Distribution of Intelligence 106

 24. The Twins whose Finger-Prints are Shown in Fig. 25 108

 25. Finger-Prints of Twins 110

 26. A Home of the "Hickory" Family 168

 27. A Chieftain of the Hickory Clan 170

 28. Two Juke Homes of the Present Day 172

 29. Mongolian Deficiency 174

 30. Feeble-Minded Men are Capable of Much Rough Labor 192

 31. Feeble-Minded at a Vineland Colony 192

 32. How Beauty Aids a Girl's Chance of Marriage 215

 33. Intelligent Girls are Most Likely to Marry 216

 34. Years Between Graduation and Marriage 217

 35. The Effect of Late Marriages 218

 36. Wellesley Graduates and Non-Graduates 242

 37. Birth Rate of Harvard and Yale Graduates 266

 38. Families of Prominent Methodists 263

 39. Examining Immigrants at Ellis Island, New York, 303

 40. Line of Ascent that Carries the Family Name 331

 41. The Small Value of a Famous, but Remote, Ancestor 338

 42. History of 100 Babies 344

 43. Adult Morality 345

 44. Influence of Mother's Age 347

 45. The "Mean Man" of the Old White American Stock 425

 46. The Carriers of Heredity 431

INTRODUCTION

The Great War has caused a vast destruction of the sounder portion ofthe belligerent peoples and it is certain that in the next generationthe progeny of their weaker members will constitute a much largerproportion of the whole than would have been the case if the War had notoccurred. Owing to this immeasurable calamity that has befallen thewhite race, the question of eugenics has ceased to be merely academic. It looms large whenever we consider the means of avoiding a stagnationor even decline of our civilization in consequence of the losses the Warhas inflicted upon the more valuable stocks. Eugenics is by no meanstender with established customs and institutions, and once it seemedlikely that its teachings would be left for our grandchildren to act on. But the plowshare of war has turned up the tough sod of custom, and nowevery sound new idea has a chance. Rooted prejudices have been leveledlike the forests of Picardy under gun fire. The fear of racial declineprovides the eugenist with a far stronger leverage than did the hope ofaccelerating racial progress. It may be, then, that owing to the Wareugenic policies will gain as much ground by the middle of this centuryas without it they would have gained by the end of the century. 

This book could not have been written ten years ago because many of thedata it relies on were not then in existence. In view of inquiries nowgoing on, we may reasonably hope that ten years hence it will bepossible to make a much better book on the subject. But I am sure thatthis book is as good a presentation as can be made of eugenics at itspresent stage of development. The results of all the trustworthyobservations and experiments have been taken into account, and thetesting of human customs and institutions in the light of biologicalprinciples tallies well with the sociology of our times. 

I cannot understand how any conscientious person, dealing in a large waywith human life, should have the hardihood to ignore eugenics. This bookshould command the attention not only of students of sociology, but, aswell, of philanthropists, social workers, settlement wardens, doctors, clergymen, educators, editors, publicists, Y. M. C. A. Secretaries andindustrial engineers. It ought to lie at the elbow of law-makers, statesmen, poor relief officials, immigration inspectors, judges ofjuvenile courts, probation officers, members of state boards of controland heads of charitable and correctional institutions. Finally, thethoughtful ought to find in it guidance in their problem of mating. Itwill inspire the superior to rise above certain worldly ideals of lifeand to aim at a family success rather than an individual success. 

 EDWARD ALSWORTH ROSS. 

 The University of Wisconsin Madison, Wisconsin July 1918. 

APPLIED EUGENICS

CHAPTER I

NATURE OR NURTURE?

At the First Race Betterment Conference held at Battle Creek, Mich. , many methods were suggested by which it was believed that the people ofAmerica might be made, on the average, healthier, happier, and moreefficient. One afternoon the discussion turned to the children of theslums. Their condition was pictured in dark colors. A number ofeugenists remarked that they were in many cases handicapped by a poorheredity. Then Jacob Riis--a man for whom every American must feel aprofound admiration--strode upon the platform, filled with indignation. 

"We have heard friends here talk about heredity, " he exclaimed. "Theword has rung in my ears until I am sick of it. Heredity! Heredity!There is just one heredity in all the world that is ours--we arechildren of God, and there is nothing in the whole big world that wecannot do in His service with it. "

It is probably not beyond the truth to say that in this statement JacobRiis voiced the opinion of a majority of the social workers of thiscountry, and likewise a majority of the people who are faithfully andwith much self-sacrifice supporting charities, uplift movements, reformlegislation, and philanthropic attempts at social betterment in manydirections. They suppose that they are at the same time making the racebetter by making the conditions better in which people live. 

It is widely supposed that, although nature may have distributed somehandicaps at birth, they can be removed if the body is properly warmedand fed and the mind properly exercised. It is further widely supposedthat this improvement in the condition of the individual will result inhis production of better infants, and that thus the race, gaining alittle momentum in each generation, will gradually move on towardultimate perfection. 

There is no lack of efforts to improve the race, by this method ofdirect change of the environment. It involves two assumptions, which aresometimes made explicitly, sometimes merely taken for granted. Theseare:

1. That changes in a man's surroundings, or, to use the more technicalbiological term, in his nurture, will change the nature that he hasinherited. 

2. That such changes will further be transmitted to his children. 

Any one who proposes methods of race betterment, as we do in the presentbook, must meet these two popular beliefs. We shall therefore examinethe first of them in this chapter, and the second in Chapter II. 

Galton adopted and popularized Shakespere's antithesis of _nature_ and_nurture_ to describe a man's inheritance and his surroundings, the twoterms including everything that can pertain to a human being. The wordsare not wholly suitable, particularly since nature has two distinctmeanings, --human nature and external nature. The first is the only oneconsidered by Galton. Further, nurture is capable of subdivision intothose environmental influences which do not undergo much change, --e. G. , soil and climate, --and those forces of civilization and education whichmight better be described as culture. The evolutionist has really todeal with the three factors of germ-plasm, physical surroundings andculture. But Galton's phrase is so widely current that we shall continueto use it, with the implications that have just been outlined. 

The antithesis of nature and nurture is not a new one; it was met longago by biologists and settled by them to their own satisfaction. Thewhole body of experimental and observational evidence in biology tendsto show that the characters which the individual inherits from hisancestors remain remarkably constant in all ordinary conditions to whichthey may be subjected. Their constancy is roughly proportionate to theplace of the animal in the scale of evolution; lower forms are moreeasily changed by outside influence, but as one ascends to the higherforms, which are more differentiated, it is found more and moredifficult to effect any change in them. Their characters are moredefinitely fixed at birth. [1]

It is with the highest of all forms, Man, that we have now to deal. Thestudent in biology is not likely to doubt that the differences in menare due much more to inherited nature than to any influences brought tobear after birth, even though these latter influences include suchpowerful ones as nutrition and education within ordinary limits. 

But the biological evidence does not lend itself readily to summarytreatment, and we shall therefore examine the question by statisticalmethods. [2] These have the further advantage of being more easilyunderstood; for facts which can be measured and expressed in numbers arefacts whose import the reader can usually decide for himself: he isperfectly able to determine, without any special training, whether twicetwo does or does not make four. One further preliminary remark: theproblem of nature vs. Nurture can not be solved in general terms; amoment's thought will show that it can be understood only by examiningone trait at a time. The problem is to decide whether the differencesbetween the people met in everyday life are due more to inheritance orto outside influences, and these differences must naturally be examinedseparately; they can not be lumped together. 

To ask whether nature in general contributes more to a man than nurtureis futile; but it is not at all futile to ask whether the differences ina given human trait are more affected by differences in nature than bydifferences in nurture. It is easy to see that a verdict may besometimes given to one side, sometimes to the other. Albinism inanimals, for instance, is a trait which is known to be inherited, andwhich is very slightly affected by differences of climate, food supply, etc. On the other hand, there are factors which, although havinginherited bases, owe their expression almost wholly to outsideinfluences. Professor Morgan, for example, has found a strain of fruitflies whose offspring in cold weather are usually born withsupernumerary legs. In hot weather they are practically normal. If thisstrain were bred only in the tropics, the abnormality would probably notbe noticed; on the other hand, if it were bred only in cold regions, itwould be set down as one characterized by duplication of limbs. Theheredity factor would be the same in each case, the difference inappearance being due merely to temperature. 

Mere inspection does not always tell whether some feature of anindividual is more affected by changes in heredity or changes insurroundings. On seeing a swarthy man, one may suppose that he comes ofa swarthy race, or that he is a fair-skinned man who has lived long inthe desert. In the one case the swarthiness would be inheritable, in theother not. Which explanation is correct, can only be told by examining anumber of such individuals under critical conditions, or by anexamination of the ancestry. A man from a dark-skinned race would becomelittle darker by living under the desert sun, while a white man wouldtake on a good deal of tan. 

The limited effect of nurture in changing nature is in some fields amatter of common observation. The man who works in the gymnasium knowsthat exercise increases the strength of a given group of muscles for awhile, but not indefinitely. There comes a time when the limit of aman's hereditary potentiality is reached, and no amount of exercise willadd another millimeter to the circumference of his arm. Similarly thehandball or tennis player some day reaches his highest point, as dorunners or race horses. A trainer could bring Arthur Duffy in a fewyears to the point of running a hundred yards in 9-3/5 seconds, but noamount of training after that could clip off another fifth of a second. A parallel case is found in the students who take a college examination. Half a dozen of them may have devoted the same amount of time to it--mayhave crammed to the limit--but they will still receive widely differentmarks. These commonplace cases show that nurture has seemingly somepower to mold the individual, by giving his inborn possibilities achance to express themselves, but that nature says the first and lastword. Francis Galton, the father of eugenics, hit on an ingenious andmore convincing illustration by studying the history of twins. [3]

There are, everyday observation shows, two kinds of twins--ordinarytwins and the so-called identical twins. Ordinary twins are merelybrothers, or sisters, or brother and sister, who happen to be born twoat a time, because two ova have developed simultaneously. The fact thatthey were born at the same time does not make them alike--they differquite as widely from each other as ordinary brothers and sisters do. Identical twins have their origin in a different phenomenon--they arebelieved to be halves of the same egg-cell, in which two growing-pointsappeared at a very early embryonic stage, each of these developing intoa separate individual. As would be expected, these identical twins arealways of the same sex, and extremely like each other, so that sometimestheir own mother can not tell them apart. This likeness extends to allsorts of traits:--they have lost their milk teeth on the same day in onecase, they even fell ill on the same day with the same disease, eventhough they were in different cities. 

Now Galton reasoned that if environment really changes the inborncharacter, then these identical twins, who start life as halves of thesame whole, ought to become more unlike if they were brought up apart;and as they grew older and moved into different spheres of activity, they ought to become measurably dissimilar. On the other hand, ordinarytwins, who start dissimilar, ought to become more alike when brought upin the same family, on the same diet, among the same friends, with thesame education. If the course of years shows that identical twins remainas like as ever and ordinary twins as unlike as ever, regardless ofchanges in conditions, then environment will have failed to demonstratethat it has any great power to modify one's inborn nature in thesetraits. 

With this view, Galton collected the history of eighty pairs ofidentical twins, thirty-five cases being accompanied by very fulldetails, which showed that the twins were really as nearly identical, inchildhood, as one could expect to find. On this point, Galton'sinquiries were careful, and the replies satisfactory. They are not, however, as he remarks, much varied in character. "When the twins arechildren, they are usually distinguished by ribbons tied around thewrist or neck; nevertheless the one is sometimes fed, physicked, andwhipped by mistake for the other, and the description of these littledomestic catastrophes was usually given by the mother, in a phraseology, that is sometimes touching by reason of its seriousness. I have one casein which a doubt remains whether the children were not changed in theirbath, and the presumed A is not really B, and _vice versa_. In anothercase, an artist was engaged on the portraits of twins who were betweenthree and four years of age; he had to lay aside his work for threeweeks, and, on resuming it, could not tell to which child the respectivelikeness he had in hand belonged. The mistakes become less numerous onthe part of the mother during the boyhood and girlhood of the twins, butare almost as frequent as before on the part of strangers. I have manyinstances of tutors being unable to distinguish their twin pupils. Twogirls used regularly to impose on their music teacher when one of themwanted a whole holiday; they had their lessons at separate hours, andthe one girl sacrificed herself to receive two lessons on the same day, while the other one enjoyed herself from morning to evening. Here is abrief and comprehensive account: 'Exactly alike in all, theirschoolmasters could never tell them apart; at dancing parties theyconstantly changed partners without discovery; their close resemblanceis scarcely diminished by age. "

[Illustration: FOUR BABY GIRLS AT ONCE

FIG. 1. --These quadruplet daughters were born to Mr. And Mrs. F. M. Keys, Hollis, Okla. , on July 4, 1915, and were seven months oldwhen the photograph was taken. Up to that time they had never had anyother nourishment than their mother's milk. Their weights at birth wereas follows (reading from left to right): Roberta, 4 pounds; Mona, 4-1/2pounds; Mary, 4-1/4 pounds; Leota, 3-3/4 pounds. When photographed, Roberta weighed 16 pounds and each of the others weighed 16-1/4. Theiraunt vouches for the fact that the care of the four is less trouble thana single baby often makes. The mother has had no previous plural births, although she has borne four children prior to these. Her own mother hadbut two children, a son and a daughter, and there is no record of twinson the mother's side. The father of the quadruplets is one of twelvechildren, among whom is one pair of twins. It is known that twinning islargely due to inheritance, and it would seem that the appearance ofthese quadruplets is due to the hereditary influence of the fatherrather than the mother. If this is the case, then the four girls mustall have come from one egg-cell, which split up at an early stage. Notethe uniform shape of the mouth, and the ears, set unusually low on thehead. ]

"The following is a typical schoolboy anecdote:

"'Two twins were fond of playing tricks, and complaints were frequentlymade; but the boys would never own which was the guilty one, and thecomplainants were never certain which of the two it was. One head masterused to say he would never flog the innocent for the guilty, and theother used to flog them both. '

"No less than nine anecdotes have reached me of a twin seeing his or herreflection in the looking-glass, and addressing it in the belief that itwas the other twin in person. 

"Children are usually quick in distinguishing between their parent andhis or her twin; but I have two cases to the contrary. Thus, thedaughter of a twin says:

"'Such was the marvelous similarity of their features, voice, manner, etc. , that I remember, as a child, being very much puzzled, and I think, had my aunt lived much with us, I should have ended by thinking I hadtwo mothers!'

"In the other case, a father who was a twin, remarks of himself and hisbrother:

"'We were extremely alike, and are so at this moment, so much so thatour children up to five and six years old did not know us apart. '

"Among my thirty-five detailed cases of close similarity, there are noless than seven in which both twins suffered from some special ailmentor had some exceptional peculiarity. Both twins are apt to sicken at thesame time in no less than nine out of the thirty-five cases. Eithertheir illnesses, to which I refer, were non-contagious, or, ifcontagious, the twins caught them simultaneously; they did not catchthem the one from the other. "

Similarity in association of ideas, in tastes and habits was equallyclose. In short, their resemblances were not superficial, but extremelyintimate, both in mind and body, while they were young; they were rearedalmost exactly alike up to their early manhood and womanhood. 

Then they separated into different walks of life. Did this change of theenvironment alter their inborn character? For the detailed evidence, one should consult Galton's own account; we give only his conclusions:

In many cases the resemblance of body and mind continued unaltered up toold age, notwithstanding very different conditions of life; in others asevere disease was sufficient to account for some change noticed. Otherdissimilarity that developed, Galton had reason to believe, was due tothe development of inborn characters that appeared late in life. Hetherefore felt justified in broadly concluding "that the onlycircumstance, within the range of those by which persons of similarconditions of life are affected, that is capable of producing a markedeffect on the character of adults, is illness or some accident whichcauses physical infirmity. The twins who closely resembled each other inchildhood and early youth, and were reared under not very dissimilarconditions, either grow unlike through the development of natural [thatis, inherited] characteristics which had lain dormant at first, or elsethey continue their lives, keeping time like two watches, hardly to bethrown out of accord except by some physical jar. "

Here was a distinct failure of nurture to modify the inborn nature. Wenext consider the ordinary twins who were unlike from the start. Galtonhad twenty such cases, given with much detail. "It is a fact, " heobserves, "that extreme dissimilarity, such as existed between Jacob andEsau, is a no less marked peculiarity of twins of the same sex thanextreme similarity. " The character of the evidence as a whole may befairly conveyed by a few quotations:

(1) One parent says: "They have had _exactly the same nurture_ fromtheir birth up to the present time; they are both perfectly healthy andstrong, yet they are otherwise as dissimilar as two boys could be, physically, mentally, and in their emotional nature. "

(2) "I can answer most decidedly that the twins have been perfectlydissimilar in character, habits, and likeness from the moment of theirbirth to the present time, though they were nursed by the same woman, went to school together, and were never separated until the age ofthirteen. "

(3) "They have never been separated, never the least differently treatedin food, clothing, or education; both teethed at the same time, both hadmeasles, whooping cough, and scarlatina at the same time, and neitherhas had any other serious illness. Both are and have been exceedinglyhealthy, and have good abilities; yet they differ as much from eachother in mental cast as any one of my family differs from another. "

(4) "Very dissimilar in mind and body; the one is quiet, retiring, andslow but sure; good-tempered, but disposed to be sulky whenprovoked;--the other is quick, vivacious, forward, acquiring easily andforgetting soon; quick-tempered and choleric, but quickly forgiving andforgetting. They have been educated together and never separated. "

(5) "They were never alike either in mind or body, and theirdissimilarity increases daily. The external influences have beenidentical; they have never been separated. "

(6) "The two sisters are very different in ability and disposition. Theone is retiring, but firm and determined; she has no taste for music ordrawing. The other is of an active, excitable temperament; she displaysan unusual amount of quickness and talent, and is passionately fond ofmusic and drawing. From infancy, they have been rarely separated even atschool, and as children visiting their friends, they always wenttogether. "

And so on. Not a single case was found in which originally dissimilarcharacters became assimilated, although submitted to exactly the sameinfluences. Reviewing the evidence in his usual cautious way, Galtondeclared, "There is no escape from the conclusion that nature prevailsenormously over nurture, when the differences of nurture do not exceedwhat is commonly to be found among persons of the same rank in societyand in the same country. "

This kind of evidence was a good start for eugenics but as the sciencegrew, it outgrew such evidence. It no longer wanted to be told, nomatter how minute the details, that "nature prevails enormously overnurture. " It wanted to know exactly how much. It refused to be satisfiedwith the statement that a certain quantity was large; it demanded thatit be measured or weighed. So Galton, Karl Pearson and othermathematicians devised means of doing this, and then Professor Edward L. Thorndike of Columbia University took up Galton's problem again, withmore refined methods. 

The tool used by Professor Thorndike was the coefficient of correlation, which shows the amount of resemblance or association between any twothings that are capable of measurement, and is expressed in the form ofa decimal fraction somewhere between 0 and the unit 1. Zero shows thatthere is no constant resemblance at all between the two thingsconcerned, --that they are wholly independent of each other, while 1shows that they are completely dependent on each other, a condition thatrarely exists, of course. [4] For instance, the correlation between theright and left femur in man's legs is . 98. 

Professor Thorndike found in the New York City schools fifty pairs oftwins of about the same age and measured the closeness of theirresemblance in eight physical characters, and also in six mentalcharacters, the latter being measured by the proficiency with which thesubjects performed various tests. Then children of the same age and sex, picked at random from the same schools, were measured in the same way. It was thus possible to tell how much more alike twins were thanordinary children in the same environment. [5]

[Illustration: THE EFFECT OF NURTURE IN CHANGING NATURE

FIG. 2. --Corn of a single variety (Leaming Dent) grown in twoplots: at the left spaced far apart in hills, at the right crowded. Theformer grows to its full potential height, the latter is stunted. Thesize differences in the two plots are due to differences in environment, the heredity in both cases being the same. Plants are much moresusceptible to nutritional influences on size than are mammals, but to aless degree nutrition has a similar effect on man. Photograph from A. F. Blakeslee. ]

"If now these resemblances are due to the fact that the two members ofany twin pair are treated alike at home, have the same parental models, attend the same school and are subject in general to closely similarenvironmental conditions, then (1) twins should, up to the age ofleaving home, grow more and more alike, and in our measurements thetwins 13 and 14 years old should be much more alike than those 9 and 10years old. Again (2) if similarity in training is the cause ofsimilarity in mental traits, ordinary fraternal pairs not over four orfive years apart in age should show a resemblance somewhat nearly asgreat as twin pairs, for the home and school condition of a pair of theformer will not be much less similar than those of a pair of the latter. Again, (3) if training is the cause, twins should show greaterresemblance in the case of traits much subject to training, such asability in addition or multiplication, than in traits less subject totraining, such as quickness in marking off the A's on a sheet of printedcapitals, or in writing the opposites of words. "

The data were elaborately analyzed from many points of view. They showed(1) that the twins 12-14 years old were not any more alike than thetwins 9-11 years old, although they ought to have been, if environmenthas great power to mold the character during these so-called "plasticyears of childhood. " They showed (2) that the resemblance between twinswas two or three times as great as between ordinary children of the sameage and sex, brought up under similar environment. There seems to be noreason, except heredity, why twins should be more alike. The data showed(3) that the twins were no more alike in traits subject to much trainingthan in traits subject to little or no training. Their achievement inthese traits was determined by their heredity; training did notmeasurably alter these hereditary potentialities. 

"The facts, " Professor Thorndike wrote, "are easily, simply andcompletely explained by one simple hypothesis; namely, that the natureof the germ-cells--the conditions of conception--cause whateversimilarities and differences exist in the original natures of men, thatthese conditions influence mind and body equally, and that in life thedifferences in modification of mind and body produced by suchdifferences as obtain between the environments of present-day New YorkCity public school children are slight. "

"The inferences, " he says, "with respect to the enormous importance oforiginal nature in determining the behavior and achievements of any manin comparison with his fellows of the same period of civilization andconditions of life are obvious. All theories of human life must acceptas a first principle the fact that human beings at birth differenormously in mental capacities and that these differences are largelydue to similar differences in their ancestry. All attempts to changehuman nature must accept as their most important condition the limitsset by original nature to each individual. "

Meantime other investigators, principally followers of Karl Pearson inEngland, were working out correlation coefficients in other lines ofresearch for hundreds of different traits. As we show in more detail inChapter IV, it was found, no matter what physical or mental trait wasmeasured, that the coefficient of correlation between parent and childwas a little less than . 5 and that the coefficient between brother andbrother, or sister and sister, or brother and sister, was a little morethan . 5. On the average of many cases the mean "nature" value, thecoefficient of direct heredity, was placed at . 51. This gave anothermeans of measuring nurture, for it was also possible to measure therelation between any trait in the child and some factor in theenvironment. A specific instance will make this clearer. 

Groups of school children usually show an appalling percentage ofshort-sightedness. Now suppose it is suggested that this is because theyare allowed to learn to read at too early an age. One can find out theage at which any given child did learn to read, and work out thecoefficient of correlation between this age and the child's amount ofmyopia. If the relation between them is very close--say . 7 or . 8--itwill be evident that the earlier a child learns to read, the moreshort-sighted he is as he grows older. This will not prove a relation ofcause and effect, but it will at least create a great suspicion. If onthe contrary the correlation is very slight, it will be evident thatearly reading has little to do with the prevalance of defective visionamong school children. If investigators similarly work out all the othercorrelations that can be suggested, finding whether there is anyregular relation between myopia and overcrowding, long hours of study, general economic conditions at home, general physical or moralconditions of parents, the time the child spends out of doors, etc. , andif no important relation is found between these various factors andmyopia, it will be evident that no factor of the environment which onecan think of as likely to cause the trouble really accounts for the pooreyesight of school children. 

[Illustration: HEIGHT IN CORN AND MEN

FIG. 3. --An unusually short and an unusually tall man, photographed beside extreme varieties of corn which, like the men, owetheir differences in height indisputably to heredity rather than toenvironment. No imaginable environmental differences could reverse thepositions of these two men, or of these two varieties of corn, theheredity in each case being what it is. The large one might be stunted, but the small one could not be made much larger. Photograph from A. F. Blakeslee. ]

This has actually been done, [6] and none of the conditions enumeratedhas been found to be closely related to myopia in school children. Correlations between fifteen environmental conditions and the goodnessof children's eyesight were measured, and only in one case was thecorrelation as high as . 1. The mean of these correlations was about. 04--an absolutely negligible quantity when compared with the commonheredity coefficient of . 51. 

Does this prove that the myopia is rather due to heredity? It would, bya process of exclusion, if every conceivable environmental factor hadbeen measured and found wanting. That point in the investigation cannever be reached, but a tremendously strong suspicion is at leastjustified. Now if the degree of resemblance between the prevalence ofmyopia in parents and that in children be directly measured, and if itbe found that when the parent has eye trouble the child also has it, then it seems that a general knowledge of heredity should lead to thebelief that the difficulty lies there, and that an environmental causefor the poor vision of the school child was being sought, when it wasall the time due almost entirely to heredity. This final step has notyet been completed in an adequate way, [7] but the evidence, partlyanalogical, gives every reason to believe in the soundness of theconclusion stated, that in most cases the schoolboy must wear glassesbecause of his heredity, not because of overstudy or any neglect on thepart of his parents to care for his eyes properly during his childhood. 

[Illustration: WHY MEN GROW SHORT OR TALL

FIG. 4. --Pedigree charts of the two men shown in the precedingillustration. Squares represent men and circles women; figuresunderlined denote measurement in stocking feet. It is obvious from acomparison of the ancestry of the two men that the short one comes froma predominantly short family, while the tall one gains his heightlikewise from heredity. The shortest individual in the right-hand chartwould have been accounted tall in the family represented on the left. After A. F. Blakeslee. ]

The extent to which the intelligence of school children is dependent ondefective physique and unfavorable home environment is an importantpractical question, which David Heron of London attacked by the methodswe have outlined. He wanted to find out whether the healthy childrenwere the most intelligent. One is constantly hearing stories of how theintelligence of school children has been improved by some treatmentwhich improved their general health, but these stories are rarelypresented in such a way as to contribute evidence of scientific value. It was desirable to know what exact measurement would show. Theintelligence of all the children in fourteen schools was measured in itscorrelation with weight and height, conditions of clothing and teeth, state of nutrition, cleanliness, good hearing, and the condition of thecervical glands, tonsils and adenoids. It could not be found that mentalcapacity was closely related to any of the characters dealt with. [8] Theparticular set of characters measured was taken because it happened tobe furnished by data collected for another purpose; the various itemsare suggestive rather than directly conclusive. Here again, thecorrelation in most cases was less than . 1, as compared with the generalheredity correlation of . 5. 

The investigation need not be limited to problems of bad breeding. Eugenics, as its name shows, is primarily interested in "good breeding;"it is particularly worth while, therefore, to examine the relationsbetween heredity and environment in the production of mental and moralsuperiority. 

If success in life--the kind of success that is due to great mental andmoral superiority--is due to the opportunities a man has, then it oughtto be pretty evenly distributed among all persons who have had favorableopportunities, provided a large enough number of persons be taken toallow the laws of probability full play. England offers a good field toinvestigate this point, because Oxford and Cambridge, her two greatuniversities, turn out most of the eminent men of the country, or atleast have done so until recently. If nothing more is necessary toensure a youth's success than to give him a first-class education andthe chance to associate with superior people, then the prizes of lifeought to be pretty evenly distributed among the graduates of the twouniversities, during a period of a century or two. 

This is not the case. When we look at the history of England, as Galtondid nearly half a century ago, we find success in life to an unexpecteddegree a family affair. The distinguished father is likely to have adistinguished son, while the son of two "nobodies" has a very smallchance of becoming distinguished. To cite one concrete case, Galtonfound[9] that the son of a distinguished judge had about one chance infour of becoming himself distinguished, while the son of a man pickedout at random from the population had about one chance in 4, 000 ofbecoming similarly distinguished. 

The objection at once occurs that perhaps social opportunities mightplay the predominant part; that the son of an obscure man never gets achance, while the son of the prominent man is pushed forward regardlessof his inherent abilities. This, as Galton argued at length, can not betrue of men of really eminent attainments. The true genius, he thought, frequently succeeds in rising despite great obstacles, while no amountof family pull will succeed in making a mediocrity into a genius, although it may land him in some high and very comfortable officialposition. Galton found a good illustration in the papacy, where duringmany centuries it was the custom for a pope to adopt one of his nephewsas a son, and push him forward in every way. If opportunity were allthat is required, these adopted sons ought to have reached eminence asoften as a real son would have done; but statistics show that theyreached eminence only as often as would be expected for nephews of greatmen, whose chance is notably less, of course, than that of sons of greatmen, in whom the intensity of heredity is much greater. 

Transfer the inquiry to America, and it becomes even more conclusive, for this is supposed to be the country of equal opportunities, where itis a popular tradition that every boy has a chance to become president. Success may be in some degree a family affair in caste-ridden England;is it possible that the past history of the United States should showthe same state of affairs?

Galton found that about half of the great men of England haddistinguished close relatives. If the great men of America have fewerdistinguished close relatives, environment will be able to make out aplausible case: it will be evident that in this continent of boundlessopportunities the boy with ambition and energy gets to the top, and thatthis ambition and energy do not depend on the kind of family he comesfrom. 

Frederick Adams Woods has made precisely this investigation. [10] Thefirst step was to find out how many eminent men there are in Americanhistory. Biographical dictionaries list about 3, 500, and this numberprovides a sufficiently unbiased standard from which to work. Now, Dr. Woods says, if we suppose the average person to have as many as twentyclose relatives--as near as an uncle or a grandson--then computationshows that only one person in 500 in the United States has a chance tobe a near relative of one of the 3, 500 eminent men--provided it ispurely a matter of chance. As a fact, the 3, 500 eminent men listed bythe biographical dictionaries are related to each other not as one in500, but as one in five. If the more celebrated men alone be considered, it is found that the percentage increases so that about one in three ofthem has a close relative who is also distinguished. This ratioincreases to more than one in two when the families of the forty-sixAmericans in the Hall of Fame are made the basis of study. If all theeminent relations of those in the Hall of Fame are counted, they averagemore than one apiece. Therefore, they are from five hundred to athousand times as much related to distinguished people as the ordinarymortal is. 

To look at it from another point of view, something like 1% of thepopulation of the country is as likely to produce a man of genius as isall the rest of the population put together, --the other 99%. 

This might still be due in some degree to family influence, to theprestige of a famous name, or to educational advantages afforded thesons of successful men. Dr. Woods' study of the royal families of Europeis more decisive. [11]

In the latter group, the environment must be admitted--on the whole--tobe uniformly favorable. It has varied, naturally, in each case, butspeaking broadly it is certain that all the members of this group havehad the advantage of a good education, of unusual care and attention. Ifsuch things affect achievement, then the achievements of this classought to be pretty generally distributed among the whole class. Ifopportunity is the cause of a man's success, then most of the members ofthis class ought to have succeeded, because to every one of royal blood, the door of opportunity usually stands open. One would expect the heirto the throne to show a better record than his younger brothers, however, because his opportunity to distinguish himself is naturallygreater. This last point will be discussed first. 

Dr. Woods divided all the individuals in his study into ten classes forintellectuality and ten for morality, those most deficient in thequalities being put in class 1, while the men and women of preëminentintellectual and moral worth were put in class 10. Now if preëminentintellect and morality were at all linked with the better chances thatan inheritor of succession has, then heirs to the throne ought to bemore plentiful in the higher grades than in the lower. Actual countshows this not to be the case. A slightly larger percentage ofinheritors is rather to be found in the lower grades. The younger sonshave made just as good a showing as the sons who succeeded to power; asone would expect if intellect and morality are due largely to heredity, but as one would not expect if intellect and morality are due largely tooutward circumstances. 

Are "conditions of turmoil, stress and adversity" strong forces in theproduction of great men, as has often been claimed? There is no evidencefrom facts to support that view. In the case of a few great commanders, the times seemed particularly favorable. Napoleon, for example, couldhardly have been Napoleon had it not been for the French revolution. Butin general there have been wars going on during the whole period ofmodern European history; there have always been opportunities for aroyal hero to make his appearance; but often the country has called formany years in vain. Circumstances were powerless to produce a great manand the nation had to wait until heredity produced him. Spain has forseveral centuries been calling for genius in leadership in some lines;but in vain. England could not get an able man from the Stuart line, despite her need, and had to wait for William of Orange, who was adescendant of a man of genius, William the Silent. "Italy had to waitfifty years in bondage for her deliverers, Cavour, Garibaldi and VictorEmmanuel. "

"The upshot of it all, " Dr. Woods decides, "is that, as regardsintellectual life, environment is a totally inadequate explanation. Ifit explains certain characters in certain instances, it always fails toexplain many more, while heredity not only explains all, or at least90%, of the intellectual side of character in practically everyinstance, but does so best when questions of environment are left out ofdiscussion. "

Despite the good environment almost uniformly present, the geniuses inroyalty are not scattered over the surface of the pedigree chart, butform isolated little groups of closely related individuals. One centersin Frederick the Great, another in Queen Isabella of Spain, a third inWilliam the Silent, and a fourth in Gustavus Adolphus. Furthermore, theroyal personages who are conspicuously low in intellect and morality aresimilarly grouped. Careful study of the circumstances shows nothing inthe environment that would produce this grouping of genius, while it isexactly what a knowledge of heredity leads one to expect. 

In the next place, do the superior members of royalty haveproportionately more superior individuals among their close relatives, as was found to be the case among the Americans in the Hall of Fame? Acount shows at once that they do. The first six grades all have about anequal number of eminent relatives, but grade 7 has more while grade 8has more than grade 7, and the geniuses of grade 10 have the highestproportion of nearer relatives of their own character. Surely it cannotbe supposed that a relative of a king in grade 8 has on the average amuch less favorable environment than a relative of a king in grade 10. Is it not fair, then, to assume that this relative's greater endowmentin the latter case is due to heredity?

Conditions are the same, whether males or females be considered. Theroyal families of Europe offer a test case because for them theenvironment is nearly uniformly favorable. A study of them shows greatmental and moral differences between them, and critical evidenceindicates that these differences are largely due to differences inheredity. Differences of opportunity do not appear to be largelyresponsible for the achievements of the individuals. 

But, it is sometimes objected, opportunity certainly is responsible forthe appearance of much talent that would otherwise never appear. Takethe great increase in the number of scientific men in Germany during thelast half century, for example. It can not be pretended that this is dueto an increased birth-rate of such talent; it means that the growth ofan appreciation of scientific work has produced an increased amount ofscientific talent. J. McKeen Cattell has argued this point mostcarefully in his study of the families of one thousand American men ofscience (_Popular Science Monthly_, May, 1915). "A Darwin born in Chinain 1809, " he says, "could not have become a Darwin, nor could a Lincolnborn here on the same day have become a Lincoln had there been no CivilWar. If the two infants had been exchanged there would have been noDarwin in America and no Lincoln in England. " And so he continues, urging that in the production of scientific men, at least, education ismore important than eugenics. 

This line of argument contains a great deal of obvious truth, but issubject to a somewhat obvious objection, if it is pushed too far. It iscertainly true that the exact field in which a man's activities willfind play is largely determined by his surroundings and education. Youngmen in the United States are now becoming lawyers or men of science, whowould have become ministers had they been born a century or two ago. Butthis environmental influence seems to us a minor one, for the man who ishighly gifted in some one line is usually, as all the work ofdifferential psychology shows, gifted more than the average in manyother lines. Opportunity decides in just what field his life work shalllie; but he would be able to make a success in a number of fields. Darwin born in America would probably not have become the Darwin weknow, but it is not to be supposed that he would have died a "mute, inglorious Milton": it is not likely that he would have failed to makehis mark in some line of human activity. Dr. Cattell's argument, then, while admissible, can not properly be urged against the fact thatability is mainly dependent on inheritance. 

We need not stop with the conclusion that equality of training oropportunity is unable to level the inborn differences between men. Wecan go even farther, and produce evidence to show that equality oftraining _increases the differences_ in results achieved. 

This evidence is obtained by measuring the effects of equal amounts ofexercise of a function upon individual differences in respect toefficiency in it. Suppose one should pick out, at random, eightchildren, and let them do problems in multiplication for 10 minutes. After a number of such trials, the three best might average 39 correctsolutions in the 10 minutes, and the three poorest might average 25examples. Then let them continue the work, until each one of them hasdone 700 examples. Here is equality in training; does it lead to uniformresults?

Dr. Starch made the actual test which we have outlined and found thatthe three best pupils gained on the average 45 in the course of doing700 examples; while the three poorest gained only 26 in the same courseof time. 

Similar tests have been made of school children in a number ofinstances, and have shown that equality of training fails to bring aboutequality of performance. All improve to some extent; but those who arenaturally better than their comrades usually become better still, whenconditions for all are the same. E. L. Thorndike gives[12] the followingtabular statement of a test he conducted:

THE EFFECT OF EQUAL AMOUNTS OF PRACTICE UPON INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCESIN THE MENTAL MULTIPLICATION OF A THREE-PLACE BY A THREE-PLACENUMBER

 Amount done Percentage of per unit of correct figures time in answers

 Hours of Practice | | First 5 Examples First 5 Examples | | | | | Last 5 or 10 | Last 5 or 10 | | Examples | Examples | | | | | | | | Gain | | Gain

 Initial highest five individuals 5. 1 85 147 61 70 78 18 " next five " 5. 1 56 107 51 68 78 10 " " six " 5. 3 46 68 22 74 82 8 " " six " 5. 4 38 46 8 58 70 12 " " five " 5. 2 31 57 26 47 67 20 " " one individual 5. 2 19 32 13 100 82 -18

Similar results have been obtained by half a dozen other experimenters, using the tests of mental multiplication, addition, marking A's on aprinted sheet of capitals, and the like. It would be a mistake toconclude too much from experiments of such restricted scope; but theyall agree in showing that if every child were given an equal training, the differences in these traits would nevertheless be very great. 

And although we do not wish to strain the application of these resultstoo far, we are at least justified in saying that they strongly indicatethat inborn mediocrity can not be made into a high grade of talent bytraining. Not every boy has a chance to distinguish himself, even if hereceives a good education. 

We are driven back to the same old conclusion, that it is primarilyinborn nature which causes the achievements of men and women to be whatthey are. Good environment, opportunity, training, will give goodheredity a chance to express itself; but they can not produce greatnessfrom bad heredity. 

These conclusions are familiar to scientific sociologists, but they havenot yet had the influence on social service and practical attempts atreform which they deserve. Many popular writers continue to confusecause and effect, as for example H. Addington Bruce, who contributed anarticle to the _Century Magazine_, not long ago, on "The Boy Who GoesWrong. " After alleging that the boy who goes wrong does so because he isnot properly brought up, Mr. Bruce quotes with approval the followingpassage from Paul Dubois, "the eminent Swiss physician and philosopher:

"If you have the happiness to be a well-living man, take care not toattribute the credit of it to yourself. Remember the favorableconditions in which you have lived, surrounded by the relatives wholoved you and set you a good example; do not forget the close friendswho have taken you by the hand and led you away from the quagmires ofevil; keep a grateful remembrance for all the teachers who haveinfluenced you, the kind and intelligent school-master, the devotedpastor; realize all these multiple influences which have made you whatyou are. Then you will remember that such and such a culprit has not inhis sad life met with these favorable conditions; that he had a drunkenfather or a foolish mother, and that he has lived without affection, exposed to all kinds of temptation. You will then take pity upon thisdisinherited man, whose mind has been nourished upon malformed mentalimages, begetting evil sentiments such as immoderate desire or socialhatred. "

Mr. Bruce indorses this kind of talk when he concludes, "The blame forthe boy who goes wrong does not rest with the boy himself, or yet withhis remote ancestors. It rests squarely with the parents who, throughignorance or neglect, have failed to mold him aright in the plastic daysof childhood. "

Where is the evidence of the existence of these plastic days ofchildhood? If they exist, why do not ordinary brothers become as muchalike as identical twins? How long are we to be asked to believe, onblind faith, that the child is putty, of which the educator can makeeither mediocrity or genius, depending on his skill? What does theenvironmentalist _know_ about these "plastic days"? If a boy has adrunken father or foolish mother, does it not suggest that there issomething wrong with his pedigree? With such an ancestry, we do notexpect him to turn out brilliantly, no matter in what home he is broughtup. If a boy has the kind of parents who bring him up well; if he is, as Dr. Dubois says, surrounded by relatives who love him and set him agood example, we at once have ground for a suspicion that he comes of apretty good family, a stock characterized by a high standard ofintellectuality and morality, and it would surprise us if such a boy didnot turn out well. But he turns out well because what's bred in the bonewill show in him, if it gets any kind of a chance. It is his nature, nothis nurture, that is mainly responsible for his character. 

CHAPTER II

MODIFICATION OF THE GERM-PLASM

Every living creature was at some stage of its life nothing more than asingle cell. It is generally known that human beings result from theunion of an egg-cell and a sperm-cell, but it is not so universallyunderstood that these germ-cells are part of a continuous stream ofgerm-plasm which has been in existence ever since the appearance of lifeon the globe, and which is destined to continue in existence as long aslife remains on the globe. 

The corollaries of this fact are of great importance. Some of them willbe considered in this chapter. 

Early investigators tended naturally to look on the germ-cells as aproduct of the body. Being supposedly products of the body, it wasnatural to think that they would in some measure reproduce the characterof the body which created them; and Darwin elaborated an ingenioushypothesis to explain how the various characters could be represented inthe germ-cell. The idea held by him, in common with most other thinkersof his period, is still held more or less unconsciously by those whohave not given particular attention to the subject. Generation isconceived as a direct chain: the body produces the germ-cell whichproduces another body which in turn produces another germ-cell, and soon. 

But a generation ago this idea fell under suspicion. August Weismann, professor of zoölogy in the University of Freiburg, Germany, madehimself the champion of the new idea, about 1885, and developed it soeffectively that it is now a part of the creed of nearly everybiologist. 

Weismann caused a general abandonment of the idea that the germ-cell isproduced by the body in each generation, and popularized the conceptionof the germ-cell as a product of a stream of undifferentiatedgerm-plasm, not only continuous but (potentially at least) immortal. The body does not produce the germ-cells, he pointed out; instead, thegerm-cells produce the body. 

The basis of this theory can best be understood by a brief considerationof the reproduction of very simple organisms. 

"Death is the end of life, " is the belief of many other persons than theLotus Eaters. It is commonly supposed that everything which lives musteventually die. But study of a one-celled animal, an Infusorian, forexample, reveals that when it reaches a certain age it pinches in two, and each half becomes an Infusorian in all appearance identical with theoriginal cell. Has the parent cell then died? It may rather be said tosurvive, in two parts. Each of these daughter cells will in turn gothrough the same process of reproduction by simple fission, and theprocess will be continued in their descendants. The Infusorian can becalled potentially immortal, because of this method of reproduction. 

The immortality, as Weismann pointed out, is not of the kind attributedby the Greeks to their gods, who could not die because no wound coulddestroy them. On the contrary, the Infusorian is extremely fragile, andis dying by millions at every instant; but if circumstances arefavorable, it _can_ live on; it is not inevitably doomed to die sooneror later, as is Man. "It dies from accident often, from old age never. "

Now the single-celled Infusorian is in many respects comparable with thesingle-celled germ of the higher animals. The analogy has often beencarried too far; yet it remains indisputable that the germ-cells of menreproduce in the same way--by simple fission--as the Infusorian andother one-celled animals and plants, and that they are organized on muchthe same plan. Given favorable circumstances, the germ-cell should beexpected to be equally immortal. Does it ever find these favorablecircumstances?

The investigations of microscopists indicate that it does--thatevolution has provided it with these favorable circumstances, in thebodies of the higher animals. Let us recall in outline the early historyof the fertilized germ-cell, the _zygote_ formed by the union of ovumand spermatozoön. These two unite to form a single cell, which isessentially the same, physiologically, as other germ-cells. It dividesin two similar cells; these each divide; the resulting cells againdivide, and so the process continues, until the whole body--a fullydeveloped man, --has been produced by division and redivision of the onezygote. 

But the germ-cell is obviously different from most of the cells thatmake up the finished product, the body. The latter are highlydifferentiated and specialized for different functions--blood cells, nerve cells, bone cells, muscle cells, and so on, each a single cell buteach adapted to do a certain work, for which the original, undifferentiated germ-cell was wholly unfit. It is evident thatdifferentiation began to take place at some point in the series ofdivisions, that is to say, in the development of the embryo. 

Th. Boveri, studying the development of a threadworm, made theinteresting discovery that this differentiation began at the firstdivision. Of the two daughter-cells produced from the zygote, onecontinued dividing at a very slow rate, and without showing anyspecialization. Its "line of descent" produced only germ-cells. Theproducts of division of the other daughter-cell began to differentiate, and soon formed all the necessary kinds of cells to make up the body ofthe mature worm. In this body, the cells from the first daughter-cellmentioned were inclosed, still undifferentiated: they formed thegerm-cells of the next generation, and after maturity were ready to beejected from the body, and to form new threadworms. 

Imagine this process taking place through generation after generation ofthreadworms, and one will realize that the germ-plasm was passed ondirectly from one generation to the next; that in each generation itgave rise to body-plasm, but that it did not at any time lose itsidentity or continuity, a part of the germ-plasm being always set aside, undifferentiated, to be handed on to the next generation. 

In the light of this example, one can better understand the definitionof germ-plasm as "that part of the substance of the parents which doesnot die with them, but perpetuates itself in their offspring. " Bybringing his imagination into play, the reader will realize that thereis no limit to the backward continuity of this germ-plasm in thethreadworm. Granted that each species has arisen by evolution from someother, this germ-cell which is observed in the body of the threadworm, must be regarded as part of what may well be called a stream ofgerm-plasm, that reaches back to the beginning of life in the world. Itwill be equally evident that these is no foreordained limit to theforward extension of the stream. It will continue in some branch, aslong as there are any threadworms or descendants of threadworms in theworld. 

The reader may well express doubt as to whether what has beendemonstrated for the threadworm can be demonstrated for the higheranimals, including man. It must be admitted that in many of theseanimals conditions are too unfavorable, and the process of embryologytoo complicated, or too difficult to observe, to permit as distinct ademonstration of this continuity of the germ-plasm, wherever it issought. But it has been demonstrated in a great many animals; no factswhich impair the theory have been discovered; and biologists thereforefeel perfectly justified in generalizing and declaring the continuity ofgerm-plasm to be a law of the world of living things. 

Focusing attention on its application to man, one sees that the racemust represent an immense network of lines of descent, running backthrough a vast number of different forms of gradually diminishingspecialization, until it comes to a point where all its threads merge inone knot--the single cell with which it may be supposed that life onthis globe began. Each individual is not only figuratively, but in avery literal sense, the carrier of the heritage of the whole race--ofthe whole past, indeed. Each individual is temporarily the custodian ofpart of the "stuff of life"; from an evolutionary point of view, he maybe said to have been brought into existence, primarily to pass thissacred heritage on to the next generation. From Nature's standpoint, heis of little use in the world, his existence is scarcely justified, unless he faithfully discharges this trust, passing on to the futurethe "Lamp of Life" whose fire he has been created to guard for a shortwhile. 

Immortality, we may point out in passing, is thus no mere _hope_ to theparent: it is a _real possibility_. The death of the huge agglomerationof highly specialized body-cells is a matter of little consequence, ifthe germ-plasm, with its power to reproduce not only these body-cells, but the mental traits--indeed, we may in a sense say the very soul--thatinhabited them, has been passed on. The individual continues to live, inhis offspring, just as the past lives in him. To the eugenist, lifeeverlasting is something more than a figure of speech or a theologicalconcept--it is as much a reality as the beat of the heart, the growth ofmuscles or the activity of the mind. 

This doctrine of the continuity of germ-plasm throws a fresh light onthe nature of human relationships. It is evident that the son whoresembles his father can not accurately be called a "chip off the oldblock. " Rather, they are both chips off the same block; and aside frombringing about the fusion of two distinct strains of germ-plasm, fatherand mother are no more responsible for endowing the child with itscharacters except in the choice of mate, than is the child for "stampinghis impress" on his parents. From another point of view, it has beensaid that father and son ought to be thought of as half-brothers by twodifferent mothers, each being the product of the same strain of paternalgerm-plasm, but not of the same strain of maternal germ-plasm. Biologically, the father or mother should not be thought of as the_producer_ of a child, but as the trustee of a stream of germ-plasmwhich produces a child whenever the proper conditions arise. Or as SirMichael Foster put it, "The animal body is in reality a vehicle for ovaor sperm; and after the life of the parent has become potentiallyrenewed in the offspring, the body remains as a cast-off envelope whosefuture is but to die. " Finally to quote the metaphor of J. ArthurThomson, one may "think for a moment of a baker who has a very preciouskind of leaven; he uses much of this in baking a large loaf; but he soarranges matters by a clever contrivance that part of the originalleaven is always carried on unaltered, carefully preserved for the nextbaking. Nature is the baker, the loaf is the body, the leaven is thegerm-plasm, and each baking is a generation. "

When the respective functions and relative importance, from a geneticpoint of view, of germ-plasm and body-plasm are understood, it must befairly evident that the natural point of attack for any attempt at racebetterment which aims to be fundamental rather than wholly superficial, must be the germ-plasm rather than the body-plasm. The failure to holdthis point of view has been responsible for the disappointing results ofmuch of the sociological theory of the last century, and for the factthat some of the work now carried on under the name of race bettermentis producing results that are of little or no significance to true racebetterment. 

On the other hand, it must be fairly evident, from the pains whichNature has taken to arrange for the transmission of the germ-plasm fromgeneration to generation, that she would also protect it from injurywith meticulous care. It seems hardly reasonable to suppose that amaterial of this sort should be exposed, in the higher animals at least, to all the vicissitudes of the environment, and to injury or change fromthe chance of outward circumstances. 

In spite of these presumptions which the biologist would, to say theleast, consider worthy of careful investigation, the world is full ofwell-intentioned people who are anxious to improve the race, and who intheir attempts to do so, wholly ignore the germ-plasm. They see only thebody-plasm. They are devoted to the dogma that if they can change thebody (and what is here said of the body applies equally to the mind) inthe direction they wish, this change will in some unascertainable way bereproduced in the next generation. They rarely stop to think that man isan animal, or that the science of biology might conceivably havesomething to say about the means by which his species can be improved;but if they do, they commonly take refuge, deliberately orunconsciously, in the biology of half a century ago, which stillbelieved that these changes of the body could be so impressed on thegerm-plasm as to be continued in the following generation. 

Such an assumption is made to-day by few who have thoroughly studied thesubject. Even those who still believed in what is conventionally called"the inheritance of acquired characteristics" would be quick torepudiate any such application of the doctrine as is commonly made bymost of the philanthropists and social workers who are proceedingwithout seeking the light of biology. But the idea that thesemodifications are inherited is so widespread among all who have notstudied biology, and is so much a part of the tradition of society, thatthe question must be here examined, before we can proceed confidentlywith our program of eugenics. 

The problem is first to be defined. 

It is evident that all characters which make up a man or woman, or anyother organism, must be either germinal or acquired. It is impossible toconceive of any other category. But it is frequently hard to say inwhich class a given character falls. Worse still, many persons do noteven distinguish the two categories accurately--a confusion made easierby the quibble that _all_ characters must be acquired, since theorganism starts from a single cell, which possesses practically none ofthe traits of the adult. 

What we mean by an inborn character is one whose expression is due tosomething which is present in the germ-plasm; one which is inherent anddue to heredity. An acquired character is simply a modification, due tosome cause external to the germ-plasm acting on an inborn character. Inlooking at an individual, one can not always say with certainty whichcharacters are which; but with a little trouble, one can usually reach areliable decision. It is possible to measure the variation in a givencharacter in a group of parents and their children, in a number ofdifferent environments; if the degree of resemblance between parent andoffspring is about the same in each case, regardless of the differentsurroundings in which the children may have been brought up, thecharacter may properly be called germinal. This is the biometric methodof investigation. In practice, one can often reach a decision by muchsimpler means: if the character is one that appears at birth, e. G. , skin color, it is usually safe to assume that it is a germinalcharacter, unless there is some evident reason for deciding otherwise, as in the case of a child born with some disease from which the motherhad been suffering for the previous few months. In general, it is moredifficult to decide whether a mental trait is germinal, than whether aphysical one is; and great care should be used in classification. 

To make the distinction, one ought to be familiar with an individualfrom birth, and to have some knowledge of the conditions to which he wasexposed, in the period between conception and birth, --for of course amodification which takes place during that time is as truly an acquiredcharacter as one that takes place after parturition. Blindness, forexample, may be an inborn defect. The child from conception may havelacked the requisites for the development of sight. On the other hand, it may be an acquired character, due to an ill-advised display ofpatriotism on July 4, at some time during childhood; or even toinfection at the moment of birth. Similarly small size may be an inborncharacter, due to a small-sized ancestry; but if the child comes of anormal ancestry and is stunted merely because of lack of proper care andfood, the smallness is an acquired character. Deafness may be congenitaland inborn, or it may be acquired as the result, say, of scarlet feverduring childhood. 

Now the inborn characters (excepting modifications _in utero_) areadmittedly heritable, for inborn characters must exist potentially inthe germ-plasm. The belief that acquired characters are also inherited, therefore, involves belief that in some way the trait acquired by theparent is incorporated in the germ-plasm of the parent, to be handed onto the child and reappear in the course of the child's development. Theimpress on the parental _body_ must in some way be transferred to theparental _germ-plasm_; and not as a general influence, but as a specificone which can be reproduced by the germ-plasm. 

This idea was held almost without question by the biologists of thepast, from Aristotle on. Questionings indeed arose from time to time, but they were vague and carried no weight, until a generation agoseveral able men elaborated them. For many years, it was the question ofchief dispute in the study of heredity. The last word has not yet beensaid on it. It has theoretical bearings of immense importance; for ourconception of the process of evolution will be shaped according to thebelief that acquired characters are or are not inherited. HerbertSpencer went so far as to say, "Close contemplation of the factsimpresses me more strongly than ever with two alternatives--either thatthere has been inheritance of acquired characters, or there has been noevolution. " But its practical bearings are no less momentous. Again toquote Spencer: "Considering the width and depth of the effects which theacceptance or non-acceptance of one or the other of these hypothesesmust have on our views of life, the question, Which of them is true?demands beyond all other questions whatever the attention of scientificmen. A grave responsibility rests on biologists in respect of thegeneral question, since wrong answers lead, among other effects, towrong belief about social affairs and to disastrous social actions. "

Biologists certainly have not shirked this "grave responsibility" duringthe last 30 years, and they have, in our opinion, satisfactorilyanswered the general question. The answer they give is not the answerHerbert Spencer gave. 

But the popular mind frequently lags a generation behind, in its graspof the work of science, and it must be said that in this case thepopular mind is still largely under the influence of Herbert Spencer andhis school. _Whether they know it or not_, most people who have not madea particular study of the question still tacitly assume that theacquirements of one generation form part of the inborn heritage of thenext, and the present social and educational systems are founded inlarge part on this false foundation. Most philanthropy starts outunquestioningly with the assumption that by modifying the individual forthe better, it will thereby improve the germinal quality of the race. Even a self-styled eugenist asks, "Can prospective parents who havethoroughly and systematically disciplined themselves, physically, mentally and morally, transmit to their offspring the traits ortendencies which they have developed?" and answers the question with theastounding statement, "It seems reasonable to suppose that they havethis power, it being simply a phase of heredity, the tendency of like tobeget like. "

The right understanding of this famous problem is therefore fraught withthe most important consequences to eugenics. The huge mass ofexperimental evidence that has been accumulated during the last quarterof a century has, necessarily, been almost wholly based on work withplants and lower animals. Even though we can not attempt to present ageneral review of this evidence, for which the reader must consult oneof the standard works on biology or genetics, we shall point out some ofthe considerations underlying the problem and its solution. 

In the first place, it must be definitely understood that we are dealingonly with specific, as distinguished from general, transmission. As thegerm-cells derive their nourishment from the body, it is obvious thatany cause profoundly affecting the latter might in that way exercise aninfluence on the germ-cells; that if the parent was starved, thegerm-cells might be ill-nourished and the resulting offspring might beweak and puny. There is experimental evidence that this is the case; butthat is not the inheritance of an acquired character. If, however, awhite man tanned by long exposure to the tropical sun should havechildren who were brunettes, when the family stock was all blond; or ifmen whose legs were deformed through falls in childhood should havechildren whose legs, at birth, appeared deformed in the same manner;then there would be a distinct case of the transmission of an acquiredcharacteristic. "The precise question, " as Professor Thomson words it, "is this: Can a structural change in the body, induced by some change inuse or disuse, or by a change in surrounding influence, affect thegerm-cells in such a _specific_ or representative way that the offspringwill through its inheritance exhibit, even in a slight degree, themodification which the parent acquired?" He then lists a number ofcurrent misunderstandings, which are so widespread that they deserve tobe considered here. 

(1) It is frequently argued (as Herbert Spencer himself suggested) thatunless modifications are inherited, there could be no such thing asevolution. Such pessimism is unwarranted. There _is_ abundantexplanation of evolution, in the abundant supply of germinal variationswhich every individual presents. 

(2) It is common to advance an _interpretation_ of some observation, insupport of the Lamarckian doctrine, as if it were a _fact_. Interpretations are not facts. What is wanted are the facts; eachstudent has a right to interpret them as he sees fit, but not torepresent his interpretation as a fact. It is easy to find structuralfeatures in Nature which _may be interpreted_ as resulting from theinheritance of acquired characters; but this is not the same as to sayand to prove that they _have resulted_ from such inheritance. 

(3) It is common to beg the question by pointing to the transmission ofsome character that is not proved to be a modification. Herbert Spencercited the prevalence of short-sightedness among the "notoriouslystudious" Germans as a defect due to the inheritance of an acquiredcharacter. But he offered no evidence that this is an acquirement ratherthan a germinal character. As a fact, there is reason to believe thatweakness of the eyes is one of the characteristics of that race, andexisted long before the Germans ever became studious--even at a timewhen most of them could neither read nor write. 

(4) The reappearance of a modification may be mistaken for thetransmission of a modification. Thus a blond European family moves tothe tropics, and the parents become tanned. The children who grow upunder the tropical sun are tanned from infancy; and after thegrandchildren or great-grandchildren appear, brown from childhood, someone points to the case as an instance of permanent modification ofskin-color. But of course the children at the time of birth are as whiteas their distant cousins in Europe, and if taken back to the North to bebrought up, would be no darker than their kinsmen who had never been inthe tropics. Such "evidence" has often been brought forward by carelessobservers, but can deceive no one who inquires carefully into the facts. 

(5) In the case of diseases, re-infection is often mistaken fortransmission. The father had pneumonia; the son later developed it;ergo, he must have inherited it. What evidence is there that the son inthis case did not get it from an entirely different source? Medicalliterature is heavily burdened with such spurious evidence. 

(6) Changes in the germ-cells _along with_ changes in the body are notrelevant to this discussion. The mother's body, for example, is poisonedwith alcohol, which is present in large quantities in the blood andtherefore might affect the germ-cells directly. If the childrensubsequently born are consistently defective it is not an inheritance ofa body character but the result of a direct modification of thegerm-plasm. The inheritance of an acquired modification of the body canonly be proved if some particular change made in the parent is inheritedas such by the child. 

(7) There is often a failure to distinguish between the possibleinheritance of a particular modification, and the possible inheritanceof indirect results of that modification, or of changes correlated withit. This is a nice but crucial point on which most popular writers areconfused. Let us examine it through a hypothetical case. A woman, notherself strong, bears a child that is weak. The woman then goes in forathletics, in order better to fit herself for motherhood; shespecializes on tennis. After a few years she bears another child, whichis much stronger and better developed than the first. "Look, " some onewill say, "how the mother has transmitted her acquirement to heroffspring. " We grant that her improved general health will probablyresult in a child that is better nourished than the first; but that is avery different thing from heredity. If, however, the mother had playedtennis until her right arm was over-developed, and her spine bent; ifthese characteristics were nowhere present in the ancestry and not seenin the first child; but if the second child were born with a bent spineand a right arm of exaggerated musculature, we would be willing toconsider the case on the basis of the inheritance of an acquiredcharacter. We are not likely to have such a case presented to us. 

To put the matter more generally, it is not enough to show that _some_modification in the parent results in _some_ modification in the child. For the purposes of this argument there must be a similar modification. 

(8) Finally, data are frequently presented, which cover only twogenerations--parent and child. Indeed, almost all the data alleged toshow the inheritance of acquired characteristics are of this kind. Theyare of little or no value as evidence. Cases covering a number ofgenerations, where a _cumulative_ change was visible, would be ofweight, but on the rare occasions when they are forthcoming, they can beexplained in some other way more satisfactorily than by an appeal to thetheory of Lamarck. [13]

If the evidence currently offered to support a belief in the inheritanceof acquired characters is tested by the application of these"misunderstandings, " it will at once be found that most of itdisappears; that it can be thrown out of court without furtherformality. The Lamarckian doctrine is now held mainly by persons whohave either lacked training in the evaluation of evidence, or have neverexamined critically the assumptions on which they proceed. Medical menand breeders of plants or animals are to a large extent believers inLamarckism, but the evidence (if any) on which they rely is alwayssusceptible of explanation in a more reasonable way. It must not beforgotten that some of the ablest intellects in the world have beenassidously engaged in getting at the truth in the case, during the lasthalf-century; and it is certainly worthy of consideration that not in asingle case has the transmission of an acquired body character everbeen proved beyond dispute. Those who still hold a belief in it (and itis fair to say that some men of real ability are among that number) toooften do so, it is to be feared, because it is necessary for the supportof some theoretical doctrine which they have formulated. Certainly thereare few men who can say that they have carefully examined the evidencein the case, and accept Lamarckism because the evidence forces them todo so. It will be interesting to review the various classes of allegedevidence, though we can cite only a few cases from the great numberavailable (most of them, however, dealing with plants or lower animals). 

Nearly all the evidence adduced can be put in one of these four classes:

 (1) Mutilations. (2) Diseases. (3) Results of use or disuse. (4) Physico-chemical effects of environment. 

The case in regard to mutilations is particularly clear cut and leaveslittle room for doubt. The noses and ears of oriental women have beenpierced for generations without number, yet girls are still born withthese parts entire. Circumcision offers another test case. The evidenceof laboratory experiments (amputation of tails) shows no inheritance. Itmay be said without hesitation that mutilations are not heritable, nomatter how many generations undergo them. 

(2) The transmissibility of acquired diseases is a question involved inmore of a haze of ignorance and loose thinking. It is particularlyfrequent to see cases of uterine infection offered as cases of theinheritance of acquired characters. To use the word "heredity" in such acase is unjustified. Uterine infection has no bearing whatever on thequestion. 

Taking an historical view, it seems fairly evident that if diseases werereally inherited, the race would have been extinct long ago. Of coursethere are constitutional defects or abnormalities that are in thegerm-plasm and are heritable: such is the peculiar inability of theblood to coagulate, which marks "bleeders" (sufferers from hemophilia, ahighly hereditary disease). And in many cases it is difficult todistinguish between a real germinal condition of this sort, and anacquired disease. 

The inheritance of an acquired disease is not only inconceivable, in thelight of what is known about the germ-plasm, but there is no evidence tosupport it. While there is most decidedly such a thing as theinheritance of a tendency to or lack of resistance to a disease, it isnot the result of incidence of the disease on the parent. It is possibleto inherit a tendency to headaches or to chronic alcoholism; and it ispossible to inherit a lack of resistance to common diseases such asmalaria, small-pox or measles; but actually to inherit a zymotic diseaseas an inherent genetic trait, is impossible, --is, in fact, acontradiction of terms. 

(3) When we come to the effects of use and disuse, we reach a muchdebated ground, and one complicated by the injection of a great deal ofbiological theorizing, as well as the presence of the usual large amountof faulty observation and inference. 

It will be admitted by every one that a part of the body which is muchused tends to increase in size, or strength, and similarly that a partwhich is not used tends to atrophy. It is further found that suchchanges are progressive in the race, in many cases. Man's brain hassteadily increased in size, as he used it more and more; on the otherhand, his canine teeth have grown smaller. Can this be regarded as theinheritance of a long continued process of use and disuse? Such a viewis often taken, but the Lamarckian doctrine seems to us just as mysticalhere as anywhere else, and no more necessary. Progressive changes can besatisfactorily accounted for by natural selection; retrogressive changesare susceptible of explanation along similar lines. When an organ is nolonger necessary, as the hind legs of a whale, for instance, naturalselection no longer keeps it at the point of perfection. Variation, however, continues to occur in it. Since the organ is now useless, natural selection will no longer restrain variation in such an organ, and degeneracy will naturally follow, for of all the variations thatoccur in the organ, those tending to loss are more numerous than thosetending to addition. If the embryonic development of a whale's hind legbe compared to some complicated mechanical process, such as themanufacture of a typewriter, it will be easier to realize that a trivialvariation which affected one of the first stages of the process wouldalter all succeeding stages and ruin the final perfection of themachine. It appears, then, that progressive degeneration of an organ canbe adequately explained by variation with the removal of naturalselection, and that it is not necessary or desirable to appeal to anyLamarckian factor of an unexplainable and undemonstrable nature. 

The situation remains the same, when purely mental processes, such asinstincts, are considered. Habit often repeated becomes instinctive, itis said; and then the instinct thus formed by the individual is passedon to his descendants and becomes in the end a racial instinct. Mostpsychologists have now abandoned this view, which receives no supportfrom investigation. Such prevalence as it still retains seems to belargely due to a confusion of thought brought about by the use of theword "instinctive" in two different senses, --first literally and thenfiguratively. 

A persistent attempt has been made in America during recent years, byC. L. Redfield, a Chicago engineer, to rehabilitate the theory of theinheritance of the effects of use and disuse. He has presented it in away that, to one ignorant of biology, appears very exact and plausible;but his evidence is defective and his interpretation of his evidencefallacious. Because of the widespread publicity, Mr. Redfield's work hasreceived, we discuss it further in Appendix B. 

Since the importance of hormones (internal secretions) in the bodybecame known, it has often been suggested that their action may furnishthe clue to some sort of an inheritance of modifications. The hormonemight conceivably modify the germ-plasm but if so, it would more likelybe in some wholly different way. 

In general, we may confidently say that there is neither theoreticalnecessity nor adequate experimental proof for belief that the results ofuse and disuse are inherited. 

(4) When we come to consider whether the effects of the environment areinherited, we attack a stronghold of sociologists and historians. Herbert Spencer thought one of the strongest pieces of evidence in thiscategory was to be found in the assimilation of foreigners in the UnitedStates. "The descendants of the immigrant Irish, " he pointed out, "losetheir Celtic aspect and become Americanised. . . . To say that 'spontaneousvariation, ' increased by natural selection, can have produced thiseffect, is going too far. " Unfortunately for Mr. Spencer, he was basinghis conclusions on guesswork. It is only within the last few months thatthe first trustworthy evidence on the point has appeared, in the carefulmeasurements of Hrdlicka who has demonstrated that Spencer was quitewrong in his statement. As a fact, the original traits persist withalmost incredible fidelity. (Appendix C. )

In 1911, Franz Boas of Columbia University published measurements of thehead form of children of immigrants[14] which purported to show thatAmerican conditions caused in some mysterious manner a change in theshape of the head. This conclusion in itself would have been strikingenough, but was made more startling when he announced that the changeworked both ways: "The East European Hebrew, who has a very round head, becomes more long-headed; the south Italian, who in Italy has anexceedingly long head, becomes more short-headed"; and moreover thispotent influence was alleged to be a subtle one "which does not affectthe young child born abroad and growing up in American environment, butwhich makes itself felt among the children born in America, even a shorttime after the arrival of the parents in this country. " Boas' work wasnaturally pleasing to sociologists who believe in the reality of the"melting-pot, " and has obtained widespread acceptance in popularliterature. It has obtained little acceptance among hisfellow-anthropologists, some of whom allege that it is unsound becauseof the faulty methods by which the measurements were made and theincorrect standards used for comparison. 

The many instances quoted by historians, where races have changed afterimmigration, are to be explained in most cases by natural selectionunder new conditions, or by interbreeding with the natives, and not asthe direct result of climate. Ellsworth Huntington, the most recent andcareful student of the effect of climate on man, [15] finds that climatehas a great deal of influence on man's energy, but as far as inheritedtraits in general are concerned, he is constantly led to remark howlittle heredity is capable of being changed. 

Most members of the white race have little toes that are partlyatrophied, and considerably deformed. In many cases one of the jointshas undergone ankylosis--that is, the bones have coalesced. It isconfidently alleged that this is due to the inheritance of the effectsof wearing tight shoes through many centuries. When it is found that theprehistoric Egyptians, who knew not tight shoes, suffered from the samedefect in a similar degree, one's confidence in this kind of evidence ismuch diminished. 

The retrogression of the little toe in man is probably to be explainedlike the degeneration of the hind leg of the whale, as a result of theexcess of deteriorating variations which, when not eliminated by naturalselection, lead to atrophy. Since man began to limit the use of his feetto walking on the ground, the little toe has had much less value to him. 

The feet of Chinese women offer another illustration along this line. Although they have been tightly bound for many generations, no deformityis apparent in the feet of girl babies. 

Breeders are generally of the opinion that good care and feed bestowedon their stock produce results in succeeding generations. This is in away true, but it is due merely to the fact that the offspring get betternourishment and therefore a better start in life. The changes in breeds, the increase in milk yield, and similar facts, often explained as due toinheritance of acquired characters, are better explained as the resultsof selection, sometimes conscious, sometimes quite unconscious. 

[Illustration: BOUND FOOT OF A CHINESE WOMAN

FIG. 5. --For centuries the feet of upper class women, and manylower class women, in China have been distorted in this manner; buttheir daughters have perfect feet when born. ]

[Illustration: DEFECTIVE LITTLE TOE OF A PREHISTORIC EGYPTIAN

FIG. 6. --The above illustration shows the foot of a prehistoricEgyptian who is estimated to have lived about 8000 B. C. The last jointof the little toe had entirely disappeared, and careful dissectionleaves no doubt that it was a germinal abnormality, such as isoccasionally seen to-day, and not the result of disease. It is, therefore, evident that the degeneration of man's little toe must beascribed to some more natural cause than the wearing of shoes for manygenerations. Photograph from Dr. Gorgy Sobhy, School of Medicine, Cairo. ]

The question of inherited immunity to diseases, as the result ofvaccination or actual illness from them, has appeared in the controversyin a number of forms, and is a point of much importance. It is not yetclear, partly because the doctors disagree as to what immunity is. Butthere is no adequate evidence that an immunity to anything can becreated and transmitted through the germ-plasm to succeedinggenerations. 

In short, no matter what evidence we examine, we must conclude thatinheritance of acquired bodily characters is not a subject that need bereckoned with, in applied eugenics. 

On the other hand, there is a possible indirect influence ofmodifications, which may have real importance in man. If the individualis modified in a certain way, in a number of generations, even thoughsuch a modification is not transmitted to his descendants, yet itscontinued existence may make possible, the survival of some germinalvariation bearing in the same direction, which without the protectinginfluence of the pre-existing modification, would have been swamped ordestroyed. 

Finally, it should be borne in mind that even if physical and mentalcharacters acquired during a man's lifetime are not transmitted, yetthere is a sort of transmission of acquired characters which has been ofimmense importance to the evolution of the race. This is the so-called"inheritance" of the environment; the passing on from one generation tothe next of the achievements of the race, its accumulated socialexperience; its civilization, in short. It is doubtful whether anyuseful end is gained by speaking of this continuance of the environmentas "heredity;" it certainly tends to confuse many people who are notused to thinking in biological terms. Tradition is the preferable term. 

There is much to be said in favor of E. B. Poulton'sdefinition, --"Civilization in general is the sum of those contrivanceswhich enable human beings to advance independently of heredity. "Whatever wisdom, material gain, or language is acquired by onegeneration may be passed on to the next. As far as the environment isconcerned, one generation stands on the shoulders of its predecessor. It might simplify the task of eugenics if the same could be said ofbiological heredity. But it can not. Each generation must "start fromscratch. "

In August Weismann's words, the development of a function in offspringbegins at the point where it _began_ in his parents, not at the pointwhere it _ended_ in them. Biological improvement of the race (and suchimprovement greatly fosters all other kinds) must be made through aselective birth-rate. There is no short-cut by way of euthenics, merely. 

We must now consider whether there is any direct way of impairing goodheredity. It is currently believed that there are certain substances, popularly known as "racial-poisons, " which are capable of affecting thegerm-plasm adversely and permanently in spite of its isolation andprotection. For example, the literature of alcoholism, and much of theliterature of eugenics, abounds with statements to the effect thatalcohol _originates_ degeneracy in the human race. 

The proof or disproof of this proposition must depend in the lastanalysis on direct observation and carefully controlled experiments. Asthe latter cannot be made feasibly on man, a number of students havetaken up the problem by using small animals which are easily handled inlaboratories. Many of these experiments are so imperfect in method that, when carefully examined, they are found to possess little or no value asevidence on the point here discussed. 

Hodge, Mairet and Combemale, for example, have published data whichconvinced them that the germ-plasm of dogs was injured by theadministration of alcohol. The test was the quality of offspringdirectly produced by the intoxicated animals under experiment. But thenumber of dogs used was too small to be conclusive, and there was no"control": hence these experiments carry little weight. 

Ovize, Fêrê and Stockard have shown that the effect of alcohol on hen'seggs is to produce malformed embryos. This, however, is a case ofinfluencing the development of the individual, rather than thegerm-plasm. Evidence is abundant that individual development can beharmed by alcohol, but the experiments with eggs are not to the pointof our present purpose. 

Carlo Todde and others have carried out similar experiments on cocks. The conclusions have in general been in favor of injury to thegerm-plasm, but the experiments were inadequate in extent. 

Laitinen experimented on rabbits and guinea pigs, but he used smalldoses and secured only negative results. 

Several series of experiments with rats indicate that if the dosage islarge enough, the offspring can be affected. 

Nice, using very small numbers of white mice, subjected them not only toalcohol, but to caffein, nicotin, and tobacco smoke. The fecundity ofall these sets of mice was higher than that of the untreated ones usedas control; all of them gained in weight; of 707 young, none wasdeformed, none stillborn, and there was only one abortion. The young ofthe alcoholized mice surpassed all others in growth. The dosage Niceemployed was too small, however, to give his experiment great weight. 

At the University of Wisconsin, Leon J. Cole has been treating malerabbits with alcohol and reports that "what appear to be decisiveresults have already been obtained. In the case of alcoholic poisoningof the male the most marked result has been a lessening of hisefficiency as a sire, the alcohol apparently having had some effect onthe vitality of his spermatozoa. " His experiment is properly planned andcarried out, but so far as results have been made public, they do notappear to afford conclusive evidence that alcohol originates degeneracyin offspring. 

The long-continued and carefully conducted experiment of Charles R. Stockard at the Cornell Medical College is most widely quoted in thisconnection. He works with guinea-pigs. The animals are intoxicateddaily, six days in the week, by inhaling the fumes of alcohol to thepoint where they show evident signs of its influence; their conditionmay thus be compared to that of the toper who never gets "dead drunk"but is never entirely sober. Treatment of this sort for a period as longas three years produces no apparent bad effect on the individuals; theycontinue to grow and become fat and vigorous, taking plenty of food andbehaving in a normal manner in every particular. Some of them have beenkilled from time to time, and all the tissues, including thereproductive glands, have been found perfectly normal. "The treatedanimals are, therefore, little changed or injured so far as theirbehavior and structure goes. Nevertheless, the effects of the treatmentare most decidedly indicated by the type of offspring to which they giverise, whether they are mated together or with normal individuals. "

Before the treatment is begun, every individual is mated at least once, to demonstrate its possibility of giving rise to sound offspring. Thecrucial test of the influence of alcohol on the germ-cells is, ofcourse, the mating of a previously alcoholized male with a normal, untreated female, in a normal environment. 

When the experiment was last reported, [16] it had covered five years andfour generations. The records of 682 offspring produced by 571 matingswere tabulated, 164 matings of alcoholized animals, in which either thefather, mother, or both were alcoholic, gave 64, or almost 40%, negativeresults or early abortions, while only 25% of the control matings failedto give full-term litters. Of the 100 full-term litters from alcoholicparents 18% contained stillborn young and only 50% of all the matingsresulted in living litters, while 47% of the individuals in the littersof living young died soon after birth. In contrast to this record 73% ofthe 90 control matings gave living litters and 84% of the young in theselitters survived as normal, healthy animals. 

"The mating records of the descendants of the alcoholized guinea pigs, although they themselves were not treated with alcohol, compare in somerespects even more unfavorably with the control records than do theabove data from the directly alcoholized animals. " The records of thematings in the second filial generation "are still worse, highermortality and more pronounced deformities, while the few individualswhich have survived are generally weak and in many instances appear tobe quite sterile even though paired with vigorous, prolific, normalmates. "

We do not minimize the value of this experiment, when we say that toomuch weight has been popularly placed on its results. Compare it withthe experiment with fowls at the University of Maine, which RaymondPearl reports. [17] He treated 19 fowls with alcohol, little effect onthe general health being shown, and none on egg production. From theireggs 234 chicks were produced; the average percentage of fertility ofthe eggs was diminished but the average percentage of hatchability offertile eggs was increased. The infant mortality of these chicks wassmaller than normal, the chicks were heavier when hatched and grew morerapidly than normal afterwards. No deformities were found. "Out of 12different characters for which we have exact quantitative data, theoffspring of treated parents taken as a group are superior to theoffspring of untreated parents in 8 characters, " in two characters theyare inferior and in the remaining two there is no discernibledifference. At this stage Dr. Pearl's experiment is admittedly toosmall, but he is continuing it. As far as reported, it confirms the workof Professor Nice, above mentioned, and shows that what is true forguinea pigs may not be true for other animals, and that the amount ofdosage probably also makes a difference. Dr. Pearl explains his resultsby the hypothesis that the alcohol eliminated the weaker germs in theparents, and allowed only the stronger germs to be used forreproduction. 

Despite the unsatisfactory nature of much of the alleged evidence, wemust conclude that alcohol, when given in large enough doses, maysometimes affect the germ-plasm of some lower animals in such a way asto deteriorate the quality of their offspring. This effect is probablyan "induction, " which does not produce a permanent change in the basesof heredity, but will wear away in a generation or two of goodsurroundings. It must be remembered that although the second-generationtreated males of Dr. Stockard's experiment produced defective offspringwhen mated with females from similarly treated stock, they producednormal offspring when mated with normal females. The significance ofthis fact has been too little emphasized in writings on "racialpoisons. " If a normal mate will counteract the influence of a "poisoned"one, it is obvious that the probabilities of danger to any race fromthis source are much decreased, while if only a small part of the raceis affected, and mates at random, the racial damage might be so smallthat it could hardly be detected. 

There are several possible explanations of the fact that injury is foundin some experiments but not in others. It may be, as Dr. Pearl thinks, that only weak germs are killed by moderate treatment, and the strongones are uninjured. And it is probable (this applies more particularlyto man) that the body can take care of a certain amount of alcoholwithout receiving any injury therefrom; it is only when the dosagepasses the "danger point" that the possibility of injury appears. As tothe location of this limit, which varies with the species, little isknown. Much more work is needed before the problem will be fully clearedup. 

Alcohol has been in use in parts of the world for many centuries; it wascommon in the Orient before the beginning of historical knowledge. Nowif its use by man impairs the germ-plasm, then it seems obvious that thechild of one who uses alcohol to a degree sufficient to impair hisgerm-plasm will tend to be born inferior to his parent. If that childhimself is alcoholic, his own offspring will suffer still more, sincethey must carry the burden of two generations of impairment. Continuingthis line of reasoning over a number of generations, in a race wherealcohol is freely used by most of the population, one seems unable toescape from the conclusion that the effects of this racial poison, if itbe such, must necessarily be cumulative. The damage done to the racemust increase in each generation. If the deterioration of the race couldbe measured, it might even be found to grow in a series of figuresrepresenting arithmetical progression. 

It seems impossible, with such a state of affairs, that a race in whichalcohol was widely used for a long period of time, could avoidextinction. At any rate, the races which have used alcohol longest oughtto show great degeneracy--unless there be some regenerative process atwork constantly counteracting this cumulative effect of the racialpoison in impairing the germ-plasm. 

Such a proposition at once demands an appeal to history. What is foundin examination of the races that have used alcohol the longest? Havethey undergone a progressive physical degeneracy, as should be expected?

By no means. In this particular respect they seem to have becomestronger rather than weaker, as time went on; that is, they have beenless and less injured by alcohol in each century, as far as can be told. Examination of the history of nations which are now comparatively sober, although having access to unlimited quantities of alcohol, shows that atan earlier period in their history, they were notoriously drunken; andthe sobriety of a race seems to be proportioned to the length of time inwhich it has had experience of alcohol. The Mediterranean peoples, whohave had abundance of it from the earliest period recorded, are nowrelatively temperate. One rarely sees a drunkard among them, althoughmany individuals in them would never think of drinking water or anyother non-alcoholic beverage. In the northern nations, where theexperience of alcohol has been less prolonged, there is still a gooddeal of drunkenness, although not so much as formerly. But among nationsto whom strong alcohol has only recently been made available--theAmerican Indian, for instance, or the Eskimo--drunkenness is frequentwherever the protecting arm of government does not interfere. 

What bearing does this have on the theory of racial poisons?

Surely a consideration of the principle of natural selection will makeit clear that alcohol is acting as an instrument of racial purificationthrough the elimination of weak stocks. It is a drastic sort ofpurification, which one can hardly view with complacency; but theeffect, nevertheless, seems clear cut. 

To demonstrate the action of natural selection, we must firstdemonstrate the existence of variations on which it can act. This isnot difficult in the character under consideration--namely, the greateror less capacity of individuals to be attracted by alcohol, to aninjurious degree. 

As G. Archdall Reid has pointed out, [18] men drink for at least threedifferent reasons: (1) to satisfy thirst. This leads to the use of alight wine or a malt liquor. (2) To gratify the palate. This againusually results in the use of drinks of low alcohol content, in whichthe flavor is the main consideration. (3) Finally, men drink "to inducethose peculiar feelings, those peculiar frames of mind" caused byalcohol. 

Although the three motives may and often do coexist in the sameindividual, or may animate him at different periods of life, the factremains that they are quite distinct. Thirst and taste do not lead toexcessive drinking; and there is good evidence that the degree ofconcentration and the dosage are important factors in the amount of harmalcohol may do to the individual. The concern of evolutionists, therefore, is with the man who is so constituted that the mental effectsof alcohol acting directly on the brain are pleasing, and we must showthat there is a congenital variability in this mental quality, amongindividuals. 

Surely an appeal to personal experience will leave little room for doubton that point. The alcohol question is so hedged about with moral andethical issues that those who never get drunk, or who perhaps never even"take a drink, " are likely to ascribe that line of conduct to superiorintelligence and great self-control. As a fact, a dispassionate analysisof the case will show that why many such do not use alcoholic beveragesto excess is because intoxication has no charm for them. He is soconstituted that the action of alcohol on the brain is distastefulrather than pleasing to him. In other cases it is variation incontrolling satisfaction of immediate pleasures for later greater good. 

Some of the real inebriates have a strong will and a real desire to besober, but have a different mental make-up, vividly described by WilliamJames:[19] "The craving for drink in real dipsomaniacs, or for opium andchloral in those subjugated, is of a strength of which normal personscan have no conception. 'Were a keg of rum in one corner of the room, and were a cannon constantly discharging balls between me and it, Icould not refrain from passing before that cannon in order to get thatrum. If a bottle of brandy stood on one hand, and the pit of hell yawnedon the other, and I were convinced I should be pushed in as surely as Itook one glass, I could not refrain. ' Such statements abound indipsomaniacs' mouths. " Between this extreme, and the other of the manwho is sickened by a single glass of beer, there are all intermediates. 

Now, given an abundant and accessible supply of alcohol to a race, whathappens? Those who are not tempted or have adequate control, do notdrink to excess; those who are so constituted as to crave the effects ofalcohol (once they have experienced them), and who lack the ability todeny themselves the immediate pleasure for the sake of a future gain, seek to renew these pleasures of intoxication at every opportunity; andthe well attested result is that they are likely to drink themselves toa premature death. 

Although it is a fact that the birth-rate in drunkard's families may beand often is larger than that of the general population, [20] it is nonethe less a fact that many of the worst drunkards leave no or fewoffspring. They die of their own excesses at an early age; or theirconduct makes them unattractive as mates; or they give so little care totheir children that the latter die from neglect, exposure or accident. As these drunkards would tend to hand down their own inborn peculiarity, or weakness for alcohol, to their children, it must be obvious thattheir death results in a smaller proportion of such persons in the nextgeneration. In other words, natural selection is at work again here, with alcohol as its agent. By killing off the worst drunkards in eachgeneration, nature provides that the following generation shall containfewer people who lack the power to resist the attraction of the effectof alcohol, or who have a tendency to use it to such an extent as toinjure their minds and bodies. And it must be obvious that the speed andefficacy of this ruthless temperance reform movement are proportionateto the abundance and accessibility of the supply of alcohol. Where thesupply is ample and available, there is certain to be a relatively highdeath-rate among those who find it too attractive, and the average ofthe race therefore is certain to become stronger in this respect witheach generation. Such a conclusion can be abundantly justified by anappeal to the history of the Teutonic nations, the nations around theMediterranean, the Jews, or any race which has been submitted to thetest. 

There seems hardly room for dispute on the reality of this phase ofnatural selection. But there is another way in which the process ofstrengthening the race against the attraction and effect of alcohol maybe going on at the same time. If the drug does actually injure thegerm-plasm, and set up a deterioriation, it is obvious that naturalselection is given another point at which to work. The more deterioratedwould be eliminated in each generation in competition with the lessdeteriorated or normal; and the process of racial purification wouldthen go on the more rapidly. The fact that races long submitted to theaction of alcohol have become relatively resistant to it, therefore, does not in itself answer the question of whether alcohol injures thehuman germ-plasm. 

The possible racial effect of alcoholization is, in short, a much morecomplicated problem than it appears at first sight to be. It involvesthe action of natural selection in several important ways, and thisaction might easily mask the direct action of alcohol on the germ-plasm, if there be any measurable direct result. 

No longer content with a long perspective historical view, we willscrutinize the direct investigations of the problem which have been madeduring recent years. These investigations have in many cases beenwidely advertised to the public, and their conclusions have been so muchrepeated that they are often taken at their face value, without criticalexamination. 

It must be borne in mind that the solution of the problem depends onfinding evidence of degeneracy or impairment in the offspring of personswho have used alcohol, and that this relation might be explainable inone or more of three ways:

(1) It may be that alcoholism is merely a symptom of a degenerate stock. In this case the children will be defective, not because their parentsdrank, but because their parents were defective--the parents' drinkingbeing merely one of the symptoms of their defect. 

(2) It may be that alcohol directly poisons the germ-plasm, in such away that parents of sound stock, who drink alcoholic beverages, willhave defective offspring. 

(3) It may be that the degeneracy observed in the children of drunkards(for of course no one will deny that children of drunkards arefrequently defective) is due solely to social and economic causes, orother causes in the environment: that the drunken parents, for instance, do not take adequate care of their children, and that this lack of careleads to the defects of the children. 

The latter influence is doubtless one that is nearly always at work, butit is wholly outside the scope of the present inquiry, and we shalltherefore ignore it, save as it may appear incidentally. Nor does itrequire emphasis here; for the disastrous social and economic effects ofalcoholism are patent to every observer. We find it most convenient toconcentrate our attention first on the second of the questions aboveenumerated: to ask whether there is any good evidence that the use ofalcoholic beverages by men and women really does originate degeneracy intheir offspring. 

To get such evidence, one must seek an instance that will be crucial, one that will leave no room for other interpretations. One must, therefore, exclude consideration of cases where a mother drank beforechild birth. It is well-known that alcohol can pass through theplacenta, and that if a prospective mother drinks, the percentage ofalcohol in the circulation of the unborn child will very soon be nearlyequal to that in her own circulation. It is well established that such acondition is extremely injurious to the child; but it has nothingdirectly to do with heredity. Therefore we can not accept evidence ofthe supposed effect of alcohol on the fertilized egg-cell, at any stagein its development, because that is an effect on the individual, not onposterity. And the only means by which we can wholly avoid this fallacyis to give up altogether an attempt to prove our case by citinginstances in which the mother was alcoholic. If this is not done, therewill always be liability of mistaking an effect of prenatal nutritionfor a direct injury to the germ-plasm. 

But if we can find cases where the mother was of perfectly sound stock, and non-alcoholic; where the father was of sound stock, but alcoholic;and where the offspring were impaired in ways that can be plausiblyattributed to an earlier injury to the germ-plasm by the father'salcohol; then we have evidence that must weigh heavily with thefair-minded. 

An interesting case is the well-known one recorded by Schweighofer, which is summarized as follows: "A normal woman married a normal man andhad three sound children. The husband died and the woman married adrunkard and gave birth to three other children; one of these became adrunkard; one had infantilism, while the third was a social degenerateand a drunkard. The first two of these children contracted tuberculosis, which had never before been in the family. The woman married a thirdtime and by this sober husband again produced sound children. "

Although such evidence is at first sight pertinent, it lacks much ofbeing convincing. Much must be known about the ancestry of the drunkenhusband, and of the woman herself, before it can be certain that thedefective children owe their defect to alcoholism rather than toheredity. 

We can not undertake to review all the literature of this subject, forit fills volumes, but we shall refer to a few of the studies which arecommonly cited, by the believers in the racial-poison character ofalcohol, as being the most weighty. 

Taav Laitinen of Helsingfors secured information from the parents of2, 125 babies, who agreed to weigh their infants once a month for thefirst eight months after birth, and who also furnished information abouttheir own drinking habits. His conclusion is that the average weight ofthe abstainer's child is greater at birth, that these children developmore rapidly during the first eight months than do the children of themoderate drinker, and that the latter exceed in the same way thechildren of the heavier drinker. But a careful analysis of his work byKarl Pearson, whose great ability in handling statistics has thrownlight on many dark places in the alcohol problem, shows[21] thatProfessor Laitinen's statistical methods were so faulty that no weightcan be attached to his conclusions. Furthermore, he appears to havemixed various social classes and races together without distinction; andhe has made no distinction between parents, one of whom drank, andparents, both of whom drank. Yet, this distinction, as we have pointedout, is a critical one for such inquiries. Professor Laitinen's paper, according to one believer in racial poisons, "surpasses in magnitude andprecision all the many studies of this subject which have proved therelation between drink and degeneracy. " As a fact, it proves nothing ofthe sort as to race degeneracy. 

Again, T. A. MacNicholl reported on 55, 000 American school children, from 20, 147 of whom he secured information about the parents' attitudeto alcoholic drinks. He found an extraordinarily large proportion (58%)of deficient and backward children in the group. But the mere bulk ofhis work, probably, has given it far more prestige than it deserves; forhis methods are careless, his classifications vague, his informationinadequate; he seems to have dealt with a degenerate section of thepopulation, which does not offer suitable material for testing thequestion at issue; and he states that many of the children drank andsmoked, --hence, any defects found in them may be due to their ownintemperance, rather than that of their parents. In short, Dr. MacNicholl's data offer no help in an attempt to decide whetheralcoholism is an inheritable effect. 

Another supposed piece of evidence which has deceived a great manystudents is the investigation of Bezzola into the distribution of thebirth-rate of imbeciles in Switzerland. He announced that inwine-growing districts the number of idiots conceived at the time of thevintage and carnival is very large, while at other periods it is almost_nil_. The conclusion was that excesses of drunkenness occurring inconnection with the vintage and carnival caused this production ofimbeciles. But aside from the unjustified assumptions involved in hisreasoning, Professor Pearson has recently gone over the data and shownthe faulty statistical method; that, in fact, the number of imbecilesconceived at vintage-time, in excess of the average monthly number, wasonly three in spite of the large numbers! Bezzola's testimony, which haslong been cited as proof of the disastrous results of the use of alcoholat the time of conception, must be discarded. 

Demme's plausible investigation is also widely quoted to support thebelief that alcohol poisons the germ-plasm. He studied the offspring of10 drunken and 10 sober pairs of parents, and found that of the 61children of the latter, 50 were normal, while of the 57 progeny of thedrunkards, only nine were normal. This is a good specimen of much of theevidence cited to prove that alcohol impairs the germ-plasm; it has beenwidely circulated by propagandists in America during recent years. Ofcourse, its value depends wholly on whether the 20 pairs of parents wereof sound, comparable stock. Karl Pearson has pointed out that this isnot the case. Demme selected his children of drunkards by selectingchildren who came to his hospital on account of imperfect development ofspeech, mental defect, imbecility or idiocy. When he found families inwhich such defective children occurred, he then inquired as to theirancestry. Many of these children, he found, were reduced to a conditionapproaching epilepsy, or actually epileptic, because they themselveswere alcoholic. Obviously such material can not legitimately be used toprove that the use of alcohol by parents injures the heredity of theirchildren. The figures do not at all give the proof we are seeking, thatalcohol can so affect sound germ-plasm as to lead to the production ofdefective children. 

Dr. Bertholet made a microscopic examination of the reproductive glandsof 75 chronic male alcoholics, and in 37 cases he found them more orless atrophied, and devoid of spermatozoa. Observing the same glands innon-alcoholics who had died of various chronic diseases, such astuberculosis, he found no such condition. His conclusion is that thereproductive glands are more sensitive to the effects of alcohol thanany other organ. So far as is known to us, his results have never beendiscredited; they have, on the contrary, been confirmed by otherinvestigators. They are of great significance to eugenics, in showinghow the action of natural selection to purge the race of drunkards issometimes facilitated in a way we had not counted, through reducedfertility due to alcohol, as well as through death due to alcohol. Butit should not be thought that his results are typical, and that allchronic alcoholists become sterile: every reader will know of cases inhis own experience, where drunkards have large families; and theexperimental work with smaller animals also shows that long-continuedinebriety is compatible with great fecundity. It is probable thatextreme inebriety reduces fertility, but a lesser amount increases it inthe cases of many men by reducing the prudence which leads to limitedfamilies. 

In 1910 appeared the investigation of Miss Ethel M. Elderton and KarlPearson on school children in Edinburgh and Manchester. [22] Their aimwas to take a population under the same environmental conditions, andwith no discoverable initial differentiation, and inquire whether thetemperate and intemperate sections had children differing widely inphysique and mentality. Handling their material with the most refinedstatistical methods, and in an elaborate way, they reached theconclusion that parental alcoholism does not markedly affect thephysique or mentality of the offspring as children. Whether resultsmight differ in later life, their material did not show. Theirconclusions were as follows:

"(1) There is a higher death-rate among the offspring of alcoholic thanamong the offspring of sober parents. This appears to be more marked inthe case of the mother than in the case of the father, and since it issensibly higher in the case of the mother who has drinking bouts[periodical sprees] than of the mother who habitually drinks, it wouldappear to be due very considerably to accidents and gross carelessnessand possibly in a minor degree to toxic effect on the offspring. 

"Owing to the greater fertility of alcoholic parents, the net family ofthe sober is hardly larger than the net family of the alcoholic. [Itshould be remembered that the study did not include childless couples. ]

"(2) The mean weight and height of the children of alcoholic parents areslightly greater than those of sober parents, but as the age of theformer children is slightly greater, the correlations when corrected forage are slightly positive, i. E. , there is slightly greater height andweight in the children of the sober. "

"(3) The wages of the alcoholic as contrasted with the sober parent showa slight difference compatible with the employers' dislike for analcoholic employee, but wholly inconsistent with a marked mental orphysical inferiority in the alcoholic parent. 

"(4) The general health of the children of alcoholic parents appears onthe whole slightly better than that of sober parents. There are fewerdelicate children, and in a most marked way cases of tuberculosis andepilepsy are less frequent than among the children of sober parents. Thesource of this relation may be sought in two directions; the physicallystrongest in the community have probably the greatest capacity and tastefor alcohol. Further the higher death rate of the children of alcoholicparents probably leaves the fittest to survive. Epilepsy andtuberculosis both depending upon inherited constitutional conditions, they will be more common in the parents of affected offspring, andprobably if combined with alcohol, are incompatible with any length oflife or size of family. If these views be correct, we can only say thatparental alcoholism has no marked effect on filial health. 

"(5) Parental alcoholism is not the source of mental defect inoffspring. 

"(6) The relationship, if any, between parental alcoholism and filialintelligence is so slight that even its sign can not be determined fromthe present material. 

"(7) The normal visioned and normal refractioned offspring appear to bein rather a preponderance in the families of the drinking parents, theparents who have 'bouts' give intermediate results, but there is nosubstantial relationship between goodness of sight and parentalalcoholism. Some explanation was sought on the basis of alcoholic homesdriving the children out into the streets. This was found to be markedlythe case, the children of alcoholic parents spending much more of theirspare time in the streets. An examination, however, of the vision andrefraction of children with regard to the time they spent in-andout-of-doors, showed no clear and definite result, the children whospent the whole or most of their spare time in the streets having themost myopia and also most normal sight. It was not possible to assertthat the outdoor life was better for the sight, or that the better sightof the offspring of alcoholic parentage was due to the greater timespent outdoors. 

"(8) The frequency of diseases of the eye and eyelids, which might wellbe attributed to parental neglect, was found to have little, if any, relation to parental alcoholism. 

"To sum up, then no _marked_ relation has been found between theintelligence, physique or disease of the offspring and the parentalalcoholism in any of the categories mentioned. On the whole the balanceturns as often in favor of the alcoholic as of the non-alcoholicparentage. It is needless to say that we do not attribute this to thealcohol but to certain physical and possibly mental characters whichappear to be associated with the tendency to alcohol. "

Of the many criticisms made of this work, most are irrelevant to ourpresent purpose, or have been satisfactorily met by the authors. It mustbe said, however, that as the children examined were all schoolchildren, the really degenerate offspring of alcoholics, if any suchexisted, would not have been found, because they would not have beenadmitted to the school. Further, it is not definitely known whether theparents' alcoholism dated from before or after the birth of the childexamined. Then, the report did not exactly compare the offspring ofdrinkers and non-drinkers, but classified the parents as those whodrank, and those who were sober; the latter were not, for the most part, teetotalers, but merely persons whose use of alcohol was so moderatethat it exercised no visible bad influence on the health of theindividual or the welfare of the home. Something can be said on bothsides of all these objections; but giving them as much weight as onethinks necessary, the fact remains that the Elderton-Pearsoninvestigation failed to demonstrate any racial poisoning due to alcohol, in the kind of cases where one would certainly have expected it to bedemonstrated, if it existed. 

Much more observation and measurement must be made before ageneralization can be safely drawn, as to whether alcohol is or is not aracial poison, in the sense in which that expression is used byeugenists. It has been shown that the evidence which is commonlybelieved to prove beyond doubt that alcohol does injure the germ-plasm, is mostly worthless. But it must not be thought that the authors intendto deny that alcohol is a racial poison, where the dosage is very heavyand continuous. If we have no good evidence that it is, we equally lackevidence on the other side. We wish only to suggest caution againstmaking rash generalizations on the subject which lack supportingevidence and therefore are a weak basis for propaganda. 

So far as immediate action is concerned, eugenics must proceed on thebasis that there is no proof that alcohol as ordinarily consumed willinjure the human germ-plasm. To say this is not in any way to minifythe evil results which alcohol often has on the individual, or thedisastrous consequences to his offspring, euthenically. But nothing isto be gained by making an assumption of "racial poisoning, " and actingon that assumption, without evidence that it is true; and the temperancemovement would command more respect from genetics if it ceased to allegeproof that alcohol has a directly injurious effect on the race, bypoisoning the human germ-plasm, when no adequate proof exists. 

How, then, can one account for the immense bulk of cases, some of whichcome within everyone's range of vision, where alcoholism in the parentis associated with defect in the offspring? By a process of exclusion, we are driven to the explanation already indicated: that alcoholism maybe a symptom, rather than a cause, of degeneracy. Some drunkards aredrunkards, because they come of a stock that is, in a way, mentallydefective; physical defects are frequently correlated in such stocks;naturally the children inherit part or all of the parental defectsincluding, very likely, alcoholism; but the parent's alcoholism, werepeat, must not be considered the _cause_ of the child's defect. Thechild would have been defective in the same way, regardless of theparent's beverage. 

It follows, then, as a practical consequence for eugenics, that in thelight of present knowledge any campaign against alcoholic liquors wouldbe better based on the very adequate ground of physiology and economics, than on genetics. From the narrowest point of view of genetics, the wayto solve the liquor problem would be, not to eliminate drink, but toeliminate the drinker: to prevent the reproduction of the degeneratestocks and the tainted strains that contribute most of the chronicalcoholics. We do not mean to advocate this as the only proper basis forthe temperance campaign, because the physiological and economic aspectsare of sufficient importance to keep up the campaign at twice thepresent intensity. [23] But it is desirable to have the eugenic aspect ofthe matter clearly understood, and to point out that in checking theproduction of defectives in the United States, eugenics will do itsshare, and a big share, toward the solution of the drink problem, whichis at the same time being attacked along other and equally praiseworthylines by other people. 

A number of other substances are sometimes credited with being racialpoisons. 

The poison of _Spirochæte pallida_, the microörganism which causessyphilis, has been widely credited with a directly noxious effect on thegerm-plasm, and the statement has been made that this effect can betransmitted for several generations. On the other hand, healthy childrenare reported as being born to cured syphilitics. Further evidence isneeded, taking care to eliminate cases of infection from the parents. Ifthe alleged deterioration really occurs, it will still remain to bedetermined if the effect is permanent or an induction, that is, a changein the germ-cells which does not permanently alter the nature of theinherited traits, and which would disappear in a few generations underfavorable conditions. 

The case against lead is similar. Sir Thomas Oliver, in his _Diseases ofOccupation_, sums up the evidence as follows:

"Rennert has attempted to express in statistical terms the varyingdegrees of gravity in the prognosis of cases in which at the moment ofconception both parents are the subjects of lead poisoning, also whenone alone is affected. The malign influence of lead is reflected uponthe fetus and upon the continuation of the pregnancy 94 times out of 100when both parents have been working in lead, 92 times when the motheralone is affected, and 63 times when it is the father alone who hasworked in lead. Taking seven healthy women who were married to leadworkers, and in whom there was a total of 32 pregnancies, Lewin (Berlin)tells us that the results were as follows: 11 miscarriages, onestillbirth, 8 children died within the first year after their birth, four in the second year, five in the third year and one subsequent tothis, leaving only two children out of 32 pregnancies as likely to liveto manhood. In cases where women have had a series of miscarriages solong as their husbands worked in lead, a change of industrialoccupation on the part of the husband restores to the wives normalchild-bearing powers. " The data of Constantin Paul, published as longago as 1860, indicated that lead exercised an injurious effect throughthe male as well as the female parent. This sort of evidence iscertainly weak, in that it fails to take into account the possibleeffects of environment; and one would do well to keep an open mind onthe subject. In a recent series of careful experiments at the Universityof Wisconsin, Leon J. Cole has treated male rabbits with lead. Hereports: "The 'leaded' males have produced as many or more offspringthan normal fathers, but their young have averaged smaller in size andare of lowered vitality, so that larger numbers of them die off at anearly age than is the case with those from untreated fathers. "

[Illustration: EFFECT OF LEAD AS A "RACIAL POISON"

FIG. 7. --That lead poisoning can affect the germ plasm ofrabbits is indicated by experiments conducted by Leon J. Cole at theUniversity of Wisconsin. With reference to the above illustration, Professor Cole writes: "Each of the photographs shows two young from thesame litter, in all cases the mother being a normal (nonpoisoned)albino. In each of the litters the white young is from an albino fatherwhich received the lead treatment, while the pigmented offspring is froma normal, homozygous, pigmented male. While these are, it is true, selected individuals, they represent what tend to be average, ratherthan extreme, conditions. The albino male was considerably larger thanthe pigmented male; nevertheless his young average distinctly smaller insize. Note also the brighter expression of the pigmented young. "]

There is, then, a suspicion that lead is a racial poison, but noevidence as yet as to whether the effect is permanent or in the natureof an induction. 

This concludes the short list of substances for which there has been anyplausible case made out, as racial poisons. Gonorrhea, malaria, arsenic, tobacco, and numerous other substances have been mentioned from time totime, and even ardently contended by propagandists to be racial poisons, but in the case of none of them, so far as we know, is there anyevidence to support the claim. And as has been shown, in the case of thethree chief so-called racial poisons, alcohol, syphilis and lead, theevidence is not great. We are thus in a position to state that, from theeugenists' point of view, the _origination_ of degeneracy, by somedirect action of the germ-plasm, is a contingency that hardly needs tobe reckoned with. Even in case the evidence were much stronger than itis, the damage done may only be a physiological or chemical induction, the effects of which will wear off in a few generations; rather than aradical change in the hereditary constituents of the germ-plasm. Thegerm-plasm is so carefully isolated and guarded that it is almostimpossible to injure it, except by treatment so severe as to kill italtogether; and the degeneracy with which eugenists are called on todeal is a degeneracy which is running along from generation togeneration and which, when once stopped by the cessation ofreproduction, is in little danger of being originated anew through someracial poison. 

Through these facts, the problem of race betterment is not onlyimmensely simplified, but it is clearly shown to be more a matter fortreatment by the biologist, acting through eugenics, than for theoptimistic improver of the environment. 

There is another way in which it is widely believed that some suchresult as a direct influence of the germ-plasm can be produced: that isthrough the imaginary process known as maternal impression, prenatalinfluence, etc. Belief in maternal impressions is no novelty. In thebook of Genesis[24] Jacob is described as making use of it to get thebetter of his tricky father-in-law. Some animal breeders still professfaith in it as a part of their methods of breeding: if they want a blackcalf, for instance, they will keep a white cow in a black stall, andexpress perfect confidence that her offspring will resemble midnightdarkness. It is easy to see that this method, if it "works, " would be apotent instrument for eugenics. And it is being recommended for thatreason. Says a recent writer, who professes on the cover of her book togive a "complete and intelligent summary of all the principles ofeugenics":

"Too much emphasis can not be placed upon the necessity of young peoplemaking the proper choice of mates in marriage; yet if the production ofsuperior children were dependent upon that one factor, the outlook wouldbe most discouraging to prospective fathers and mothers, for weak traitsof character are to be found in all. But when young people learn that bya conscious endeavor to train themselves, they are thereby trainingtheir unborn children, they can feel that there is some hope and joy inparentage; that it is something to which they can look forward withdelight and even rapture; then they will be inspired to work hard toattain the best and highest that there is in them, leading the livesthat will not only be a blessing to themselves, but to their succeedinggeneration. "

The author of this quotation has no difficulty in finding supporters. Many physicians and surgeons, who are supposed to be trained inscientific methods of thought, will indorse what she says. The author ofone of the most recent and in many respects admirable books on the careof babies, is almost contemptuous in her disdain for those who thinkotherwise:

"Science wrangles over the rival importance of heredity and environment, but we women know what effects prenatal influence works on children. ""The woman who frets brings forth a nervous child. The woman who rebelsgenerally bears a morbid child. " "Self-control, cheerfulness and lovefor the little life breathing in unison with your own will practicallyinsure you a child of normal physique and nerves. "

Such statements, backed up by a great array of writers and speakers whomthe layman supposes to be scientific, and who think themselvesscientific, can not fail to influence strongly an immense number offathers and mothers. If they are truly scientific statements, theirgeneral acceptance must be a great good. 

But think of the misplaced effort if these widespread statements arefalse!

Is there, or is there not, a short cut to race betterment? Everyoneinterested in the welfare of the race must feel the necessity of gettingat the truth in the case; and the truth can be found only by rigorouslyscientific thought. 

Let us turn to the observed facts. This sample is taken from the healthdepartment of a popular magazine, quite recently issued:

"Since birth my body has been covered with scales strikingly resemblingthe surface of a fish. My parents and I have expended considerable moneyon remedies and specialists without deriving any permanent benefit. Ibathe my entire body with hot water daily, using the best quality ofsoap. The scales fall off continually. My brother, who is younger thanmyself, is afflicted with the same trouble, but in a lesser degree. Mysister, the third member of the family, has been troubled only on theknees and abdomen. My mother has always been quite nervous andsusceptible to any unusual mental impression. She believes that shemarked me by craving fish, and preferring to clean them herself. Duringthe prenatal life of my brother, she worried much lest she might markhim in the same way. In the case of my sister she tried to control hermind. "[25]

Another is taken from a little publication which is devoted toeugenics. [26] As a "horrible example" the editor gives the case of JessePomeroy, a murderer whom older readers will remember. His father, itappears, worked in a meat market. Before the birth of Jesse, his motherwent daily to the shop to carry a luncheon to her husband, and her eyesnaturally fell upon the bloody carcases hung about the walls. Inevitably, the sight of such things would produce bloody thoughts inthe mind of the unborn child!

These are extreme cases; we quote from a medieval medical writer anothercase that carries the principle to its logical conclusion: A woman saw aNegro, --at that time a rarity in Europe. She immediately had a sickeningsuspicion that her child would be born with a black skin. To obviate thedanger, she had a happy inspiration--she hastened home and washed herbody all over with warm water. When the child appeared, his skin wasfound to be normally white--except between the fingers and toes, whereit was black. His mother had failed to wash herself thoroughly in thoseplaces!

Of course, few of the cases now credited are as gross as this, but theprinciple involved remains the same. 

We will take a hypothetical case of a common sort for the sake ofclearness: the mother receives a wound on the arm; when her child isborn it is found to have a scar of some sort at about the same place onthe corresponding arm. Few mothers would fail to see the result of amaternal impression here. But how could this mark have been transmitted?This is not a question of the transmission of acquired charactersthrough the germ-plasm, or anything of that sort, for the child wasalready formed when the mother was injured. One is obliged, therefore, to believe that the injury was in some way transmitted through theplacenta, the only connection between the mother and the unborn child;and that it was then reproduced in some way in the child. 

Here is a situation which, examined in the cold light of reason, puts aheavy enough strain on the credulity. Such an influence can reach theembryo only through the blood of the mother. Is it conceivable to anyrational human being, that a scar, or what not, on the mother's body canbe dissolved in her blood, pass through the placenta into the child'scirculation, and then gather itself together into a definite scar on theinfant's arm?

There is just as much reason to expect the child to grow to resemble thecow on whose milk it is fed after birth, as to expect it to grow toresemble its mother, because of prenatal influence, as the term iscustomarily used, for once development has begun, the child drawsnothing more than nourishment from its mother. 

Of course we are accustomed to the pious rejoinder that man must notexpect to understand all the mysteries of life; and to hear vague talkabout the wonder of wireless telegraphy. But wireless telegraphy issomething very definite and tangible--there is little mystery about it. Waves of a given frequency are sent off, and caught by an instrumentattuned to the same frequency. How any rational person can support abelief in maternal impressions by such an analogy, if he knows anythingabout anatomy and physiology, passes comprehension. 

Now we are far from declaring that a reason can be found for everythingthat happens. Science does not refuse belief in an observed fact merelybecause it is unexplainable. But let us examine this case of maternalimpressions a little further. What can be learned of the time element?

Immediately arises the significant fact that most of the marks, deformities and other effects which are credited to prenatal influencemust on this hypothesis take place at a comparatively late period in theantenatal life of the child. The mother is frightened by a dog; thechild is born with a dog-face. If it be asked when her fright occurred, it is usually found that it was not earlier than the third month, morelikely somewhere near the sixth. 

But it ought to be well known that the development of all the main partsof the body has been completed at the end of the second month. At thattime, the mother rarely does more than suspect the coming of the child, and events which she believes to "mark" the child, usually occur afterthe fourth or fifth month, when the child is substantially formed, andit is impossible that many of the effects supposed to occur couldactually occur. Indeed, it is now believed that most errors ofdevelopment, such as lead to the production of great physical defects, are due to some cause within the embryo itself, and that most of themtake place in the first three or four weeks, when the mother is by nomeans likely to influence the course of embryological development by hermental attitude toward it, for the very good reason that she knowsnothing about it. 

Unless she is immured or isolated from the world, nearly every expectantmother sees many sights of the kind that, according to populartradition, cause "marks. " Why is it that results are so few? Why is itthat women doctors and nurses, who are constantly exposed to unpleasantsights, have children that do not differ from those of other mothers?

Darwin, who knew how to think scientifically, saw that this is thelogical line of proof or disproof. When Sir Joseph Hooker, the botanistand geologist who was his closest friend, wrote of a supposed case ofmaternal impression, one of his kinswomen having insisted that a molewhich appeared on her child was the effect of fright upon herself forhaving, before the birth of the child, blotted with sepia a copy ofTurner's _Liber Studiorum_ that had been lent her with specialinjunctions to be careful, Darwin[27] replied: "I should be very muchobliged, if at any future or leisure time you could tell me on what youground your doubtful belief in imagination of a mother affecting heroffspring. I have attended to the several statements scattered about, but do not believe in more than accidental coincidences. W. Hunter toldmy father, then in a lying-in hospital, that in many thousand cases hehad asked the mother, before her confinement, whether anything hadaffected her imagination, and recorded the answers; and absolutely notone case came right, though, when the child was anything remarkable, they afterwards made the cap to fit. "

Any doctor who has handled many maternity cases can call to mindinstances where every condition was present to perfection, for theproduction of maternal impression, on the time-honored lines. Noneoccurred. Most mothers can, if they give the matter carefulconsideration, duplicate this experience from their own. Why is it thatresults are so rare?

That Darwin gave the true explanation of a great many of the allegedcases is perfectly clear to us. When the child is born with any peculiarcharacteristic, the mother hunts for some experience in the precedingmonths that might explain it. If she succeeds in finding any experienceof her own at all resembling in its effects the effect which the infantshows, she considers she has proved causation, has established a goodcase of prenatal influence. 

It is not causation; it is coincidence. 

If the prospective mother plays or sings a great deal, with the idea ofgiving her child a musical endowment, and the child actually turns outto have musical talent, the mother at once recalls her yearning thatsuch might be the case; her assiduous practice which she hoped would beof benefit to her child. She immediately decides that it did benefithim, and she becomes a convinced witness to the belief in prenatalculture. Has she not herself demonstrated it?

She has not. But if she would examine the child's heredity, she wouldprobably find a taste for music running in the germ-plasm. Her study andpractice had not the slightest effect on this hereditary disposition; itis equally certain that the child would have been born with a taste formusic if its mother had devoted eight hours a day for nine months tocultivating thoughts of hatred for the musical profession and repugnancefor everything that possesses rhythm or harmony. 

It necessarily follows, then, that attempts to influence the inherentnature of the child, physically or mentally, through "prenatal culture, "are doomed to disappointment. The child develops along the lines of thepotentialities which existed in the two germ-cells that united to becomeits origin. The course of its development can not be changed in anyspecific way by any corresponding act or attitude of its mother, goodhygiene alone need be her concern. 

It must necessarily follow that attempts to improve the race on a largescale, by the general adoption of prenatal culture as an instrument ofeugenics, are useless. 

Indeed, the logical implication of the teaching is the reverse ofeugenic. It would give a woman reason to think she might marry a manwhose heredity was most objectionable, and yet, by prenatal culture, save her children from paying the inevitable penalty of this weakheritage. The world has long shuddered over the future of the girl whomarries a man to reform him; but think what it means to the future ofthe race if a superior girl, armed with correspondence school lessons inprenatal culture, marries a man to reform his children!

Those who practice this doctrine are doomed to disillusion. The timethey spend on prenatal culture is not cultivating the child; it ismerely perpetuating a fallacy. Not only is their time thus spentwasted, but worse, for they might have employed it in ways that reallywould have benefited the child--in open-air exercise, for instance. 

To recapitulate, the facts are:

(1) That there is, before birth, no connection between mother and child, by which impressions on the mother's mind or body could be transmittedto the child's mind or body. 

(2) That in most cases the marks or defects whose origin is attributedto maternal impression, must necessarily have been complete long beforethe incident occurred which the mother, after the child's birth, ascribes as the cause. 

(3) That these phenomena usually do not occur when they are, and byhypothesis ought to be, expected. The explanations are found after theevent, and that is regarded as causation which is really coincidence. 

Pre-natal care as a euthenic measure is of course not only legitimatebut urgent. The embryo derives its entire nourishment from the mother;and its development depends wholly on its supply of nourishment. Anything which affects the supply of nourishment will affect the embryoin a general, not a particular way. If the mother's mental and physicalcondition be good, the supply of nourishment to the embryo is likely tobe good, and development will be normal. If, on the other hand, themother is constantly harassed by fear or hatred, her physical healthwill suffer, she will be unable properly to nourish her developingoffspring, and it may be its poor physical condition when born, indicates this. 

Further, if the mother experiences a great mental or physical shock, itmay so upset her health that her child is not properly nourished, itsdevelopment is arrested, mentally as well as physically, and it is borndefective. H. H. Goddard, for example, tells[28] of a high-gradeimbecile in the Training School at Vineland, N. J. "Nancy belongs to athoroughly normal, respectable family. There is nothing to account forthe condition unless one accepts the mother's theory. While it soundssomewhat like the discarded theory of maternal impression, yet it is notimpossible that the fright and shock which the mother received may haveinterfered with the nutrition of the unborn child and resulted in themental defect. The story in brief is as follows. Shortly before thischild was born, the mother was compelled to take care of a sister-in-lawwho was in a similar condition and very ill with convulsions. Ourchild's mother was many times frightened severely as her sister-in-lawwas quite out of her mind. "

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

Thus, it is easy enough to see the real explanation of such cases asthose mentioned near the beginning of this discussion. The mothers whofret and rebel over their maternity, she found, are likely to bearneurotic children. It is obvious (1) that mothers who fret and rebel arequite likely themselves to be neurotic in constitution, and the childnaturally gets its heredity from them: (2) that constant fretting andrebellion would so affect the mother's health that her child would notbe properly nourished. 

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

At first thought, one may wish it were otherwise. There is somethinginspiring in the idea of a mother overcoming the effect of heredity bythe sheer force of her own will-power. But perhaps in the long run it isas well; for there are advantages on the other side. It should be asatisfaction to mothers to know that their children will not be markedor injured by untoward events in the antenatal days; that if thechild's heredity can not be changed for the better, neither can it bechanged for the worse. 

The prenatal culturists and maternal-impressionists are trying to placeon her a responsibility which she need not bear. Obviously, it is themother who is most nearly concerned with the bogy of maternalimpressions, and it should make for her peace of mind to know that it isnothing more than a bogy. It is important for the expectant mother tokeep herself in as nearly perfect condition as possible, both physicallyand mentally. Her bodily mechanism will then run smoothly, and the childwill get from her blood the nourishment needed for its development. Beyond that there is nothing the mother can do to influence thedevelopment of her child. 

There is another and somewhat similar fallacy which deserves a passingword, although it is of more concern to the livestock breeder than tothe eugenist. It is called telegony and is, briefly, this: thatconception by a female results in a definite modification of hergerm-plasm from the influence of the male, and that this modificationwill be shown in the offspring she may subsequently bear to a secondmale. The only case where it is often invoked in the human race is inmiscegenation. A white woman has been married to a Negro, for instance, and has borne one or more mulatto offspring. Subsequently, she mateswith a white man; but her children by him, instead of being pure white, it is alleged, will be also mulattoes. The idea of telegony, thepersistent influence of the first mating, may be invoked to explain thisdiscrepancy. 

It is a pure myth. There is no good evidence[29] to support it, andthere is abundant evidence to contradict it. Telegony is still believedby many animal breeders, but it has no place in science. In such a caseas the one quoted, the explanation is undoubtedly that the supposedfather is not the real one; and this explanation will dispose of allother cases of telegony which can not be explained, as in most instancesthey can be, by the mixed ancestry of the offspring and the innatetendency of all living things to vary. 

Now to sum up this long chapter. We started with a consideration of thegerm-plasm, the physical basis of life; pointing out that it iscontinuous from generation to generation, and potentially immortal; thatit is carefully isolated and guarded in the body, so that it is notlikely to be injured by any ordinary means. 

One of the logical results of this continuity of the germ-plasm is thatmodifications of the body of the parent, or acquired characters, canhardly be transferred to the germ-plasm and become a part of theinheritance. Further the experimental evidence upholds this position, and the inheritance of acquired body characters may be disregarded byeugenics, which is therefore obliged to concern itself solely with thematerial already in existence in the germ-plasm, except as that materialmay be changed by variation which can neither be predicted norcontrolled. 

The evidence that the germ-plasm can be permanently modified does notwarrant the belief; and such results, if they exist at all, are notlarge enough or uniform enough to concern the eugenist. 

Pre-natal culture and telegony were found to be mere delusions. There isno justification for hoping to influence the race for good through theaction of any kind of external influences; and there is not much dangerof influencing it for ill through these external influences. Thesituation must be faced squarely then: if the race is to be improved, itmust be by the use of the material already in existence; by endeavor tochange the birth-and death-rates so as to alter the relative proportionsof the amounts of good and bad germ-plasm in the race. This is the onlyroad by which the goal of eugenics can be reached. 

CHAPTER III

DIFFERENCES AMONG MEN

While Mr. Jefferson, when he wrote into the Declaration of Independencehis belief in the self-evidence of the truth that all men are createdequal, may have been thinking of legal rights merely, he was expressingan opinion common among philosophers of his time. J. J. Rousseau it waswho made the idea popular, and it met with widespread acceptance formany years. It is not surprising, therefore, that the phrase has longbeen a favorite with the demagogue and the utopian. Even now thedoctrine is by no means dead. The American educational system is basedlargely on this dogma, and much of the political system seems to begrounded on it. It can be seen in the tenets of labor unions, in thepractice of many philanthropies--traces may be found almost anywhere oneturns, in fact. 

Common enough as applied to mental qualities, the theory of humanequality is even more widely held of "moral" qualities. Men areconsidered to be equally responsible for their conduct, and failure toconform to the accepted code in this respect brings punishment. It issometimes conceded that men have had differing opportunities to learnthe principles of morality; but given equal opportunities, it is almostuniversally held that failure to follow the principles indicates notinability but unwillingness. In short, public opinion rarely admits thatmen may differ in their inherent capacity to act morally. 

In view of its almost universal and unquestioned, although halfunconscious, acceptance as part of the structure of society, it becomesof the utmost importance that this doctrine of human equality should beexamined by scientific methods. 

Fortunately this can be done with ease. Methods of mental and physicalmeasurement that have been evolved during the last few decades offerresults that admit of no refutation, and they can be applied in hundredsof different places. 

[Illustration: DISTRIBUTION OF 10-YEAR-OLD SCHOOL CHILDREN

FIG. 8. --The graph shows that 10-year-old children inConnecticut (1903) are to be found in every grade, from the first to theeighth. The greatest number is in the fourth grade, and the number whoare advanced is just about the same as the number who are retarded. ]

It will not be worth while to spend any time demonstrating that allindividuals differ, at birth and during their subsequent life, physically. The fact is patent to all. It carries with it as a necessarycorollary mental differences, since the brain is part of the body;nevertheless, we shall demonstrate these mental differencesindependently. 

We present in Fig. 8 a graph from E. L. Thorndike, showing the number of10-year-old children in Connecticut (1903) in each school grade. If thechildren are all intellectually equal, all the 10-year-olds ought to bein the same grade, or near it. Numerous explanations of their widedistribution suggest themselves; as a working hypothesis one might adoptthe suggestion that it is because the children actually differ in innateability to the extent here indicated. This hypothesis can be tested bya variety of mental measurements. S. A. Courtis' investigation of thearithmetical abilities of the children in the schools of New York Citywill be a good beginning. He measured the achievements of pupils inresponding to eight tests, which were believed to give a fair idea ofthe pupil's capacity for solving simple arithmetical problems. Theresults were, on the average, similar to the result he got in a certaineighth-grade class, whose record is shown in Fig. 9. It is evident thatsome of the children were good in arithmetic, some were poor in it; thebulk of them were neither good nor bad but half way between, or, instatistical language, mediocre. 

[Illustration: VARIATION IN ABILITY

FIG. 9. --Diagram to show the standing of children in a singleclass in a New York City school, in respect to their ability inarithmetic. There are wide divergences in the scores they made. ]

The literature of experimental psychology and anthropology is crammedwith such examples as the above. No matter what trait of the individualbe chosen, results are analogous. If one takes the simplest traits, toeliminate the most chances for confusion, one finds the same conditionsevery time. Whether it be speed in marking off all the A's in a printedsheet of capitals, or in putting together the pieces of a puzzle, or ingiving a reaction to some certain stimulus, or in making associationsbetween ideas, or drawing figures, or memory for various things, orgiving the opposites of words, or discrimination of lifted weights, orsuccess in any one of hundreds of other mental tests, the conclusion isthe same. There are wide differences in the abilities of individuals, notwo being alike, either mentally or physically, at birth or any timethereafter. 

[Illustration: ORIGIN OF A NORMAL PROBABILITY CURVE

FIG. 10. --When deviations in all directions are equallyprobable, as in the case of shots fired at a target by an expertmarksman, the "frequencies" will arrange themselves in the manner shownby the bullets in compartments above. A line drawn along the tops ofthese columns would be a "normal probability curve. " Diagram by C. H. Popenoe. ]

Whenever a large enough number of individuals is tested, thesedifferences arrange themselves in the same general form. It is the formassumed by the distribution of any differences that are governedabsolutely by chance. 

Suppose an expert marksman shoots a thousand times at the center of acertain picket in a picket fence, and that there is no wind or anyother source of constant error that would distort his aim. In the longrun, the greatest number of his shots would be in the picket aimed at, and of his misses there would be just as many on one side as on theother, just as many above as below the center. Now if all the shots, asthey struck the fence, could drop into a box below, which had acompartment for each picket, it would be found at the end of hispractice that the compartments were filled up unequally, most bulletsbeing in that representing the middle picket and least in the outsideones. The intermediate compartments would have intermediate numbers ofbullets. The whole scheme is shown in Fig. 11. If a line be drawn toconnect the tops of all the columns of bullets, it will make a roughcurve or graph, which represents a typical chance distribution. It willbe evident to anyone that the distribution was really governed by"chance, " i. E. , a multiplicity of causes too complex to permit detailedanalysis. The imaginary sharp-shooter was an expert, and he was tryingto hit the same spot with each shot. The deviation from the center isbound to be the same on all sides. 

[Illustration: FIG. 11. --The "Chance" or "Probability" Form ofDistribution. ]

Now suppose a series of measurements of a thousand children be taken in, let us say, the ability to do 18 problems in subtraction in 10 minutes. A few of them finish only one problem in that time; a few more do two, more still are able to complete three, and so on up. The great bulk ofthe children get through from 8 to 12 problems in the allotted time; afew finish the whole task. Now if we make a column for all those who didone problem, another column beside it for all those who did two, and soon up for those who did three, four and on to eighteen, a line drawnover the tops of the columns make a curve like the above fromThorndike. 

Comparing this curve with the one formed by the marksman's spentbullets, one can not help being struck by the similarity. If the firstrepresented a distribution governed purely by chance, it is evident thatthe children's ability seems to be distributed in accordance with asimilar law. 

With the limited number of categories used in this example, it would notbe possible to get a smooth curve, but only a kind of step pyramid. Withan increase in the number of categories, the steps become smaller. Witha hundred problems to work out, instead of 18, the curve would besomething like this:

[Illustration: FIG. 12. --Probability curve with increasednumber of steps. ]

And with an infinite number, the steps would disappear altogether, leaving a perfectly smooth, flowing line, unmarred by a single step orbreak. It would be an absolutely _continuous_ distribution. 

If then, the results of all the tests that have been made on all mentaltraits be studied, it will be found that human mental ability as shownin at least 95% of all the traits that have been measured, isdistributed throughout the race in various degrees, in accordance withthe law of chance, and that if one could measure all the members of thespecies and plot a curve for these measurements, in any trait, he wouldget this smooth, continuous curve. In other words, human beings are notsharply divided into classes, but the differences between them shade offinto each other, although between the best and the worst, in anyrespect, there is a great gulf. 

If this statement applies to simple traits, such as memory for numbers, it must also apply to combinations of simple traits in complex mentalprocesses. For practical purposes, we are therefore justified in sayingthat in respect of any mental quality, --ability, industry, efficiency, persistence, attentiveness, neatness, honesty, anything you like, --inany large group of people, such as the white inhabitants of the UnitedStates, some individuals will be found who show the character inquestion in a very low degree, some who show it in a very high degree;and there will be found every possible degree in between. 

[Illustration: NORMAL VARIABILITY CURVE FOLLOWING LAW OF CHANCE

FIG. 13. --The above photograph (from A. F. Blakeslee), showsbeans rolling down an inclined plane and accumulating in compartments atthe base which are closed in front by glass. The exposure was longenough to cause the moving beans to appear as caterpillar-like objectshopping along the board. Assuming that the irregularity of shape of thebeans is such that each may make jumps toward the right or toward theleft, in rolling down the board, the laws of chance lead to theexpectation that in very few cases will these jumps all be in the samedirection, as is demonstrated by the few beans collected in thecompartments at the extreme right and left. Rather the beans will tendto jump in both right and left directions, the most probable conditionbeing that in which the beans make an equal number of jumps to the rightand left, as is shown by the large number accumulated in the centralcompartment. If the board be tilted to one side, the curve of beanswould be altered by this one-sided influence. In like fashion a seriesof factors--either of environment or of heredity--if acting equally inboth favorable and unfavorable directions, will cause a group of men toform a similar variability curve, when classified according to theirrelative height. ]

The consequences of this for race progress are significant. Is itdesired to eliminate feeble-mindedness? Then it must be borne in mindthat there is no sharp distinction between feeble-mindedness and thenormal mind. One can not divide sheep from goats, saying "A isfeeble-minded. B is normal. C is feeble-minded. D is normal, " and so on. If one took a scale of a hundred numbers, letting 1 stand for an idiotand 100 for a genius, one would find individuals corresponding to everysingle number on the scale. The only course possible would be a somewhatarbitrary one; say to consider every individual corresponding to a gradeunder seven as feeble-minded. It would have to be recognized that thosegraded eight were not much better than those graded seven, but thedrawing of the line at seven would be justified on the ground that ithad to be drawn somewhere, and seven seemed to be the most satisfactorypoint. 

In practice of course, students of retardation test children bystandardized scales. Testing a hundred 10-year-old children, theexaminer might find a number who were able to do only those tests whichare passed by a normal six-year-old child. He might properly decide toput all who thus showed four years of retardation, in the class offeeble-minded; and he might justifiably decide that those who testedseven years (i. E. , three years mental retardation) or less would, forthe present, be given the benefit of the doubt, and classed among thepossibly normal. Such a procedure, in dealing with intelligence, isnecessary and justifiable, but its adoption must not blind students, asit often does, to the fact that the distinction made is an arbitraryone, and that there is no more a hard and fast line of demarcationbetween imbeciles and normals than there is between "rich men" and "poormen. "

[Illustration: CADETS ARRANGED TO SHOW NORMAL CURVE OF VARIABILITY

FIG. 14. --The above company of students at ConnecticutAgricultural College was grouped according to height and photographed byA. F. Blakeslee. The height of each rank, and the number of men of thatheight, is shown by the figures underneath the photograph. The companyconstitutes what is technically known as a "population" grouped in"arrays of variates"; the middle rank gives the median height of thepopulation; the tallest array (5 ft. , 8 in. ) is the mode. If a line bedrawn connecting the upper ends of the rows, the resulting geometricfigure will be a "scheme of distribution of variates" or more briefly a"variability curve, " such as was shown in several preceding figures. Thearrangement of homogeneous objects of any kind in such form as this isthe first step in the study of variation by modern statistical methods, and on such study much of the progress of genetics depends. ]

[Illustration: FIG. 15. --Height is one of the stock examples ofa continuous character--one of which all grades can be found. As will beseen from the above diagram, every height from considerably under fivefeet to considerably over six feet can be found in the army, but extremedeviations are relatively rare in proportion to the amount of deviation. The vertical columns represent the total number of individuals of agiven height in inches. From Davenport. ]

If a group of soldiers be measured as the children were measured forarithmetical ability, their height will be distributed in this samecurve of probability. Fig. 14 shows the cadets of ConnecticutAgricultural College; it is obvious that a line drawn along the topsof the files would again make the step-pyramid shown in Figures 10, 11and 13. If a larger number were taken, the steps would disappear andgive place to a smooth curve; the fact is well shown in a graph for theheights of recruits to the American Army (Fig. 15). 

The investigation in this direction need not be pursued any farther. Forthe purpose of eugenics, it is sufficient to recognize that greatdifferences exist between men, and women, not only in respect ofphysical traits, but equally in respect of mental ability. 

This conclusion might easily have been reached from a study of the factsin Chapter I, but it seemed worth while to take time to present the factin a more concrete form as the result of actual measurements. Theevidence allows no doubt about the existence of considerable mental andphysical differences between men. 

The question naturally arises, "What is the cause of these differences?"

The study of twins showed that the differences could not be due todifferences in training or home surroundings. If the reader will thinkback over the facts set forth in the first chapter, he will see clearlythat the fundamental differences in men can not be due to anything thathappens after they are born; and the facts presented in the secondchapter showed that these differences can not be due in an importantdegree to any influences acting on the child prior to birth. 

CHAPTER IV

THE INHERITANCE OF MENTAL CAPACITIES

We have come to the climax of the eugenist's preliminary argument; ifthe main differences between human beings are not due to anything in theenvironment or training, either of this or previous generations, therecan be but one explanation for them. 

They must be due to the ancestry of the individual--that is, they mustbe matters of heredity in the ordinary sense, coupled with thefortuitous variations which accompany heredity throughout the organicworld. 

We need not limit ourselves, however, to the argument by exclusion, forit is not difficult to present direct evidence that the differencesbetween men are actually inherited by children from parents. Theproblem, formally stated, is to measure the amount by which the likenessof individuals of like ancestry surpasses the likeness of individuals ofdifferent ancestry. After subtraction of the necessary amount for thegreater likeness in training, that the individuals of like ancestry willhave, whatever amount is left will necessarily, represent the actualinheritance of the child from its ancestors--parents, grandparents, andso on. 

Obviously, the subtraction for environmental effects is the point atwhich a mistake is most probable. We may safely start, therefore, with aproblem in which no subtraction whatever need be made for this cause. Eye color is a stock example, and a good one, for it is not conceivablethat home environment or training would cause a change in the color ofbrothers' eyes. 

The correlation[30] between brothers, or sisters, or brothers andsisters--briefly, the fraternal resemblance--for eye-color was found byKarl Pearson, using the method described in Chapter I, to be . 52. We arein no danger of contradiction if we state with positiveness that thisfigure represents the influence of ancestry, or direct inheritance, inrespect to this particular trait. 

Suppose the resemblance between brothers be measured for stature--itis . 51; for cephalic index, that is, the ratio of width of skull to lengthof skull--it is . 49; for hair color--it is . 59. In all of these points, it will be admitted that no home training, or any other influence exceptheredity, can conceivably play an important part. We could go on with along list of such measurements, which biometrists have made; and if theywere all summed up it would be found that the fraternal correlation inthese traits as to the heritability of which there can be no dispute, isabout . 52. Here is a good measure, albeit a technical one, of theinfluence of heredity from the near ancestry. It is possible, too, tomeasure the direct correlation between a trait in parent and the sametrait in offspring; the average of many cases where only heredity can bethought to have had any effect in producing the result, is . 49. By thetwo methods of measurement, therefore, quite comparable results areobtained. 

So much work has been done in this subject that we have no hesitation inaffirming . 5 to represent approximately the average intensity ofheredity for physical characters in man. If any well-marked physicalcharacter be measured, in which training and environment can not beassumed to have had any part, it will be found, in a large enough numberof subjects, that the resemblance, measured on a scale from 0 to 1, isjust about one-half of unity. Of course, perfect identity with theparents is not to be expected, because the child must inherit from bothparents, who in turn each inherited from two parents, and so on. 

So far, it may be said, we have had plain sailing because we havecarefully chosen traits in which we were not obliged to make anysubtraction whatever for the influence of training. But it is evidentthat not all traits fall in that class. 

This is the point at which the inheritance of mental traits has beenmost often questioned. Probably no one will care to dispute theinheritance of such physical traits as eye-color. But in considering themind, a certain school of popular pseudo-psychological writers questionthe reality of mental inheritance, and allege that the proofs which thegeneticist offers are worthless because they do not make account of thesimilarity in environment or training. Of course, it is admitted thatsome sort of a mental groundwork must be inherited, but extremistsallege that this is little more than a clean slate on which theenvironment, particularly during the early years of childhood, writesits autograph. 

We must grant that the analysis of the inheritance of mental traits isproceeding slowly. This is not the fault of the geneticist, but ratherof the psychologist, who has not yet been able to furnish the geneticistwith the description of definite traits of such a character as to makepossible the exhaustive analysis of their individual inheritance. Thatdepartment of psychology is only now being formed. 

We might even admit that no inherited "unit character" in the mind hasyet been isolated; but it would be a great mistake to assume from thisadmission that proof of the inheritance of mental qualities, in general, is lacking. 

The psychologists and educators who think so appear either to be swayedby metaphysical views of the mind, or else to believe that resemblancebetween parent and offspring is the only evidence of inheritance thatcan be offered. The father dislikes cheese, the son dislikes cheese. "Aha, you think that that is the inheritance of a dislike for cheese, "cries the critic, "but we will teach you better. " An interesting exampleof this sort of teaching is furnished by Boris Sidis, whose feelings areoutraged because geneticists have represented that some forms ofinsanity are hereditary. He declaims for several pages[31] in thisfashion:

"The so-called scientific method of the eugenists is radically faulty, in spite of the rich display of colored plates, stained tables, glittering biological speculations, brilliant mathematical formulæ andcomplicated statistical calculations. The eugenists pile Ossa on Pelionof facts by the simple method of enumeration which Bacon and thethinkers coming after him have long ago condemned as puerile and futile. From the savage's belief in sympathetic, imitative magic with itsconsequent superstitions, omens, and taboos down to the articles offaith and dogmas of the eugenists we find the same faulty, primitivethought, guided by the puerile, imbecile method of simple enumeration, and controlled by the wisdom of the logical _post hoc, ergo propterhoc_. "

Now if resemblance between parent and offspring were, as Dr. Sidissupposes, the only evidence of inheritance of mental traits which theeugenist can produce, his case would indeed be weak. And it is perfectlytrue that "evidence" of this kind has sometimes been advanced assufficient by geneticists who should have known better. But this is notthe real evidence which genetics offers. The evidence is of numerouskinds, and several lines might be destroyed without impairing thevalidity of the remainder. It is impossible to review the whole body ofevidence here, but some of the various kinds may be indicated, andsamples given, even though this involves the necessity of repeating somethings we have said in earlier chapters. The reader will then be able toform his own opinion as to whether the geneticists' proofs or the mereassurances of those who have not studied the subject are the moreweighty. 

1. _The analogy from breeding experiments. _ Tame rats, for instance, arevery docile; their offspring can be handled without a bit of trouble. The wild rat, on the other hand, is not at all docile. 

W. E. Castle, of Harvard University, writes:[32] "We have repeatedlymated tame female rats with wild males, the mothers being removed toisolated cages before the birth of the young. These young which hadnever seen or been near their father were very wild in disposition inevery case. The observations of Yerkes on such rats raised by usindicates that their wildness was not quite as extreme as that of thepure wild rat but closely approached it. "

Who can suggest any plausible explanation of their conduct, save thatthey inherited a certain temperament from their sire? Yet theinheritance of temperament is one of the things which certainpsychologists most "view with alarm. " If it is proved in other animals, can it be considered wholly impossible in man?

2. _The segregation of mental traits. _ When an insane, or epileptic, orfeeble-minded person mates with a normal individual, in whose family notaint is found, the offspring (generally speaking) will be mentallysound, even though one parent is not. On the other hand, if two peoplefrom tainted stocks marry, although neither one may be personallydefective, part of their offspring will be affected. 

This production of sound children from an unsound parent, in the firstcase, and unsound children from two apparently sound parents in thesecond case, is exactly the opposite of what one would expect if thechild gets his unsoundness merely by imitation or "contagion. " Thedifference can not reasonably be explained by any difference inenvironment or external stimuli. Heredity offers a satisfactoryexplanation, for some forms of feeble-mindedness and epilepsy, and someof the diseases known as insanity, behave as recessives and segregate injust the way mentioned. There are abundant analogies in the inheritanceof other traits in man, lower animals and plants, that behave in exactlythe same manner. 

If mental defects are inherited, then it is worth while investigatingwhether mental excellencies may not also be. 

3. _The persistence of like qualities regardless of difference inenvironment. _ Any parent with open eyes must see this in his ownchildren--must see that they retained the inherited traits even whenthey left home and lived under entirely different surroundings. But thehistories of twins furnish the most graphic evidence. Galton, whocollected detailed histories of thirty-five pairs of twins who wereclosely alike at birth, and examined their history in after years, writes:[33] "In some cases the resemblance of body and mind hadcontinued unaltered up to old age, notwithstanding very differentconditions of life;" in other cases where some dissimilarity developed, it could be traced to the influence of an illness. Making due allowancefor the influence of illness, yet "instances do exist of an apparentlythorough similarity of nature, in which such differences of externalcircumstances as may be consistent with the ordinary conditions of thesame social rank and country do not create dissimilarity. Positiveevidence, such as this, can not be outweighed by any amount of negativeevidence. "

Frederick Adams Woods has brought forward[34] a piece of more exactevidence under this head. It is known from many quantitative studiesthat in physical heredity, the influence of the paternal grandparentsand the influence of the maternal grandparents is equal; on the averageone pair will contribute no more to the grandchildren than the other. Ifmental qualities are due rather to early surroundings than to actualinheritance, this equality of grandparental influence is incredible inthe royal families where Dr. Woods got his material; for the grandchildhas been brought up at the court of the paternal grandfather, where heought to have gotten all his "acquirements, " and has perhaps never evenseen his maternal grandparents, who therefore could not be expected toimpress their mental peculiarities on him by "contagion. " When Dr. Woodsactually measured the extent of resemblance to the two sets ofgrandparents, for mental and moral qualities, he found it to be the samein each case; as is inevitable if they are inherited, but as isincomprehensible if heredity is not largely responsible for one's mentalmake-up. 

4. _Persistence of unlike qualities regardless of sameness in the__environment. _ This is the converse of the preceding proposition, buteven more convincing. In the last paragraph but one, we mentionedGalton's study (cited at some length in our Chapter I) of "identical"twins, who are so much alike at birth for the very good reason that theyhave identical heredity. This heredity was found to be not modified, either in the body or the mind, by ordinary differences of training andenvironment. Some of Galton's histories[35] of ordinary, non-identicaltwins were also given in Chapter I; two more follow:

One parent says: "They have been treated exactly alike; both werebrought up by hand; they have been under the same nurse and governessfrom their birth, and they are very fond of each other. Their increasingdissimilarity must be ascribed to a natural difference of mind andcharacter, as there has been nothing in their treatment to account forit. "

Another writes: "This case is, I should think, somewhat remarkable fordissimilarity in physique as well as for strong contrast in character. They have been unlike in mind and body throughout their lives. Both werereared in a country house and both were at the same schools until theage of 16. "

In the face of such examples, can anyone maintain that differences inmental make-up are wholly due to different influences during childhood, and not at all to differences in germinal make-up? It is not necessaryto depend, under this head, on mere descriptions, for accuratemeasurements are available to demonstrate the point. If the environmentcreates the mental nature, then ordinary brothers, not more than four orfive years apart in age, ought to be about as closely similar to eachother as identical twins are to each other; for the family influences ineach case are practically the same. Professor Thorndike, by carefulmental tests, showed[36] that this is not true. The ordinary brotherscome from different egg-cells, and, as is known from studies on loweranimals, they do not get exactly the same inheritance from theirparents; they show, therefore, considerable differences in their psychicnatures. Real identical twins, being two halves of the same egg-cell, have the same heredity, and their natures are therefore much morenearly identical. 

Again, if the mind is molded during the "plastic years of childhood, "children ought to become more alike, the longer they are together. Twinswho were unlike at birth ought to resemble each other more closely at 14than they did at 9, since they have been for five additional yearssubjected to this supposedly potent but very mystical "molding force. "Here again Professor Thorndike's exact measurements explode the fallacy. They are actually, measurably, less alike at the older age; their inbornnatures are developing along predestined lines, with little regard tothe identity of their surroundings. Heredity accounts easily for thesefacts, but they cannot be squared with the idea that mental differencesare the products solely of early training. 

5. _Differential rates of increase in qualities subject to muchtraining. _ If the mind is formed by training, then brothers ought to bemore alike in qualities which have been subject to little or notraining. Professor Thorndike's measurements on this point show thereverse to be true. The likeness of various traits is determined byheredity, and brothers may be more unlike in traits which have beensubjected to a large and equal amount of training. Twins were found tobe less alike in their ability at addition and multiplication, in whichthe schools had been training them for some years, than they were inability to mark off the A's on a printed sheet, or to write theopposites to a list of words--feats which they had probably never beforetried to do. 

This same proposition may be put on a broader basis. [37] "In so far asthe differences in achievement found amongst a group of men are due tothe differences in the quantity and quality of training which they hadhad in the function in question, the provision of equal amounts of thesame sort of training for all individuals in the group should act toreduce the differences. " "If the addition of equal amounts of practicedoes not reduce the differences found amongst men, those differences cannot well be explained to any large extent by supposing them to have beendue to corresponding differences in amount of previous practice. If, that is, inequalities in achievement are not reduced by equalizingpractice, they can not well have been caused by inequalities in previouspractice. If differences in opportunity cause the differences mendisplay, making opportunity more nearly equal for all, by adding equalamounts to it in each case should make the differences less. 

"The facts found are rather startling. Equalizing practice seems toincrease differences. The superior man seems to have got his presentsuperiority by his own nature rather than by superior advantages of thepast, since, during a period of equal advantage for all, he increaseshis lead. " This point has been tested by such simple devices as mentalmultiplication, addition, marking A's on a printed sheet of capitals andthe like; all the contestants made some gain in efficiency, but thosewho were superior at the start were proportionately farther ahead thanever at the end. This is what the geneticist would expect, but fits veryill with some popular pseudo-science which denies that any child ismentally limited by nature. 

6. _Direct measurement of the amount of resemblance of mental traits inbrothers and sisters. _ It is manifestly impossible to assume that earlytraining, or parental behavior, or anything of the sort, can haveinfluenced very markedly the child's eye color, or the length of hisforearm, or the ratio of the breadth of his head to its length. Ameasure of the amount of resemblance between two brothers in such traitsmay very confidently be said to represent the influence of heredity; onecan feel no doubt that the child inherits his eye-color and otherphysical traits of that kind from his parents. It will be recalled thatthe resemblance, measured on a scale from 0 to 1, has been found to beabout 0. 5. 

Karl Pearson measured the resemblance between brothers and sisters inmental traits--for example, temper, conscientiousness, introspection, vivacity--and found it on the average to have the same intensity--thatis, about 0. 5. Starch gets similar results in studying school grades. 

Professor Pearson writes:[38]

"It has been suggested that this resemblance in the psychologicalcharacters is compounded of two factors, inheritance on the one hand andtraining and environment on the other. If so, one must admit thatinheritance and environment make up the resemblance in the physicalcharacters. Now these two sorts of resemblance being of the sameintensity, either the environmental influence is the same in both casesor it is not. If it is the same, we are forced to the conclusion that itis insensible, for it can not influence eye-color. If it is not thesame, then it would be a most marvelous thing that with varying degreesof inheritance, some mysterious force always modifies the extent of homeinfluence, until the resemblance of brothers and sisters is broughtsensibly up to the same intensity! Occam's razor[39] will enable us atonce to cut off such a theory. We are forced, I think, literally forced, to the general conclusion that the physical and psychical characters inman are inherited within broad lines in the same manner, and withapproximate intensity. The average parental influence is in itselflargely a result of the heritage of the stock and not an extraneous andadditional factor causing the resemblance between children from the samehome. "

A paragraph from Edgar Schuster[40] may appropriately be added. "Afterconsidering the published evidence a word must be said of facts whichmost people may collect for themselves. They are difficult to record, but are perhaps more convincing than any quantity of statistics. If oneknows well several members of a family, one is bound to see in themlikenesses with regard to mental traits, both large and small, whichmay sometimes be accounted for by example on the one hand or unconsciousimitation on the other, but are often quite inexplicable on any othertheory than heredity. It is difficult to understand how the inheritanceof mental capacity can be denied by those whose eyes are open and whoseminds are open too. "

Strictly speaking, it is of course true that man inherits nothing morethan the capacity of making mental acquirements. But this generalcapacity is made up of many separate capacities, all of these capacitiesare variable, and the variations are inherited. Such seems to us to bethe unmistakable verdict of the evidence. 

Our conclusions as to the inheritance of all sorts of mental capacityare not based on the mere presence of the same trait in parent andchild. As the psychological analysis of individual traits proceeds, itwill be possible to proceed further with the study of the inheritance ofthese traits. Some work has been done on spelling, which is particularlyinteresting because most people, without reflection, would take it forgranted that a child's spelling ability depends almost wholly on histraining. Professor Thorndike's exposition[41] of the investigation isas follows:

"E. L. Earle ('03) measured the spelling abilities of some 800 childrenin the St. Xavier school in New York by careful tests. As the childrenin this school commonly enter at a very early age, and as the staff andmethods of teaching remain very constant, we have in the case of the 180pairs of brothers and sisters included in the 600 children closelysimilar school training. Mr. Earle measured the ability of anyindividual by his deviation from the average for his grade and sex, andfound the coefficient of correlation between children of the same familyto be . 50. That is, any individual is on the average 50% as much aboveor below the average for his age and sex as his brother or sister. 

"Similarities of home training might account for this, but any oneexperienced in teaching will hesitate to attribute much efficacy tosuch similarities. Bad spellers remain bad spellers though theirteachers change. Moreover, Dr. J. M. Rice in his exhaustive study ofspelling ability ('97) found little or no relationship between goodspelling and any one of the popular methods, and little or none betweenpoor spelling and foreign parentage. Cornman's more careful study ofspelling ('07) supports the view that ability to spell is littleinfluenced by such differences in school or home training as commonlyexist. "

This is a very clear-cut case of a definite intellectual ability, differences in which might be supposed to be due almost wholly to thechild's training, but which seem, on investigation, to be largely due toheredity. 

The problem may be examined in still greater detail. Does a man merelyinherit manual skill, let us say, or does he inherit the precise kind ofmanual skill needed to make a surgeon but not the kind that would beuseful to a watchmaker? Is a man born merely with a generalized"artistic" ability, or is it one adapted solely for, let us say, music;or further, is it adapted solely for violin playing, not for the piano?

Galton, in his pioneer studies, sought for data on this question. Inregard to English judges, he wrote: "Do the judges often have sons whosucceed in the same career, where success would have been impossible ifthey had not been gifted with the special qualities of their fathers?Out of the 286 judges, more than _one in every nine_ of them have beeneither father, son or brother to another judge, and the other high legalrelationships have been even more numerous. There can not, then, remaina doubt but that the peculiar type of ability that is necessary to ajudge is often transmitted by descent. "

Unfortunately, we can not feel quite as free from doubt on the point asGalton did. The judicial mind, if that be the main qualification for ajudge, might be inherited, or it might be the result of training. Such acase, standing alone, is inconclusive. 

Galton similarly showed that the sons of statesmen tended to bestatesmen, and that the same was true in families of great commanders, literary men, poets and divines. In his list of eminent painters, allthe relatives mentioned are painters save four, two of whom were giftedin sculpture, one in music and one in embroidery. As to musicians, Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer are the only ones in his list whose eminentkinsmen achieved their success in other careers than music. 

Havelock Ellis, who likewise studied British men of genius, throwsadditional light on the subject. "Painters and sculptors, " he found, "constitute a group which appears to be of very distinct interest fromthe point of view of occupational heredity. In social origin, it may benoted, the group differs strikingly in constitution from the generalbody of men of genius in which the upper class is almost or quitepredominant. Of 63 painters and sculptors of definitely known origin, only two can be placed in the aristocratic division. Of the remainder 7are the sons of artists, 22 the sons of craftsmen, leaving only 32 forall other occupations, which are mainly of lower middle class character, and in many cases trades that are very closely allied to crafts. Even, however, when we omit the trades as well as the cases in which thefathers were artists, we find a very notable predominance of craftsmenin the parentage of painters, to such an extent indeed that whilecraftsmen only constitute 9. 2% among the fathers of our eminent personsgenerally, they constitute nearly 35% among the fathers of the paintersand sculptors. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that there is areal connection between the father's aptitude for craftsmanship and theson's aptitude for art. 

"To suppose that environment adequately accounts for this relationshipis an inadmissible theory. The association between the craft of builder, carpenter, tanner, jeweller, watchmaker, woodcarver, ropemaker, etc. , and the painter's art is small at best, and in most cases isnon-existent. "

Arreat, investigating the heredity of 200 eminent European painters, reached results similar to those of Ellis, according to the latter'scitation. 

Arithmetical ability seems similarly to be subdivided, according to MissCobb. [42] She made measurements of the efficiency with which childrenand their parents could do problems in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, and could copy a column of figures. "Themeasurements made, " she writes, "show that if, for instance, a child ismuch quicker than the average in subtraction, but not in addition, multiplication or division, it is to be expected that one at least ofhis parents shows a like trait; or if he falls below the average insubtraction and multiplication, and exceeds it in addition and division, again the same will hold true of at least one of his parents. " Thesevarious kinds of arithmetic appear to be due to different functions ofthe brain, and are therefore probably inherited independently, if theyare inherited at all. 

To assume that the resemblance between parent and offspring inarithmetical ability is due to association, training and imitation isnot plausible. If this were the case, a class of children ought to cometo resemble their teacher, but they do not. Moreover, the childsometimes resembles more closely the parent with whom he has been lessassociated in daily life. 

From such data as these, we conclude that mental inheritance isconsiderably specialized. This conclusion is in accord with Burris'finding (cited by Thorndike) that the ability to do well in some onehigh school study is nearly or quite as much due to ancestry as is theability to do well in the course as a whole. 

To sum up, we have reason to believe not only that one's mentalcharacter is due largely to heredity, but that the details of it may beequally due to heredity, in the sense that for any particular trait orcomplex in the child there is likely to be found a similar trait orcomplex in the ancestry. Such a conclusion should not be pushed to thepoint of assuming inheritance of all sorts of dispositions that might bedue to early training; on the other hand, a survey of the whole fieldwould probably justify us in concluding that any given trait is _morelikely than not_ to be inherited. The effect of training in theformation of the child's mental character is certainly much less than ispopularly supposed; and even for the traits that are most due totraining, it must never be forgotten that there are inherited mentalbases. 

If the reader has accepted the facts presented in this chapter, and ourinferences from the facts, he will admit that mental differences betweenmen are at bottom due to heredity, just as physical differences are;that they are apparently inherited in the same manner and inapproximately the same degree. 

CHAPTER V

THE LAWS OF HEREDITY

We have now established the bases for a practicable eugenics program. Men differ; these differences are inherited; therefore the make-up ofthe race can be changed by any method which will alter the relativeproportions of the contributions which different classes of men make tothe following generation. 

For applied eugenics, it is sufficient to know that mental and physicaldifferences are inherited; the exact manner of inheritance it would beimportant to know, but even without a knowledge of the details of themechanism of heredity, a program of eugenics is yet wholly feasible. 

It is no part of the plan of this book to enter into the details of themechanism of heredity, a complicated subject for which the reader canrefer to one of the treatises mentioned in the bibliography at the closeof this volume. It may be worth while, however, to outline in a verysummary way the present status of the question. 

As to the details of inheritance, research has progressed in the lastfew years far beyond the crude conceptions of a decade ago, when aprimitive form of Mendelism was made to explain everything thatoccurred. [43] One can hardly repress a smile at the simplicity of thoseearly ideas, --though it must be said that some students of eugenics havenot yet outgrown them. In those days it was thought that every visiblecharacter in man (or in any other organism) was represented by some"determiner" in the germ-plasm; that by suitable matings a breeder couldrid a stream of germ-plasm of almost any determiner he wished; and thatthe corresponding unit character would thereupon disappear from thevisible make-up of the individual. Was a family reported as showing ataint, for instance, hereditary insanity? Then it was asserted that bythe proper series of matings, it was possible to squeeze out of thegerm-plasm the particular concrete _something_ of which insanity was thevisible expression, and have left a family stock that was perfectlysound and sane. 

The minute, meticulous researches of experimental breeders[44] have leftsuch a view of heredity far behind. Certainly the last word has not beensaid; yet the present hypotheses _work_, whenever the conditions aresuch as to give a fair chance. The results of these studies have led towhat is called the factorial hypothesis of heredity, [45] according towhich all the visible characters of the adult are produced by (purelyhypothetical) factors in the germ-plasm; it is the factors that areinherited, and they, under proper conditions for development, producethe characters. The great difference between this and the earlier viewis that instead of allotting one factor to each character, students nowbelieve that each individual character of the organism is produced bythe action of an indefinitely large number of factors, [46] and theyhave been further forced to adopt the belief that each individualfactor affects an indefinitely large number of characters, owing to thephysiological interrelations and correlations of every part of the body. 

[Illustration: HOW DO YOU CLASP YOUR HANDS?

FIG. 16. --If the hands be clasped naturally with fingersalternating, as shown in the above illustration, most people will putthe same thumb--either that of the right or that of the lefthand--uppermost every time. Frank E. Lutz showed (_American Naturalist_, xliii) that the position assumed depends largely on heredity. When bothparents put the right thumb uppermost, about three-fourths of thechildren were found to do the same. When both parents put the left thumbuppermost, about three-fifths of the children did the same. No definiteratios could be found from the various kinds of matings. Apparently themanner of clasping hands has no connection with one's right-handednessor left-handedness. It can hardly be due to imitation for the trait issuch a slight one that most people have not noticed it before theirattention is called to it by the geneticist. Furthermore, babies arefound almost always to clasp the hands in the same way every time. Thetrait is a good illustration of the almost incredible minuteness withwhich heredity enters into a man's make-up. Photograph by John HowardPaine. ]

The sweet pea offers a good illustration of the widespread effects whichmay result from the change of a single factor. In addition to theordinary climbing vine, there is a dwarf variety, and the differencebetween the two seems to be proved, by exhaustive experimental breeding, to be due to only one inherited factor. Yet the action of this onefactor not only changes the height of the plant, but also results inchanges in color of foliage, length of internodes, size and arrangementof flowers, time of opening of flowers, fertility and viability. 

Again, a mutant stock in the fruit fly (Drosophila) has as its mostmarked characteristic very short wings. "But the factor for rudimentarywings also produces other effects as well. The females are almostcompletely sterile, while the males are fertile. The viability of thestocks is poor. When flies with rudimentary wings are put intocompetition with wild flies relatively few of the rudimentary flies comethrough, especially if the culture is crowded. The hind legs are alsoshortened. All of these effects are the results of a singlefactor-difference. " To be strictly accurate, then, one should not saythat a certain variation affects length of wing, but that its _chief_effect is to shorten the wing. 

"One may venture to guess, " T. H. Morgan says, [47] "that some of thespecific and varietal differences that are characteristic of wild typesand which at the same time appear to have no survival value, are onlyby-products of factors whose most important effect is on another partof the organism where their influence is of vital importance. "

"I am inclined to think, " Professor Morgan continues, "that anoverstatement to the effect that each factor may affect the entire body, is less likely to do harm than to state that each factor affects only aparticular character. The reckless use of the phrase 'unit character'has done much to mislead the uninitiated as to the effects that a singlechange in the germ-plasm may produce on the organism. Fortunately theexpression 'unit character' is being less used by those students ofgenetics who are more careful in regard to the implications of theirterminology. "

[Illustration: THE EFFECT OF ORTHODACTYLY

FIG. 17. --At the left is a hand with the third, fourth andfifth fingers affected. The middle joints of these fingers are stiff andcannot be bent. At the right the same hand is shown, closed. A normalhand in the middle serves to illustrate by contrast the nature of theabnormality, which appears in every generation of several largefamilies. It is also called symphalangism, and is evidently related tothe better-known abnormality of brachydactyly. Photograph from FrederickN. Duncan. ]

[Illustration: A FAMILY WITH ORTHODACTYLY

FIG. 18. --Squares denote males and circles females, as is usualin the charts compiled by eugenists; black circles or squares denoteaffected individuals. A1 had all fingers affected in the way shown inFig. 17; B2 had all but one finger affected; C2 had all but one fingeraffected; D2 had all fingers affected; D3 has all but forefingersaffected. The family here shown is a branch, found by F. N. Duncan, of avery large family first described by Harvey Cushing, in which thisabnormality has run for at least seven generations. It is an excellentexample of an inherited defect due to a single Mendelian factor. ]

One of the best attested single characters in human heredity isbrachydactyly, "short-fingerness, " which results in a reduction in thelength of the fingers by the dropping out of one joint. If one lumpstogether all the cases where any effect of this sort is found, it isevident that normals never transmit it to their posterity, that affectedpersons always do, and that in a mating between a normal and an affectedperson, all the offspring will show the abnormality. It is a goodexample of a unit character. 

But its effect is by no means confined to the fingers. It tends toaffect the entire skeleton, and in a family where one child is markedlybrachydactylous, that child is generally shorter than the others. Thefactor for brachydactyly evidently produces its primary effect on thebones of the hand, but it also produces a secondary effect on all thebones of the body. 

Moreover, it will be found, if a number of brachydactylous persons areexamined, that no two of them are affected to exactly the same degree. In some cases only one finger will be abnormal; in other cases therewill be a slight effect in all the fingers; in other cases all thefingers will be highly affected. Why is there such variation in theresults produced by a unit character? Because, presumably, in eachindividual there is a different set of modifying factors or else avariation in the factor. It has been found that an abnormality quitelike brachydactyly is produced by abnormality in the pituitary gland. Itis then fair to suppose that the factor which produces brachydactylydoes so by affecting the pituitary gland in some way. But there must bemany other factors which also affect the pituitary and in some casesprobably favor its development, rather than hindering it. Then if thefactor for brachydactyly is depressing the pituitary, but if some otherfactors are at the same time stimulating that gland, the effect shown inthe subject's fingers will be much less marked than if a group ofmodifying factors were present which acted in the same direction as thebrachydactyly factor, --to perturb the action of the pituitary gland. 

This illustration is largely hypothetical; but there is no room fordoubt that every factor produces more than a single effect. A whiteblaze in the hair, for example, is a well-proved unit factor in man; thefactor not only produces a white streak in the hair, but affects thepigmentation of the skin as well, usually resulting in one or more whitespots on some part of the body. It is really a factor for "piebaldism. "

For the sake of clear thinking, then, the idea of a unit character dueto some unit determiner or factor in the germ-plasm must be given up, and it must be recognized that every visible character of an individualis the result of numerous factors, or differences in the germ-plasm. Ordinarily one of these produces a more notable contribution to theend-product than do the others; but there are cases where this statementdoes not appear to hold good. This leads to the conception of _multiplefactors_. 

In crossing a wheat with brown chaff and one with white chaff, H. Nilsson-Ehle (1909) expected in the second hybrid generation to secure aratio of 3 brown to 1 white. As a fact, he got 1410 brown and 94 white, a ratio of 15:1. He interpreted this as meaning that the brown color inthis particular variety was due not to one factor, but to two, whichwere equivalent to each other, and either one of which would produce thesame result alone as would the two acting together. In further crossingred wheat with white, he secured ratios which led him to believe thatthe red was produced by three independent factors, any one of whichwould produce red either alone or with the other two. A. And G. Howardlater corroborated this work, [48] but showed that the three factors werenot identical: they are qualitatively slightly different, although soclosely similar that the three reds look alike at first sight. E. M. East has obtained evidence from maize and G. H. Shull fromshepherd's-purse, which bears out the multiple factor hypothesis. 

[Illustration: WHITE BLAZE IN THE HAIR

FIG. 19. --The white lock of hair here shown is hereditary andhas been traced back definitely through six generations; familytradition derives it from a son of Harry "Hot-Spur" Percy, born in 1403, and fallaciously assigns its origin to "prenatal influence" or "maternalimpression. " This young woman inherited the blaze from her father, whohad it from his mother, who had it from her father, who migrated fromEngland to America nearly a century ago. The trait appears to be asimple dominant, following Mendel's Law; that is, when a person with oneof these locks who is a child of one normal and one affected parentmarries a normal individual, half of the children show the lock and halfdo not. Photograph from Newton Miller. ]

[Illustration: A FAMILY OF SPOTTED NEGROES

FIG. 20. --The piebald factor sometimes shows itself as nothingmore than a blaze in the hair (see preceding figure); but it may take amuch more extreme form, as illustrated by the above photograph from Q. I. Simpson and W. E. Castle. Mrs. S. A. , a spotted mutant, founded afamily which now comprises, in several generations, 17 spotted and 16normal offspring. The white spotting factor behaves as a Mendeliandominant, and the expectation would be equal numbers of normal andaffected children. Similar white factors are known in other animals. Itis worth noting that all the well attested Mendelian characters in manare abnormalities, no normal character having yet been proved to beinherited in this manner. ]

Apart from multiple factors as properly defined (that is, factors whichproduce the same result, either alone or together), extensive analysisusually reveals that apparently simple characters are in realitycomplex. The purple aleurone color of maize seeds is attributed by R. A. Emerson to five distinct factors, while E. Baur found four factorsresponsible for the red color of snapdragon blossoms. There are, as G. N. Collins says, [49] "still many gross characters that stand assimple Mendelian units, but few, if any, of these occur in plants oranimals that have been subjected to extensive investigation. There isnow such a large number of characters which at first behaved as units, but which have since been broken up by crossing with suitable selectedmaterial, that it seems not unreasonable to believe that the remainingcases await only the discovery of the right strains with which tohybridize them to bring about corresponding results. "

In spite of the fact that there is a real segregation between factors ashas been shown, it must not be supposed that factors and theirdeterminers are absolutely invariable. This has been too frequentlyassumed without adequate evidence by many geneticists. It is probablethat just as the multiplicity and interrelation and minuteness of manyfactors have been the principal discoveries of genetics in recent yearsthat the next few years will see a great deal of evidence following theimportant lead of Castle and Jennings, as to variation in factors. 

Knowing that all the characters of an individual are due to theinteraction of numerous factors, one must be particularly slow inassuming that such complex characters as man's mental traits are units, in any proper genetic sense of the word. It will, for instance, requirevery strong evidence to establish feeble-mindedness as a unit character. No one who examines the collected pedigrees of families marked byfeeble-mindedness, can deny that it does appear at first sight to behaveas a unit character, inherited in the typical Mendelian fashion. Thepsychologist H. H. Goddard, who started out with a strong bias againstbelieving that such a complex trait could even _behave_ as a unitcharacter, thought himself forced by the tabulation of his cases toadopt the conclusion that it does behave as a unit character. And othereugenists have not hesitated to affirm, mainly on the strength of Dr. Goddard's researches, that this unit character is due to a singledeterminer in the germ-plasm, which either is or is not present, --nohalfway business about it. 

How were these cases of feeble-mindedness defined? The definition ispurely arbitrary. Ordinarily, any adult who tests much below 12 years bythe Binet-Simon scale is held to be feeble-minded; and the results ofthis test vary a little with the skill of the person applying it andwith the edition of the scale used. Furthermore, most of thefeeble-minded cases in institutions, where the Mendelian studies haveusually been made, come from families which are themselves of a lowgrade of mentality. If the whole lot of those examined were measured, itwould be difficult to draw the line between the normals and theaffected; there is not nearly so much difference between the twoclasses, as one would suppose who only looks at a Mendelian chart. 

[Illustration: A HUMAN FINGER-TIP

FIG. 21. --The palms of the hands and soles of the feet arecovered with little ridges or corrugations, which are supposed to beuseful in preventing the grasp from slipping; whence the name offriction-skin has been given to these surfaces. The ridges are developedinto various patterns; the one above is a loop on the left forefinger. The ridges are studded with the openings of the sweat glands, theelevated position of which is supposed to prevent them from beingclogged up; further, the moisture which they secrete perhaps adds to thefriction of the skin. Friction-skin patterns are inherited in somedegree. Photograph by John Howard Payne. ]

[Illustration: THE LIMITS OF HEREDITARY CONTROL

FIG. 22. --Print of a finger-tip showing a loop-pattern, enlarged about eight times. This is a common type of pattern, and atfirst glance the reader may think it could be mistaken for one of hisown. There are, however, at least sixty-five "ridge characteristics" onthe above print, which an expert would recognize and would use for thepurpose of identification. If it were found that the first two or threeof them noted corresponded to similar characteristics on another print, the expert would have no doubt that the two prints were made by the samefinger. In police bureaus, finger-prints are filed for reference with aclassification based on the type of pattern, number of ridges betweentwo given points, etc. ; and a simple formula results which makes it easyto find all prints which bear a general resemblance to each other. Theexact identity or lack of it is then determined by a comparison of such_minutiæ_ as the sixty-five above enumerated. While the general outlineof a pattern is inherited, these small characters do not seem to be, butare apparently rather due to the stretching of the skin as it grows. Illustration from J. H. Taylor. ]

[Illustration: DISTRIBUTION OF I Q'S OF 905 UNSELECTED CHILDREN, 5-14YEARS OF AGE

THE DISTRIBUTION OF INTELLIGENCE

FIG. 23. --Diagram showing the mentality of 905 unselectedchildren, 5 to 14 years of age, who may probably be taken asrepresentative of the whole population. The median or tallest column, about one-third of the whole number, represents those who were normalor, as a statistician would say, mediocre. Their mental ages andchronological ages were practically identical. To the left of these thediminishing columns show the number whose mental ages fell short oftheir chronological ages. They are the mentally retarded, ranging allthe way down to the lowest one-third of one per cent who represent avery low grade of feeble-mindedness. On the other side the mentallysuperior show a similar distribution. A curve drawn over the tops of thecolumns makes a good normal curve. "Since the frequency of the variousgrades of intelligence decreases _gradually_ and at no point abruptly oneach side of the median, it is evident that there is no definitedividing line between normality and feeble-mindedness, or betweennormality and genius. Psychologically, the mentally defective child doesnot belong to a distinct type, nor does the genius. . . . The commonopinion that extreme deviations below the median are vastly morefrequent than extreme deviations above the median seems to have nofoundation in fact. Among unselected school children, at least, forevery child of any given degree of deficiency there is roughly anotherchild as far above the average as the former is below. " Lewis M. Terman, _The Measurement of Intelligence_, pp. 66-67. ]

It would be well to extend our view by measuring a whole population withone of the standard tests. If the intelligence of a thousand childrenpicked at random from the population be measured, it will prove (asoutlined in Chapter III) that some of them are feeble-minded, some areprecocious or highly intelligent; and that there is every possibledegree of intelligence between the two extremes. If a great number ofchildren, all 10 years old, were tested for intelligence, it wouldreveal a few absolute idiots whose intelligence was no more than that ofthe ordinary infant, a few more who were as bright as the ordinarykindergarten child, and so up to the great bulk of normal 10-year-olds, and farther to a few prize eugenic specimens who had as muchintelligence as the average college freshman. In other words, this traitof general intelligence would be found distributed through thepopulation in accordance with that same curve of chance, which wasdiscussed and illustrated when we were talking about the differencesbetween individuals. 

Now what has become of the unit character, feeble-mindedness? How canone speak of a unit character, when the "unit" has an infinite number ofvalues? Is a _continuous quantity_ a _unit_?

If intelligence is due to the inheritance of a vast, but indeterminate, number of factors of various kinds, each of which is independent, knowledge of heredity would lead one to expect that some children wouldget more of these factors than others and that, broadly speaking, no twowould get the same number. All degrees of intelligence between the idiotand the genius would thus exist; and yet we can not doubt that a few ofthese factors are more important than the others, and the presence ofeven one or two of them may markedly affect the level of intelligence. 

It may make the matter clearer if we return for a moment to thephysical. Height, bodily stature, offers a very good analogy for thecase we have just been discussing, because it is obvious that it mustdepend on a large number of different factors, a man's size being due tothe sum total of the sizes of a great number of bones, ligaments, tissues, etc. It is obvious that one can be long in the trunk and shortin the legs, or vice versa, and so on through a great number ofpossible combinations. Here is a perfectly measurable character (no onehas ever claimed that it is a genetic "unit character" _in man_ althoughit behaves as such in some plants) as to the complex basis of which allwill agree. And it is known, from common observation as well as frompedigree studies, that it is not inherited as a unit: children are neverborn in two discontinuous classes, "tall" and "short, " as they are withcolor blindness or normal color vision, for example. Is it not a fairassumption that the difference between the apparent unit character offeeble-mindedness, and the obvious non-unit character of height, is amatter of difference in the number of factors involved, difference inthe degree to which they hang together in transmission, variation in thefactors, and certainly difference in the method of measurement? Add thatthe line between normal and feeble-minded individuals is whollyarbitrary, and it seems that there is little reason to talk aboutfeeble-mindedness as a unit character. It may be true that there is somesort of an inhibiting factor inherited as a unit, but it seems morelikely that feeble-mindedness may be due to numerous different causes;that its presence in one child is due to one factor or group of factors, and in another child to a different one. [50]

It does not fall wholly into the class of blending inheritance, for itdoes segregate to a considerable extent, yet some of the factors mayshow blending. Much more psychological analysis must be done before thequestion of the inheritance of feeble-mindedness can be consideredsolved. But at present one can say with confidence of this, as of othermental traits, that like tends to produce like; that low grades ofmentality usually come from an ancestry of low mentality, and thatbright children are usually produced in a stock that is marked byintelligence. 

Most mental traits are even more complex in appearance thanfeeble-mindedness. None has yet been proved to be due to a singlegerminal difference, and it is possible that none will ever be sodemonstrated. 

[Illustration: FIG. 24. --The twins whose finger-prints areshown in Fig. 25. ]

Intensive genetic research in lower animals and plants has shown that avisible character may be due to

1. Independent multiple factors in the germ-plasm, as in the case ofwheat mentioned a few pages back. 

2. Multiple allelomorphs, that is, a series of different grades of asingle factor. 

3. One distinct Mendelian factor (or several such factors), withmodifying factors which may cause either (a) intensification, (b)inhibition, or (c) dilution. 

4. Variation of a factor. 

5. Or several or all of the above explanations may apply to one case. 

Moreover, the characters of which the origin has been most completelyworked out are mostly color characters, whose physiological developmentseems to be relatively simple. It is probable that the development of amental character is much more complicated, and therefore there is morelikelihood of additional factors being involved. 

To say, then, that any mental trait is a unit character, or that it isdue to a single germinal difference, is to go beyond both the evidenceand the probabilities. 

And if mental traits are, in their germinal foundations, not simple buthighly complex, it follows that any advice given as to how human matingsshould be arranged to produce any precise result in the progeny, shouldbe viewed with distrust. Such advice can be given only in the case of afew pathological characters such as color-blindness, night-blindness, orHuntington's Chorea. It is well that the man or woman interested in oneof these abnormalities can get definite information on the subject; andHuntington's Chorea, in particular, is a dysgenic trait which can andshould be stamped out. But it can not be pretended that any of man'straits, as to whose inheritance prediction can be made with confidence, is of great importance to national eugenics. 

In short, a knowledge of heredity shows that attempts to predict themode of inheritance of the important human traits (particularly mentaltraits) are still uncertain in their results. The characters involvedare too complex to offer any simple sequences. If two parents have browneyes, it can not be said that all their children will have brown eyes;still less can it be said that all the children of two musically giftedparents are certain to be endowed with musical talent in any givendegree. 

Prediction is possible only when uniform sequences are found. How aresuch sequences to be found in heredity, if they do not appear when aparent and his offspring are examined? Obviously it is necessary toexamine _a large number_ of parents and their offspring, --to treat theproblem by statistical methods. 

But, it may be objected, a uniformity gained by such methods isspurious. It is merely shutting the eyes to the mass of contradictionswhich are concealed by an apparent statistical uniformity. 

This objection would be valid, if the statistical results were used forprediction _in individual cases_. The statistician, however, expresslywarns that his conclusions must not be used for such prediction. Theyare intended to predict only general trends, only average results; andfor this purpose they are wholly legitimate. Moreover, evolution itselfis a problem of statistics, and therefore the statistical method ofstudying heredity may offer results of great value to eugenics, eventhough it can not furnish in individual cases the prediction which wouldbe desirable. 

From this standpoint, we return to attack the problem of the relationbetween parent and offspring. We noted that there is no uniform sequencein a single family, and illustrated this by the case of brown eyes. Butif a thousand parents and their offspring be selected and some trait, such as eye-color, or stature, or general intelligence, be measured, auniformity at once appears in the fact of regression. Its discoverer, Sir Francis Galton, gives this account of it:

[Illustration: FINGER-PRINTS OF TWINS

FIG. 25. --Above are the finger-prints, supplied by J. H. Taylorof the Navy Department, of the two young sailors shown in Fig. 24. Thereader might examine them once or twice without seeing any differences. Systematic comparison reveals that the thumbs of the left hands and themiddle fingers of the right hands particularly are distinguishable. Finger-prints as a means of identification were popularized by SirFrancis Galton, the founder of eugenics, and their superiority to allother methods is now generally admitted. In addition to this practicalusefulness, they also furnish material for study of the geneticist andzoölogist. The extent to which heredity is responsible for the patternsis indicated by the resemblance in pattern in spite of the greatvariability in this tract. ]

"If the word 'peculiarity' be used to signify the difference between theamount of any faculty possessed by a man, and the average of thatpossessed by the population at large, then the law of regression maybe described as follows: each peculiarity in a man is shared by hiskinsmen, but on the _average_ in a less degree. It is reduced to adefinite fraction of its amount, quite independently of what its amountmight be. The fraction differs in different orders of kinship, becomingsmaller as they are more remote. When the kinship is so distant that itseffects are not worth taking into account, the peculiarity of the man, however remarkable it may have been, is reduced to zero in his kinsmen. This apparent paradox is fundamentally due to the greater frequency ofmediocre deviations than of extreme ones, occurring between limitsseparated by equal widths. "

As to the application of this law, let Galton himself speak: "The Law ofRegression tells heavily against the full hereditary transmission of anygift. Only a few out of many children would be likely to differ frommediocrity so widely as their Mid-Parent [i. E. , the average of theirtwo parents], allowing for sexual differences, and still fewer woulddiffer as widely as the more exceptional of the two parents. The morebountifully the parent is gifted by nature, the more rare will be hisgood fortune if he begets a son who is as richly endowed as himself, andstill more so if he has a son who is endowed yet more largely. But thelaw is evenhanded; it levies an equal succession-tax on the transmissionof badness as of goodness. If it discourages the extravagant hopes of agifted parent that his children on the average will inherit all hispowers, it not less discountenances extravagant fears that they willinherit all his weakness and disease. 

"It must be clearly understood that there is nothing in these statementsto invalidate the general doctrine that the children of a gifted pairare much more likely to be gifted than the children of a mediocre pair. "To this it should be added that progeny of very great ability will arisemore frequently in proportion to the quality of their parents. 

It must be reiterated that this is a statistical, not a biological, law;and that even Galton probably goes a little too far in applying it toindividuals. It will hold good for a whole population, but notnecessarily for only one family. Further, we can afford to reëmphasizethe fact that it in no way prevents the improvement of a race byselection and assortative mating. 

Stature is the character which Dr. Galton used to get an exactmeasurement of the amount of regression. More recent studies havechanged the value he found, without invalidating his method. When largenumbers are taken it is now abundantly proved that if parents exceed theaverage stature of their race by a certain amount their offspring will, in general, exceed the racial average by only one-half as much as theirparents did. This is due, as Galton said, to the "drag" of the moreremote ancestry, which when considered as a whole must represent verynearly mediocrity, statistically speaking. 

The general amount of regression in heredity, then, is one-half. If itbe expressed as a decimal, . 5, the reader will at once note its identitywith the coefficient of correlation which we have so often cited in thisbook as a measure of heredity. In fact, the coefficient of correlationis nothing more than a measure of the regression, and it is probablysimpler to think of it as correlation than it is to speak of a Law ofRegression, as Sir Francis did. 

This correlation or regression can, of course, be measured for otherancestors as well as for the immediate parents. From studies ofeye-color in man and coat-color in horses, Karl Pearson worked out thenecessary correlations, which are usually referred to as the law ofAncestral Inheritance. Dr. Galton had pointed out, years before, thatthe contributions of the several generations of individuals probablyformed a geometrical series, and Professor Pearson calculated thisseries, for the two cases mentioned, as:

 Parents Grandparents G-Grandparents G-G-Grandparents

 . 6244 . 1988 . 0630 . 0202 . . . Etc. 

In other words, the two parents, together, will on the average of agreat many cases be found to have contributed a little more thanthree-fifths of the hereditary peculiarities of any given individual;the four grandparents will be found responsible for a little less thanone-fifth, and the eight great-grandparents for about six hundredths, and so on, the contribution of each generation becoming smaller withascent, but each one having, in the average of many cases, a certaindefinite though small influence, until infinity. 

It can not be too strongly emphasized that this is a statistical law, not a biological law. It must not be applied to predict the character ofthe offspring of any one particular mating, for it might be highlymisleading. It would be wholly unjustified, for example, to suppose thata certain man got three-tenths of his nature from his father, becausethe Law of Ancestral Heredity required it: in point of fact, he mightget one-tenth or nine-tenths, none or all of a given trait. But, whendealing with a large population, the errors on one side balance theerrors on the other, and the law is found, in the cases to which it hasbeen applied, to express the facts. [51]

While, therefore, this Galton-Pearson law gives no advice in regard toindividual marriages, it is yet of great value to applied eugenics. Inthe first place, it crystallizes the vague realization that remoteancestry is of much less importance than immediate ancestry, to anindividual, while showing that every generation has a part in making aman what he is. In the second place, it is found, by mathematicalreasoning which need not here be repeated, that the type of a populationmay be quickly changed by the mating of like with like; and that thisnewly established type may be maintained when not capable of furtherprogress. Regression is not inevitable, for it may be overcome byselection. 

To put the matter in a more concrete form, there is reason to think thatif for a few generations superior people would marry only people on theaverage superior in like degree (superior in ancestry as well asindividuality), a point would be reached where all the offspring wouldtend to be superior, mediocrities of the former type being eliminated;and this superiority could be maintained as long as care was taken toavoid mating with inferior. In other words, the Galton-Pearson Law givesstatistical support for a belief that eugenic marriages will create animproved breed of men. And this, it seems to us, is the most importantimplication of that law for eugenics, although it is an implication thatis generally ignored. 

We do not propose to discuss further the laws of heredity; but it islikely that the reader who has made no other study of the subject may bythis time find himself somewhat bewildered. "Can we talk only ingeneralities?" he may well ask; "Does eugenics know no laws of hereditythat will guide me in the choice of a wife? I thought that was thepurpose of eugenics!"

We reply: (1) The laws of heredity are vastly complicated in man by thecomplex nature of most of his characters. The definite way in which someabnormalities are inherited is known; but it has not been thoughtnecessary to include an account of such facts in this work. They are setforth in other books, especially Davenport's _Heredity in Relation toEugenics_. The knowledge of how such a trait as color-blindness isinherited may be of importance to one man out of a thousand in choosinga wife; but we are taking a broader view of eugenics than this. As faras the great mass of human characters go, they are, in our opinion, dueto so many separately inheritable factors that it is not safe todogmatize about exactly how they will behave in heredity. Suchknowledge, desirable as it may be, is not necessary for race progress. 

(2) But it is possible, with present knowledge, to say that humantraits, mental as well as physical, are inherited, in a high degree. Even before the final details as to the inheritance of all traits areworked out--a task that is never likely to be accomplished--there isample material on which to base action for eugenics. The basaldifferences in the mental traits of man (and the physical as well, ofcourse) are known to be due to heredity, and little modified bytraining. It is therefore possible to raise the level of the humanrace--the task of eugenics--by getting that half of the race which is, on the whole, superior in the traits that make for human progress andhappiness, to contribute a larger proportion to the next generation thandoes the half which is on the whole inferior in that respect. Eugenicsneed know nothing more, and the smoke of controversy over the exact wayin which some trait or other is inherited must not be allowed for aninstant to obscure the known fact that the level can be raised. 

CHAPTER VI

NATURAL SELECTION

Man has risen from the ape chiefly through the action of naturalselection. Any scheme of conscious race betterment, then, shouldcarefully examine nature's method, to learn to what extent it is stillacting, and to what extent it may better be supplanted or assisted bymethods of man's own invention. 

Natural selection operates in two ways: (1) through a selectivedeath-rate and (2) through a selective birth-rate. The first of theseforms has often been considered the whole of natural selection, butwrongly. The second steadily gains in importance as an organism rises inthe scale of evolution; until in man it is likely soon to dwarf thelethal factor into insignificance. For it is evident that the appallingslaughter of all but a few of the individuals born, which one usuallyassociates with the idea of natural selection, will take place only whenthe number of individuals born is very large. As the reproductive ratedecreases, so does the death-rate, for a larger proportion of those bornare able to find food and to escape enemies. 

When considering man, one realizes at once that relatively few babies oradults starve to death. The selective death-rate therefore must includeonly those who are unable to escape their enemies; and while theseenemies of the species, particularly certain microörganisms, still takea heavy toll from the race, the progress of science is likely to make itmuch smaller in the future. 

The different aspects of natural selection may be classified as follows:

 { Lethal { Sustentative { { Non-sustentative Natural selection { { Reproductive { Sexual { { Fecundal

The lethal factor is the one which Darwin himself most emphasized. Obviously a race will be steadily improved, if the worst stock in it iscut off before it has a chance to reproduce, and if the best stocksurvives to perpetuate its kind. "This preservation of favourableindividual differences and variations, and the destruction of thosewhich are injurious, I have called natural selection, or the survival ofthe fittest, " Darwin wrote; and he went on to show that the principalchecks on increase were overcrowding, the difficulty of obtaining food, destruction by enemies, and the lethal effects of climate. These causesmay be conveniently divided as in the above diagram, into sustentativeand non-sustentative. The sustentative factor has acquired particularprominence in the human species, since Malthus wrote his essay onpopulation--that essay which both Darwin and Wallace confess was thestarting point of their discovery of natural selection. 

There is a "constant tendency in all animated life to increase beyondthe nourishment prepared for it, " Malthus declared. "It isincontrovertibly true that there is no bound to the prolific plants andanimals, but what is made by their crowding and interfering with eachothers' means of subsistence. " His deduction is well known: that as mantends to increase in geometrical ratio, and can not hope to increase hisfood-supply more rapidly than in arithmetical ratio, the human race musteventually face starvation, unless the birth-rate be reduced. 

Darwin was much impressed by this argument and ever since his time ithas usually been the foundation for any discussion of natural selection. Nevertheless it is partly false for all animals, as one of the authorsshowed[52] some years ago, since a species which regularly eats up allthe food in sight is rare indeed; and it is of very little racialimportance in the present-day evolution of man. Scarcity of food may putsufficient pressure on him to cause emigration, but rarely death. Theimportance of Malthus' argument to eugenics is too slight to warrantfurther discussion. 

When the non-sustentative forms of lethal selection are considered, itis seen very clearly that man is not exempt from the workings of thislaw. A non-sustentative form of natural selection takes place throughthe destruction of the individual by some adverse feature of theenvironment, such as excessive cold, or bacteria; or by bodilydeficiency; and it is independent of mere food-supply. W. F. R. Weldonshowed by a long series of measurements, for example, that as the harborof Plymouth, England, kept getting muddier, the crabs which lived in itkept getting narrower; those with the greatest frontal breadth filteredthe water entering their gills least effectively, and died. 

But, it was objected, man is above all this. He has gained the controlof his own environment. The bloody hand of natural selection may fall oncrabs: but surely you would not have us think that Man, the Lord ofCreation, shares the same fate?

Biologists could hardly think otherwise. Statisticians were able tosupply the needed proof. A selective death-rate in man can not only bedemonstrated but it can be actually measured. 

"The measure of the selective death-rate. " says[53] Karl Pearson, towhom this achievement is due, "is extraordinarily simple. It consists inthe fact that the inheritance of the length of life between parent andoffspring is found statistically to be about one-third of the averageinheritance of physical characters in man. This can only be due to thefact that the death of parent or of offspring in a certain number ofcases is due to random and not to constitutional causes. " He arrived atthe conclusion[54] that 60% of the deaths were selective, in the Quakerfamilies which he was then studying. The exact proportion must vary inaccordance with the nature of the material and the environment, but asA. Ploetz found at least 60% of the deaths to be selective in theEuropean royal families and nobility, where the environment isuniformly good, there is no reason to think that Professor Pearson'sconclusion is invalid. 

Dr. Ploetz[55] investigated the relation between length of life inparents, and infant mortality, in about 1, 000 families including 5, 500children; half of these were from the nobility and half from thepeasantry. The results were of the same order in each case, indicatingthat environment is a much less important factor than many have beenwont to suppose. After discussing Professor Pearson's work, hecontinued:

 It seems to me that a simpler result can be reached from our material in the following way. Since the greater child-mortality of each of our classes of children (divided according to the ages at death of their parents) indicates a higher mortality throughout the rest of their lives, the offspring of parents who die young will therefore be eliminated in a higher degree, that is, removed from the composition of the race, than will those whose parents died late. Now the elimination can be non-selective, falling on all sorts of constitutions with the same frequency and degree. In that case it will of course have no connection with selection inside the race. Or it may be of a selective nature, falling on its victims because they differ from those who are not selected, in a way that makes them less capable of resisting the pressure of the environment, and avoiding its dangers. Then we speak of a selective process, of the elimination of the weaker and the survival of the stronger. Since in our examination of the various causes of the difference in infant mortality, in the various age-classes of parents, we found no sufficient cause in the effects of the environment, which necessarily contains all the non-selective perils, but found the cause to be in the different constitutions inherited by the children, we can not escape the conclusion that the differences in infant mortality which we observe indicate a strong process of natural selection. 

 Our tables also permit us to get an approximate idea of the extent of selection by death among children in the first five years of life. The minimum of infant mortality is reached among those children whose parents have attained 85 years of age. Since these represent the strongest constitutions, the mortality of their children would appear to represent an absolute minimum, made up almost wholly of chance, non-selective, unavoidable deaths. As the number of children from marriages, both parties to which reached 85 years of age, is so small as to render any safe conclusions impossible, our only recourse is to take the children of the 85-year-old fathers and the children of the 85-year-old mothers, add them together, and strike an average. But we must recognize that the minimum so obtained is nevertheless still too large, because among the consorts of the long-lived fathers and mothers, some died early with the result of increasing the infant mortality. The infant mortality with the 85-year-old fathers and mothers is found to be 11. 2%-15. 4%, average about 13%. The total child-mortality reaches 31-32%, of which the 13% make about 40%. Accordingly at least 60%, and considering the above mentioned sources of error we may say two-thirds, of the child mortality is selective in character. That accords reasonably well with the 55-74% which Pearson found for the extent of selective deaths in his study. 

In general, then, one may believe that more than a half of the personswho die nowadays, die because they were not fit by by nature (i. E. , heredity) to survive under the conditions into which they were born. They are the victims of lethal natural selection, nearly always of thenon-sustentative type. As Karl Pearson says, "Every man who has livedthrough a hard winter, every man who has examined a mortality table, every man who has studied the history of nations has probably seennatural selection at work. "

There is still another graphic way of seeing natural selection at work, by an examination of the infant mortality alone. Imagine a thousandbabies coming into the world on a given day. It is known that underaverage American conditions more than one-tenth of them will die duringthe first year of life. Now if those who die at this time are theinherently weaker, then the death-rate among survivors ought to becorrespondingly less during succeeding years, for many will have beencut down at once, who might otherwise have lingered for several years, although doomed to die before maturity. On the other hand, if only a fewdie during the first year, one might expect a proportionately greaternumber to die in succeeding years. If it is actually found that a highdeath-rate in the first year of life is associated with a lowdeath-rate in succeeding years, then there will be grounds for believingthat natural selection is really cutting off the weaker and allowing thestronger to survive. 

E. C. Snow[56] analyzed the infant mortality registration of parts ofEngland and Prussia to determine whether any such conclusion wasjustified. His investigation met with many difficulties, and his resultsare not as clear-cut as could be desired, but he felt justified inconcluding from them that "the general result can not be questioned. Natural selection, in the form of a selective death-rate, is stronglyoperative in man in the early years of life. We assert with greatconfidence that a high mortality in infancy (the first two years oflife) is followed by a correspondingly low mortality in childhood, andvice-versa. . . . Our work has led us to the conclusion that infantmortality _does_ effect a 'weeding out' of the unfit. "

"Unfitness" in this connection must not be interpreted too narrowly. Achild may be "unfit" to survive in its environment, merely because itsparents are ignorant and careless. Such unfitness makes more probable aninheritance of low intelligence. 

Evidence of natural selection was gathered by Karl Pearson from anothersource and published in 1912. He dealt with material analogous to thatof Dr. Snow and showed "that when allowance was made for change ofenvironment in the course of 50 years, a very high association existedbetween the deaths in the first year of life and the deaths in childhood(1 to 5 years). This association was such that if the infantiledeath-rate _increased_ by 10% the child death rate _decreased_ by 5. 3%in males, while in females the _fall_ in the child death-rate was almost1% for every 1% _rise_ in the infantile death-rate. "

To put the matter in the form of a truism, part of the children born inany district in a given year are doomed by heredity to a prematuredeath; and if they die in one year they will not be alive to die in somesucceeding year. 

Lately a new mathematical method, which is termed the Variate DifferenceCorrelation method, has been invented and gives more accurate results, in such an investigation as that of natural selection, than any hithertoused. With this instrument Professor Pearson and Miss Elderton haveconfirmed the previous work. Applying it to the registered births inEngland and Wales between 1850 and 1912, and the deaths during the firstfive years of life in the same period, they have again found[57] that"for both sexes a heavy death-rate in one year of life means a markedlylower death-rate in the same group in the following year of life. " Thislessened death-rate extends in a lessened degree to the year followingthat, but is not by the present method easy to trace further. 

"It is difficult, " as they conclude, "to believe that this importantfact can be due to any other source than natural selection, i. E. , aheavy mortality leaves behind it a stronger population. "

To avoid misunderstandings, it may be well to add to this review theclosing words of the Elderton-Pearson memoir. "Nature is not concernedwith the moral or the immoral, which are standards of human conduct, andthe duty of the naturalist is to point out what goes on in Nature. Therecan now be scarcely a doubt that even in highly organized humancommunities the death-rate is selective, and physical fitness is thecriterion for survival. To assert the existence of this selection andmeasure its intensity must be distinguished from an advocacy of highinfant mortality as a factor of racial efficiency. This reminder is themore needful as there are not wanting those who assert thatdemonstrating the existence of natural selection in man is identicalwith decrying all efforts to reduce the infantile death-rate. " A furtherdiscussion of this point will be found in a later chapter. 

The conclusion that, of the infants who die, a large number do sothrough inherent weakness--because they are not "fit" to survive--isalso suggested by a study of the causes of death. From a third to a halfof the deaths during the first year of life, and particularly during thefirst month, are due to what may be termed uterine causes, such asdebility, atrophy, inanition, or premature birth. Although in manycases such a death is the result of lack of prenatal care, in still moreit must be ascribed to a defect in the parental stock. 

In connection with infant mortality, it may be of interest to point outthat the intensity of natural selection is probably greater among boysthan among girls. There is a steady preponderance of boys over girls atbirth (about 105 to 100, in the United States), while among thestillborn the proportion is 158 to 100, if the Massachusetts figures for1891-1900 may be taken as general in application. Evidently a largenumber of weak males have been eliminated before birth. This eliminationcontinues for a number of years to be greater among boys than amonggirls, until in the period of adolescence the death-rates of the twosexes are equal. In adult life the death-rate among men is nearly alwayshigher than that among women, but this is due largely to the fact thatmen pursue occupations where they are more exposed to death. In suchcases, and particularly where deaths are due to accident, the mortalitymay not only be non-selective, but is sometimes contra-selective, forthe strongest and most active men will often be those who exposethemselves most to some danger. Such a reversal of the action of naturalselection is seen on a large scale in the case of war, where thestrongest go to the fray and are killed, while the weaklings stay athome to perpetuate _their_ type of the race. 

A curious aspect of the kind of natural selection underconsideration, --that which operates by death without reference to thefood-supply, --is seen in the evolution of a wide pelvis in women. Beforethe days of modern obstetrics, the woman born with an unusually narrowpelvis was likely to die during parturition, and the inheritance of anarrower type of pelvis was thus stopped. With the introduction andimprovement of instrumental and induced deliveries, many of these womenare enabled to survive, with the necessary consequence that theirdaughters will in many cases have a similarly narrow pelvis, andexperience similar difficulty in childbirth. The percentage ofdeliveries in which instrumental aid is necessary is thus increasingfrom generation to generation, and is likely to continue to increasefor some time. In other words, natural selection, because of man'sinterference, can no longer maintain the width of woman's pelvis, as itformerly did, and a certain amount of reversion in this respect isprobably taking place--a reversion which, if unchecked, wouldnecessarily lead after a long time to a reduction in the average size ofskull of that part of the human race which frequently uses forceps atchildbirth. The time would be long because the forceps permit thesurvival of some large-headed infants who otherwise would die. 

But it must not be supposed that lethal, non-sustentative selectionworks only through forms of infant mortality. That aspect was firstdiscussed because it is most obvious, but the relation of naturalselection to microbic disease is equally widespread and far morestriking. 

As to the inheritance of disease as such there is little room formisunderstanding: no biologist now believes a disease is actually handeddown from parent to child in the germ-plasm. But what the doctors call adiathesis, a predisposition to some given disease, is most certainlyheritable--a fact which Karl Pearson and others have proved bystatistics that can not be given here. [58] And any individual who hasinherited this diathesis, this lack of resistance to a given disease, ismarked as a possible victim of natural selection. The extent to whichand the manner in which it operates may be more readily understood bythe study of a concrete case. Tuberculosis is, as everyone knows, adisease caused directly by a bacillus; and a disease to which immunitycan not be acquired by any process of vaccination or inoculation yetknown. It is a disease which is not directly inherited as such. Yetevery city-dweller in the United States is almost constantly exposed toinfection by this bacillus, and autopsies show that most persons haveactually been infected at some period of life, but have resistedfurther encroachment. Perhaps a fraction of them will eventually die ofconsumption; the rest will die of some other disease, and will probablynever even know that they have carried the bacilli of tuberculosis intheir lungs. 

Of a group of men picked at random from the population, why will someeventually die of tuberculosis and the others resist infection? Is it amatter of environment?--are open-air schools, sanitary tenements, properhygiene, the kind of measures that will change this condition? Such isthe doctrine widely preached at the present day. It is alleged that thewhite plague may be stamped out, if the open cases of tuberculosis areisolated and the rest of the population is taught how to live properly. The problem is almost universally declared to be a problem of infection. 

Infection certainly is the immediate problem, but the biologist sees agreater one a little farther back. It is the problem of naturalselection. 

To prove this, it is necessary to prove (1) that some people are bornwith less resistance to tuberculosis than others and (2) that it isthese people with weak natural resistance who die of phthisis, whiletheir neighbors with stronger resistance survive. The proof of thesepropositions has been abundantly given by Karl Pearson, G. Archdall Reidand others. Their main points may be indicated. In the first place itmust be shown that the morbidity from tuberculosis is largely due toheredity--a point on which most medical men are still uninformed. Measurement of the direct correlation between phthisis in parent andchild shows it to be about . 5, i. E. , what one expects if it is a matterof heredity. This is the coefficient for most physical and mentalcharacters: it is the coefficient for such pathological traits asdeafness and insanity, which are obviously due in most cases toinheritance rather than infection. 

But, one objects, this high correlation between parent and child doesnot prove inheritance, --it obviously proves infection. The familyrelations are so intimate that it is folly to overlook this factor inthe spread of the disease. 

Very well, Professor Pearson replied, if the relations between parentand child are so intimate that they lead to infection, they arecertainly not less intimate between husband and wife, and there ought tobe just as much infection in this relationship as in the former. Thecorrelation was measured in thousands of cases and was found to liearound . 25, being lowest in the poorer classes and highest in thewell-to-do classes. 

At first glance this seems partly to confirm the objection--it looks asif there must be a considerable amount of tubercular infection betweenhusband and wife. But when it is found that the resemblance betweenhusband and wife in the matter of insanity is also . 25, the objectionbecomes less formidable. Certainly it will hardly be argued that one ofthe partners infects the other with this disability. 

As a fact, a correlation of . 25 between husband and wife, fortuberculosis, is only partly due to infection. What it does mean is thatlike tends to mate with like--called assortative mating. Thiscoefficient of resemblance between husband and wife in regard tophthisis is about the same as the correlation of resemblance betweenhusband and wife for eye color, stature, longevity, general health, truthfulness, tone of voice, and many other characters. No one willsuppose that life partners "infect" each other in these respects. Certainly no one will claim that a man deliberately selects a wife onthe basis of resemblance to himself in these points; but he mostcertainly does so to some extent unconsciously, as will be described atgreater length in Chapter XI. Assortative mating is a well-establishedfact, and there is every reason to believe that much of the resemblancebetween husband and wife as regards tuberculosis is due to this fact, and not to infection. [59]

Again, it is objected that the infection of children is not a familymatter, but due to tuberculous cows' milk: how then does it appearequally among the Japanese, where cows are not tuberculous and cow'smilk rarely used as an infant food: or among such people as theEsquimaux and Polynesians, who have never seen a cow?

But, it is argued, at any rate bad housing and unsanitary conditions oflife will make infection easier and lower the resistance of theindividual. Perhaps such conditions may make infection easier, but thatis of little importance considering how easy it is for all citydwellers--for the population as a whole. The question remains, will notbad housing cause a greater liability to fatal phthisis? Will notdestitution and its attendant conditions increase the probability that agiven individual will succumb to the white plague?

Most physicians think this to be the case, but they have not taken thepains to measure the respective rôles, by the exact methods of modernscience. S. Adolphus Knopf of New York, an authority on tuberculosis, recognizes the importance of the heredity factor, but says that afterthis, the most important predisposing conditions are of the nature ofunsanitary schools, unsanitary tenements, unsanitary factories andworkshops. This may be very true; these conditions may follow afterheredity in importance--but how near do they follow? That is a mattercapable of fairly accurate measurement, and should be discussed withfigures, not generalities. 

Taking the case of destitution, which includes, necessarily, most of theother evils specified, Professor Pearson measured the correlation withliability to phthisis and found it to be . 02. The correlation for directheredity--that is, the resemblance between parent and offspring--it willbe remembered, is . 50. As compared with this, the environmental factorof . 02 is utterly insignificant. It seems evident that whether or notone dies from tuberculosis, under present-day urban conditions, dependsmainly on the kind of constitution one has inherited. 

There is no escape, then, from the conclusion that in any individual, death from tuberculosis is largely a matter of natural selection. Butby taking a longer view, one can actually see the change to whichnatural selection is one of the contributors. The following table showsthe deaths from consumption in Massachusetts, per 10, 000 population:

 1851-60 39. 9 1861-70 34. 9 1871-80 32. 7 1881-90 29. 2 1891-1900 21. 4 1901 17. 5 1902 15. 9

F. L. Hoffman further points out[60] that in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, 1872-1911, the decline in the death-rate fromtuberculosis has been about 50%. "The evidence is absolutely conclusivethat actually as well as relatively, the mortality from tuberculosis inwhat is the most intensely industrial area of America has progressivelydiminished during the last 40 years. "

It will be noted that the great increase in death from consumption inthis area began in the decade following 1840, when the large Irishimmigration began. The Irish are commonly believed to be particularlysusceptible to phthisis. Crowded together in industrial conditions, theyrapidly underwent infection, and their weak racial resistance led to ahigh death-rate. The weak lines of heredity were rapidly cut off; inother words, the intensity of natural selection was great, for a while. The result was to leave the population of these New England states muchmore resistant, on the average, than it was before; and as the Irishimmigration soon slowed down, and no new stocks with great weaknessarrived, tuberculosis naturally tended to "burn itself out. " This seemsto be a partial explanation of the decline in the death-rate fromphthisis in New England during the last half century, although it is notsuggested that it represents the complete explanation: improved methodsof treatment and sanitation doubtless played their part. But that theyare the sole cause of the decline is made highly improbable by the lowcorrelation between phthisis and environmental factors, which wasmentioned above, and by all the other biometric study of tuberculosis, which has proved that the results ascribed to hygiene, includingsanitorium treatment, are to some degree illusory. 

That tuberculosis is particularly fatal to the Negro race is well known. Even to-day, after several centuries of natural selection in the UnitedStates, the annual death-rate from consumption among Negroes in theregistration area is 431. 9 per 100, 000 population (census of 1900) ascompared with 170. 5 for the whites; in the cities alone it is 471. 0. That overcrowding and climate can not be the sole factors is indicatedby the fact that the Negro race has been decimated, wherever it has mettuberculosis. "In the years 1803 and 1810 the British governmentimported three or four thousand Negroes from Mozambique into Ceylon toform into regiments, and of these in December, 1820, there were leftjust 440, including the male descendants. All the rest had perishedmainly from tuberculosis, and in a country where the disease is notnearly so prevalent as in England. "[61] Archdall Reid has pointedout[62] that the American, Polynesian and Australian aborigines, to whomtuberculosis was unknown before the advent of Europeans, and who hadtherefore never been selected against it, could not survive its advent:they were killed by much smaller infections than would have injured aEuropean, whose stock has been purged by centuries of natural selection. 

These racial histories are the most important evidence available to thestudent of natural selection in man. The conclusion to be drawn fromthem seems plain. Natural selection, which has in the past never had anopportunity to act upon the Negro race through tuberculosis, is nowengaged in hastening, at a relatively rapid rate, the evolution of thisrace toward immunity from death by tuberculosis. The evolution of thewhite race on this line is, as the figures show, going onsimultaneously, but having begun centuries earlier, it is not now sorapid. The weakest white stocks were cut off hundreds of years ago, inGreat Britain or Europe; those of the black race are only now going. Despite all the efforts of medicine and sanitation, it is likely thatthe Negro death-rate from phthisis will continue high for some years, until what is left of the race will possess a degree of resistance, orimmunity, not much inferior to that of the whites among whom they live. The blacks in North America now must be already more resistant thantheir ancestors; the mulattoes descended of normal healthy unions shouldbe more resistant than the pure Negroes, although no statistics areavailable on the point; but were a new immigration to take place fromAfrica to-day, and the immigrants to be put into villages with theirAmericanized brethren, the high death-rate would result. 

While the Negroes were thus undergoing the radical surgery of naturalselection, what was happening to the aborigines of America? The answerof history is unmistakable; they were meeting the same fate, in an evenmore violent form. Not tuberculosis alone, but small-pox, measles, alcohol and a dozen other importations of the conquerors, found in theaborigines of the New World a stock which had never been selectedagainst these diseases. 

It is the custom of sentimentalists sometimes to talk as if the NorthAmerican Indian had been killed off by the white man. So he was, --butnot directly: he was killed off by natural selection, acting through thewhite man's diseases and narcotics. In 1841 Catlin wrote, "Thirtymillions of white men are now scuffling for the goods and luxuries oflife over the bones of twelve millions of red men, six millions of whomhave fallen victims to small-pox. " Small-pox is an old story to thewhite race, and the death of the least resistant strains in eachgeneration has left a population that is fairly resistant. It was new tothe natives of America, and history shows the result. Alcohol, too, counted its victims by the thousand, for the same reason. The process ofnatural selection among the North American Indians has not yet stopped;if there are a century from now any Indians left, they will ofnecessity belong to stocks which are relatively resistant to alcohol andtuberculosis and the other widespread and fatal diseases which wereunknown upon this continent before Columbus. 

The decrease of natives following the Spanish conquest of tropicalAmerica has long been one of the most striking events of history. Popular historians sometimes speak as if most of the native populationhad been killed off by the cruelty of the conquistadores. Surely suchtalk could not proceed from those who are familiar with the action ofnatural selection. It is obvious that when the Spaniard brought thenatives together, making them work in mines and assemble in churches, hebrought them under conditions especially favorable for infection by thenew diseases which he had brought. The aborigines of the New World, upto the time the Spaniards came, had undergone no evolution whateveragainst these diseases; consequently the evolution began at so rapid arate that in a few centuries only those who lived in out-of-the-wayplaces remain unscathed. 

The same story is repeated, in a survey of the history of the PacificIslands. Even such a disease as whooping-cough carried off adults by thehundred. Robert Louis Stevenson has left a graphic picture[63] ofnatural selection at work:

"The tribe of Hapaa, " he writes, "is said to have numbered some fourhundred when the small-pox came and reduced them by one-fourth. Sixmonths later a woman developed tubercular consumption; the diseasespread like fire about the valley, and in less than a year twosurvivors, a man and a woman, fled from the newly-created solitude. . . . Early in the year of my visit, for example, or late the year before, thefirst case of phthisis appeared in a household of 17 persons, and by theend of August, when the tale was told me, one soul survived, a boy whohad been absent at his schooling. "

In Tasmania is another good illustration of the evolution of a raceproceeding so rapidly as to be fatal to the race. When the firstEnglish settled on the island, in 1803, the native population consistedof several thousand. Tuberculosis and many other new diseases, and, mostof all, alcohol, began to operate on the aborigines, who were attractedto the settlements of the whites. In a quarter of a century there wereonly a few hundred left. Many, of course, had met violent deaths, but anenlightened perusal of any history of the period, [64] will leave nodoubt that natural selection by disease was responsible for most of themortality. By 1847 the number of native Tasmanians was reduced to 44, who were already unmistakably doomed by alcohol and bacteria. When thelast full-blood Tasmanian died in 1876, a new chapter was written in thestory of the modern evolution of the human race. 

No such stories are told about the white settlements on this continent, even before the days of quarantine and scientific medicine. There is noother adequate explanation of the difference, than that the two raceshave evolved to a different degree in their resistance to thesediseases. It is easily seen, then, that man's evolution is going on, atvarying rates of speed, in probably all parts of the human race at thepresent time. 

We do not mean, of course, to suggest that all the natives who have diedin the New World since the landing of Columbus, have died because theevolution of their race had not proceeded so far in certain directionsas had that of their conquerors. But the proportion of them who wereeliminated for that reason is certainly very large. In the more remoteparts of South America the process is still going on. Recent pressdispatches have carried the account of the University of Pennsylvania'sAmazon Expedition, under the direction of William C. Farrabee. In aletter dated March 16, 1916, the leader told of the discovery of theremains of the tribe of Pikipitanges, a once populous tribe of which achief, six women and two boys alone are left. The tribe had been almostwiped out, Dr. Farabee reported, by an epidemic of _influenza_!

If the aborigines of the New World succumb to the diseases of theEuropean, it is not less true that the European succumbs to diseasesagainst which his race has not been selected. The deadliness of yellowfever to Americans in the tropics, and the relative immunity of Negroes, is familiar; so too is the frequently fatal result of the Africantropical fevers on the white man, while the natives suffer from themmuch less, having been made more resistant by centuries of naturalselection. 

This long discussion may now be summarized. We dealt with lethalselection, that form of natural selection which operates by prematurelykilling off the less fit and leaving the more fit to survive andreproduce their kind. It is of course understood that the word "fit" inthis connection does not necessarily mean morally or mentally superior, but merely fit for the particular environment. In a community ofrascals, the greatest rascal might be the fittest to survive. In theslums of a modern city the Jewish type, stringently selected throughcenturies of ghetto life, is particularly fit to survive, although itmay not be the physical ideal of an anthropologist. 

Two forms of lethal selection were distinguished, one depending onstarvation and the other on causes not connected with the food supply. Direct starvation is not a factor of importance in the survival of mostraces during most of the time at the present day so far as the civilizedportion of the world is concerned. But disease and the other lethalfactors not connected with the food-supply, through which naturalselection acts, are still of great importance. From a half to two-thirdsof all deaths are of a selective character, even under favorableconditions. 

It is also to be noted, however, that with the progress of medicine, andthe diminution of unfit material, this kind of natural selection willtend to become less and less widespread. For a long time, naturalselection in man has probably done little to cause marked change in hisphysical or mental characteristics. Man's interference has prevented. Inrecent centuries natural selection has probably done no more on thewhole than keep the race where it was: it is to be feared that it hasnot even done that. It is doubtful if there is any race to-day whichattains the physical and mental average of the Athenians of 2, 500 yearsago. 

Lethal natural selection, then, has been and still is a factor of greatimportance in the evolution of the race, but at present it is doinglittle or nothing that promises to further the ideal of eugenics--racebetterment. 

But lethal natural selection is only half the story. It is obvious thatif the constitution of a race can be altered by excess of deaths in acertain class, it can equally be altered by excess of births in acertain class. This is reproductive selection, which may appear ineither one of two forms. If the individual leaves few or no progenybecause of his failure to mate at the proper time, it is called sexualselection; if, however, he mates, yet leaves few or no progeny (ascompared with other individuals), it is called fecundal selection. 

Even in man, the importance of the rôle of reproductive selection isinsufficiently understood; in the lower animals scientists have tendedstill more to undervalue it. As a fact, no species ordinarily multipliesin such numbers as to exhaust all the food available, despite theteaching of Malthus and Darwin to the contrary. The rate of reproductionis the crux of natural selection; each species normally has such areproduction rate as will suffice to withstand the premature deaths andsterility of some individuals, and yet not so large as to press undulyupon the food supply. The problem of natural selection is a problem ofthe adjustment between reproductive rate and death-rate, and thestruggle for subsistence is only one of several factors. 

While the reproductive rate must be looked upon as a characteristicwhich has its adaptations like other characteristics, it has onepeculiarity--its increase is always opposed by lethal selection. Thechances of life are reduced by reproducing, inasmuch as more danger isentailed by the extra activities of courtship, and later, in bearing andcaring for the young, since these duties reduce the normal wariness ofindividual life. The reproductive rate, therefore, always remains at thelowest point which will suffice for the reproductive needs of thespecies. For this reason alone the non-sustentative form of selectionmight be expected to be the predominant kind. 

J. T. Gulick and Karl Pearson have pointed out that there is a normalconflict between natural selection and fecundal selection. Fecundalselection is said by them to be constantly tending to increase thereproductive rate, because fecundity is partly a matter of heredity, andthe fecund parents leave more offspring with the same characteristic. Lethal selection, on the contrary, constantly asserts its power toreduce the reproductive rate, because the reproductive demands on theparents reduce their chances of life by interference with their naturalability of self-protection. This is quite true, but the analysis isincomplete, for an increased number of progeny not only decreases thelife chances of the parents, but also of the young, by reducing theamount of care they receive. 

In short, lethal selection and reproductive selection accomplish thesame end--a change in the constitution of the species--by differentmeans; but they are so closely linked together and balanced that anychange in the operation of one is likely to cause a change in theoperation of the other. This will be clearer when the effect ofreproductive selection is studied in man. 

Recalling the truism that most human characters have a hereditary basis, it is evident that the constitution of society will remain stable fromgeneration to generation, only if each section of society is reproducingat the same rate as every other (and assuming, for the moment, that thedeath-rate remains constant). Then if the birth-rate of one part of thepopulation is altered, if it is decreased, for example, the nextgeneration will contain proportionately fewer representatives of thisclass, the succeeding generation fewer still, and so onindefinitely--unless a selective death-rate is operating at the sametime. It is well known not only that the death-rate varies widely indifferent parts of the population, as was pointed out in the earlierpart of this chapter, but that the birth-rate is rarely the same in anytwo sections of the population. Evidently, therefore, the make-up ofsociety must necessarily be changing from generation to generation. Itwill be the object of the rest of this chapter to investigate the waysin which it is changing, while in the latter half of the book we shallpoint out some of the ways in which it might be changed to betteradvantage than it is at present. 

Sexual selection, or differential success in marrying, will be discussedat some length in Chapter XI; here it may be pointed out that the numberwho fail to marry is very much greater than one often realizes. It hasalready been noted that a large part of the population dies before itreaches the age of marriage. Of 1, 000 babies born in the United States, only 750 will reach the average age of marriage; in some countries halfof the thousand will have fallen by that time. These dead certainly willleave no descendants; but even of the survivors, part will fail tomarry. The returns of the thirteenth U. S. Census showed that of themales 45-64 years of age, 10% were single, while 11% of the females, 35-44 years old, were single. Few marriages will take place after thoseages. Add the number who died unmarried previous to those ages, butafter the age of 20, and it is safe to say that at least one-third ofthe persons born in the United States die (early or late) without havingmarried. 

The consideration of those who died before the age of marriage properlycomes under the head of lethal selection, but if attention is confinedto those who, though reaching the age of marriage, fail to marry, sexualselection still has importance. For instance, it is generally known (andsome statistical proof will be given in Chapter XI) that beauty isdirectly associated with the chance of marriage. The pretty girls ingeneral marry earlier as well in larger percentage; many of the uglyones will never find mates. Herbert Spencer argued ingeniously thatbeauty is associated with general mental and moral superiority, and themore exact studies of recent years have tended to confirm hisgeneralization. A recent, but not conclusive, investigation[65] showedbeauty to be correlated with intelligence to the extent of . 34. If thisis confirmed, it offers a good illustration of the action of sexualselection in furthering the progressive evolution of the race. MissGilmore, studying a group of normal school graduates, found a directcorrelation between intelligence (as judged by class marks) and earlymarriage after graduation. Anyone who would take the trouble couldeasily investigate numerous cases of this sort, which would show theeffect of sexual selection in perpetuating desirable qualities. 

But sexual selection no longer has the importance that it once had, fornowadays the mere fact of marriage is not a measure of fecundity, to theextent that it once was. In the old days of unlimited fecundity, theearly marriage of a beautiful, or intelligent, woman meant a probableperpetuation of her endowments; but at present, when artificialrestraint of fertility is so widespread, the result does not follow as amatter of course: and it is evident that the race is little or not atall helped by the early marriage of an attractive woman, if she has toofew or no children. 

Fecundal selection, then, is becoming the important phase ofreproductive selection, in the evolution of civilized races. Thedifferential birth-rate is, as we have often insisted, the all-importantfactor of eugenics, and it merits careful consideration from all sides. 

Such consideration is made difficult by the inadequate vital statisticsof the United States (which ranks with Turkey and China in thisrespect); but there is no doubt that the birth-rate as a whole is low, as compared with that of other countries; although as a whole it is notdangerously low and there is, of course, no necessary evil in a lowbirth-rate, of itself, if the quality be satisfactory. The U. S. Censustabulation for 1915 gives the following comparison of the number ofbabies born alive each year, per 1, 000 population, in various countries:

 Russia in Europe (1909) 44. 0 Japan (1911) 34. 1 Italy (1913) 31. 7 Austria (1912) 31. 3 Spain (1913) 30. 4 Austria (1913) 28. 3 German Empire (1912) 28. 3 Holland (1913) 28. 1 Denmark (1913) 25. 6 Norway (1913) 25. 3 United States (registration area only, 1915) 24. 9 England and Wales (1913) 24. 1 Sweden (1912) 23. 8 Switzerland (1913) 23. 1 Belgium (1912) 22. 6 France (1912) 19. 0

The United States birth-rate may, on its face, appear high enough; butits face does not show that this height is due largely to the fecundityof immigrant women. Statistics to prove this are given in Chapter XIII, but may be supplemented here by some figures from Pittsburgh. 

Ward 7, in that city, contains the homes of many well-to-do, andcontains more representatives of the old American stock than any otherward in the city, having 56. 4% of residents who are native born ofnative parents while the majority of the residents in nearly all theother wards in the city are either themselves foreign-born, or theoffspring of foreign-born parents. 

Ward 7 has the lowest birth-rate and the lowest rate of net increase ofany ward in the city. 

With this may be contrasted the sixth ward, which runs along the southbank of the Allegheny river. It is one of the great factory districts ofthe city, but also contains a large number of homes. Nearly 3, 000 of its14, 817 males of voting age are illiterate. Its death-rate is the highestin the city. Almost nine-tenths of its residents are either foreignersor the children of foreigners. Its birth-rate is three times that of theseventh ward. 

Taking into account all the wards of the city, it is found that thebirth-rate _rises_ as one considers the wards which are marked by alarge foreign population, illiteracy, poverty and a high death-rate. Onthe other hand, the birth-rate _falls_ as one passes to the wards thathave most native-born residents, most education, most prosperity--and, to some extent, education and prosperity denote efficiency and eugenicvalue. For 27 wards there is a high negative correlation (-. 673), between birth-rate and percentage of native-born of native parents inthe population. The correlation between illiteracy and net increase[66]is +. 731. 

The net increase of Pittsburgh's population, therefore, is greatestwhere the percentage of foreign-born and of illiterates is greatest. 

The significance of such figures in natural selection must be evident. Pittsburgh, like probably all large cities in civilized countries, breeds from the bottom. The lower a class is in the scale ofintelligence, the greater is its reproductive contribution. Recallingthat intelligence is inherited, that like begets like in this respect, one can hardly feel encouraged over the quality of the population ofPittsburgh, a few generations hence. 

Of course these illiterate foreign laborers are, from a eugenic point ofview, not wholly bad. The picture should not be painted any blacker thanthe original. Some of these ignorant stocks, in another generation andwith decent surroundings, will furnish excellent citizens. 

But taken as a whole, it can hardly be supposed that the fecund stocksof Pittsburgh, with their illiteracy, squalor and tuberculosis, theirhigh death-rates, their economic straits, are as good eugenic materialas the families that are dying out in the more substantial residencesection which their fathers created in the eastern part of the city. 

And it can hardly be supposed that the city, and the nation, of thefuture, would not benefit by a change in the distribution of births, whereby more would come from the seventh ward and its like, and fewerfrom the sixth and its like. 

Evidently, there is no difficulty about seeing this form of naturalselection at work, and at work in such a way as greatly to change thecharacter of one section of the species. For comparison, some figuresare presented from European sources. In the French war budget of 1911 itappears that from 1, 000 women between the ages of 15 and 50, indifferent districts of Paris, the number of yearly births was asfollows:

 Very poor 108 Poor 99 Well-to-do 72 Very prosperous 65 Rich 53 Very rich 35

Disregarding the last class altogether, it is yet evident that while themother in a wealthy home bears two children, the mother in the slumsbears four. It is evident then that in Paris at the present timereproductive selection is changing the mental and moral composition ofthe population at a rapid rate, which can not be very materially reducedeven if it is found that the death-rate in the poorer districts isconsiderably greater than it is on the more fashionable boulevards. 

J. Bertillon has brought together[67] in a similar way data from anumber of cities, showing the following birth-rates:

 _Berlin_ _Vienna_ _London_ Very poor quarters 157 200 147 Poor quarters 129 164 140 Comfortable quarters 114 155 107 Very comfortable 96 153 107 Rich 63 107 87 Very rich 47 81 63 --- --- --- Average 102 153 109

Obviously, in all these cases reproductive selection will soon bringabout such a change in the character of the population, that a muchlarger part of it than at present will have the hereditarycharacteristics of the poorer classes and a much smaller part of it thanat present the hereditary characteristics of the well-to-do classes. 

David Heron and others have recently studied[68] the relation which thebirth-rate in different boroughs of London bears to their social andeconomic conditions. Using the correlation method, they found "that inLondon the birth-rate per 1, 000 married women, aged 15 to 54, ishighest where the conditions show the greatest poverty--namely, inquarters where pawnbrokers abound, where unskilled labor is theprincipal source of income, where consumption is most common and mostdeadly, where pauperism is most rife, and, finally, where the greatestproportion of the children born die in infancy. The correlationcoefficients show that the association of these evil conditions with therelative number of children born is a very close one; and if thequestion is put in another way, and the calculations are based onmeasures of prosperity instead of on measures of poverty, a high degreeof correlation is found between prosperity and a low birth-rate. 

"It must not be supposed that a high rate of infant mortality, whichalmost invariably accompanies a high birth-rate, either in London orelsewhere, goes far toward counteracting the effects of the differentialbirth-rate. Where infant mortality is highest the average number ofchildren above the age of two for each married woman is highest also, and although the chances of death at all ages are greater among theinhabitants of the poorer quarters, their rate of natural increaseremains considerably higher than that of the inhabitants of the richer. 

"From the detailed study of the figures made by Newsholme and Stevenson, conclusions essentially the same as those of Heron can be drawn. . . . Their first step was to divide the London boroughs into six groupsaccording to the average number of domestic servants for 100 families ineach. This is probably as good a measure of prosperity as any other. They then determined the total birth-rate of the population in eachgroup, and arrived at the following figures:

 _Group_

 I. 10 domestic servants for 100 families 34. 97 II. 10-20 38. 32 III. 20-30 25. 99 IV. 30-40 25. 83 V. 40-60 25. 11 VI. Over 60 18. 24

"In order to find out how far the differences shown by these figures aredue to differences in the percentage of women who marry in each groupand the age at which they marry, they corrected the figures in such away as to make them represent what the birth-rates would be in eachgroup, if the proportion of wives of each age to the whole populationcomprising the group was the same as it is in the whole of England andWales. The corrected birth-rates thus obtained were as follows:

 _Group_

 I 31. 56 II 25. 82 III 25. 63 IV 25. 50 V 25. 56 VI 20. 45

"It will readily be seen that the effect of the correction has been toreduce the difference between the two extreme groups by about one-third, showing that to this extent it is due to the way in which they differ asto the average age and number of the women who marry. Further, GroupsII, III, IV and V have all been brought to about the same level, with acorrected birth-rate about halfway between the highest and the lowest. This shows that there is no gradual decrease in fertility associatedwith a gradually increasing grade of prosperity, but that three sharplydivided classes may be distinguished: a very poor class with a highdegree of fertility, to which about a quarter of the population ofLondon belong, a rich class with a low degree of fertility, and a classintermediate in both respects. "

"Eugenics is less directly concerned with this side of the question thatwith the relative rate of increase of the different classes. This may befound for the six groups in the usual way by deducting the death-ratefrom the birth-rate. The following figures for the rate of naturalincrease are then obtained:

 _Group_

 I 16. 56 II 13. 89 III 11. 43 IV 13. 81 V 10. 29 VI 5. 79

"The figures show in a manner which hardly admits of any doubt that inLondon at any rate the inhabitants of the poorest quarters--over amillion in number--are reproducing themselves at a much greater ratethan the more well-to-do. "

A research on similar lines by S. R. Steinmetz[69] in Holland shows thatthe average number of children in the lowest class families is 5. 44. People in industry or small trade, skilled mechanics and professors oftheology have five children to the family; in other classes the numberis as follows:

 Artists 4. 30 Well-to-do Commercial Classes 4. 27 High Officials 4. 00 University Professors (excluding theological) 3. 50 23 Scholars and Artists of the first rank 2. 60

It is not hard to see that the next generation in Holland is likely tohave proportionately fewer gifted individuals than has the present one. 

Fortunately, it is very probable that the differential birth-rate is notof such ominous import in rural districts as it is in cities, althoughsome of the tribes of degenerates which live in the country showbirth-rates of four to six children per wife. [70] But in the more highlycivilized nations now, something like a half of the population lives inurban districts, and the startling extent to which these urbanpopulations breed from the bottom involves a disastrous change in thebalance of population within a few generations, unless it is in some waychecked. 

Just how great the change may be, statistically, has been emphasized byKarl Pearson, who points out that "50% of the married population provide75% of the next generation, " owing to the number of deaths beforematurity, the number of celibates and the number of childlessmarriages. "The same rule may be expressed in another way: 50% of thenext generation is produced by 25% of the married population. " At thisrate in a few generations the less efficient and socially valuable, withtheir large families, will overwhelm the more efficient and sociallyvaluable, and their small families. 

Fecundal selection is at work to-day on a large scale, changing thecharacter of the population, and from a eugenic point of view changingit for the worse. Fortunately, it is not impossible to arrest thischange. 

But, it may be objected, is not this change merely "the survival of thefittest?" In a sense, yes; and it is necessary that the more intelligentclasses should make themselves "fitter" to survive, by a change ofattitude toward reproduction. But the dying-out of the intellectuallysuperior part of the population is a pathological condition, not a partof normal evolution; for barring artificial interference with thebirth-rate, fertility has been found to go hand in hand with generalsuperiority. This demonstration is due to F. A. Woods' study[71] of 608members of the royal families of Europe, among whom, for reasons ofstate, large families are desired, and among whom there has probablybeen little restraint on the birth-rate. Averaging the ratings of hisindividuals from grade 1, the mentally and physically very inferior, tograde 10, the mentally and physically very superior, he found that thenumber of children produced and brought to maturity increased in afairly direct ratio. His figures are as follows:

 BOTH SEXES (AVERAGED)

 Grades for virtues 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Average number of adult children. 1. 66 2. 86 2. 99 2. 41 3. 44 3. 49 3. 05 3. 03 3. 93 3. 83

Investigations of Karl Pearson and Alexander Graham Bell[72] show thatfecundity and longevity are associated. It follows that the mentallyand morally superior, who are the most fecund, are also thelongest-lived; and as this longevity is largely due to inheritance itfollows that, under natural conditions, the standard of the stratum ofsociety under consideration would gradually rise, in respect tolongevity, in each generation. 

Such is probably one of the methods by which the human race hasgradually increased its level of desirable characters in eachgeneration. The desirable characters were associated with each other, and also with fecundity. The desirable characters are still associatedwith each other, but their association with fecundity is now negative. It is in this change that eugenics finds justification for its existenceas a propaganda. Its object is to restore the positive correlationbetween desirable characters and fecundity, on which the progressiveevolution of the race depends. 

The bearing of natural selection on the present-day evolution of thehuman race, particularly in the United States of America, must bereviewed in a few closing paragraphs. 

Selection by death may result either from inadequate food supply, orfrom some other lethal factor. The former type, although something of abugaboo ever since the time of Malthus, has in reality relatively littleeffect on the human race at present. Non-sustentative lethal selectionin man is operating chiefly through zymotic diseases and the bad hygieneof the mentally inferior. 

Reproductive selection is increasingly effective and its action is suchas to cause grave alarm both through the failure of some to marryproperly (sexual selection) and the failure of some to bear enoughchildren, while others bear too many (fecundal selection). It is obviousthat the racial result of this process will depend on what kind ofpeople bear and rear the most children; and it has been shown that ingeneral the larger families are in the section of the population thatmakes fewer contributions to human prosperity and happiness, while thoseendowed with great gifts, who ought to be transmitting them to theirchildren, are in many cases not even reproducing their own number. 

Natural selection raised man from apehood to his present estate. It isstill operating on him on a large scale, in several ways, but in none ofthese ways is it now doing much actually to improve the race, and insome ways, owing to man's own interference, it is rapidly hastening racedegeneracy. 

CHAPTER VII

ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE EUGENICS MOVEMENT

"Eugenics, " wrote Francis Galton, who founded the science and coined thename, "is the study of agencies under social control that may improve orimpair the racial qualities of future generations, either physically ormentally. " The definition is universally accepted, but by its use of theword "study" it defines a pure science, and the present book isconcerned rather with the application of such a science. AcceptingGalton's definition, we shall for our purposes slightly extend it bysaying that applied eugenics embraces all such measures, in use orprospect either individually or collectively, as may improve or impairthe racial qualities of future generations of man, either physically ormentally, whether or not this was the avowed purpose. 

It is one of the newest of sciences. It was practically forced intoexistence by logical necessity. It is certainly here to stay, and itdemands the right to speak, in many cases to cast the deciding vote, onsome of the most important questions that confront society. 

The science of eugenics is the natural result of the spread andacceptance of organic evolution, following the publication of Darwin'swork on _The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection_, in 1859. It took a generation for his ideas to win the day; but then theyrevolutionized the intellectual life of the civilized world. Man came torealize that the course of nature is regular; that the observedsequences of events can be described in formulas which are callednatural laws; he learned that he could achieve great results in plantand animal breeding by working in harmony with these laws. Then thequestion logically arose, "Is not man himself subject to these samelaws? Can he not use his knowledge of them to improve his own species, as he has been more or less consciously improving the plants and animalsthat were of most value to him, for many centuries?"

The evolutionist answered both these questions affirmatively. Howevergreat may be the superiority of his mind, man is first of all an animal, subject to the natural laws that govern other animals. He can learn tocomply with these laws; he can, therefore, take an active share infurthering the process of evolution toward a higher life. 

That, briefly, is the scope of the science of eugenics, as its founder, Sir Francis Galton, conceived it. "Now that this new animal, man, findshimself somehow in existence, endowed with a little power andintelligence, " Galton wrote 30 years ago, "he ought, I submit, to awaketo a fuller knowledge of his relatively great position, and begin toassume a deliberate part in furthering the great work of evolution. Hemay infer the course it is bound to pursue, from his observation of thatwhich it has already followed, and he might devote his modicum of power, intelligence and kindly feeling to render its future progress less slowand painful. Man has already furthered evolution very considerably, halfconsciously, and for his own personal advantages, but he has not yetrisen to the conviction that it is his religious duty to do so, deliberately and systematically. "

But, it may well be asked, how does this sudden need for eugenics arise, when the world has gone along without it for hundreds of millions ofyears in the past, and the human race has made the great ascent from anape-like condition in spite of the fact that such a science as eugenicswas never dreamed of?

For answer recall that natural selection, which is mainly responsiblefor bringing man to his present situation, has worked chiefly through adifferential death-rate. The less fit die: the more fit survive. In theearlier stages of society, man interfered little with natural selection. But during the last century the increase of the philanthropic spirit andthe progress of medicine have done a great deal to interfere with theselective process. In some ways, selection in the human race has almostceased; in many ways it is actually reversed, that is, it results in thesurvival of the inferior rather than the superior. In the olden days thecriminal was summarily executed, the weakly child died soon after birththrough lack of proper care and medical attention, the insane were dealtwith so violently that if they were not killed by the treatment theywere at least left hopelessly "incurable" and had little chance ofbecoming parents. Harsh measures, all of these, but they kept thegerm-plasm of the race reasonably purified. 

To-day, how is it? The inefficients, the wastrels, the physical, mental, and moral cripples are carefully preserved at public expense. Thecriminal is turned out on parole after a few years, to become the fatherof a family. The insane is discharged as "cured, " again to take up theduties of citizenship. The feeble-minded child is painfully "educated, "often at the expense of his normal brother or sister. In short, theundesirables of the race, with whom the bloody hand of natural selectionwould have made short work early in life, are now nursed along to oldage. 

Of course, one would not have it otherwise with respect to theprolongation of life. To expose deformed children as the Spartans didwould outrage our moral sentiments; to chloroform the incurable is aproposition that almost every one condemns. 

But this philanthropic spirit, this zealous regard for the interests ofthe unfortunate, which is rightly considered one of the highestmanifestations of Christian civilization, has in many cases benefitedthe few at the expense of the many. The present generation, in makingits own life comfortable, is leaving a staggering bill to be paid byposterity. 

It is at this point that eugenics comes in and demands that adistinction be made between the interests of the individual and theinterests of the race. It does not yield to any one in its solicitudefor the individual unfortunate; but it says, "His happiness in life doesnot need to include leaving a family of children, inheritors of hisdefects, who if they were able to think might curse him for begettingthem and curse society for allowing them to be born. " And looking at theother side of the problem, eugenics says to the young man and youngwoman, "You should enjoy the greatest happiness that love can bring toa life. But something more is expected of you than a selfish, short-sighted indifference to all except yourselves in the world. Whenyou understand the relation of the individual to the race, you will findyour greatest happiness only in a marriage which will result in a familyof worthy children. You are temporarily a custodian of the inheritanceof the whole past; it is far more disgraceful for you to squander orruin this heritage, or to regard it as intended solely for yourindividual, selfish gratification, than it would be for you to dissipatea fortune in money which you had received, or to betray any trust whichhad been confided to you by one of your fellow men. "

Such is the teaching of eugenics. It is not wholly new. The early Greeksgave much thought to it, and with the insight which characterized them, they rightly put the emphasis on the constructive side; they sought tobreed better men and women, not merely to accomplish a work of hygiene, to lessen taxes, and reduce suffering, by reducing the number ofunfortunates among them. As early as the first half of the sixth centuryB. C. The Greek poet Theognis of Megara wrote: "We look for rams andasses and stallions of good stock, and one believes that good will comefrom good; yet a good man minds not to wed an evil daughter of an evilsire, if he but give her much wealth. . . . Wealth confounds our stock. Marvel not that the stock of our folk is tarnished, for the good ismingling with the base. " A century later eugenics was discussed in somedetail by Plato, who suggested that the state intervene to mate the bestwith the best, and the worst with the worst; the former should beencouraged to have large families, and their children should be rearedby the government, while the children of the unfit were to be, as hesays, "put away in some mysterious, unknown places, as they should be. "Aristotle developed the idea on political lines, being more interestedin the economic than the biological aspects of marriage; but he heldfirmly to the doctrine that the state should feel free to intervene inthe interests of reproductive selection. 

For nearly two thousand years after this, conscious eugenic ideals werelargely ignored. Constant war reversed natural selection, as it is doingto-day, by killing off the physically fit and leaving the relativelyunfit to reproduce the race; while monasticism and the enforced celibacyof the priesthood performed a similar office for many of the mentallysuperior, attracting them to a career in which they could leave noposterity. At the beginning of the last century a germ of moderneugenics is visible in Malthus' famous essay on population, in which hedirected attention to the importance of the birth-rate for humanwelfare, since this essay led Darwin and Wallace to enunciate the theoryof natural selection, and to point out clearly the effects of artificialselection. It is really on Darwin's work that the modern science ofeugenics is based, and it owes its beginning to Darwin's cousin, FrancisGalton. 

Galton was born in 1822, studied mathematics and medicine, traveledwidely, attained fame as an explorer in South Africa, and afterinheriting sufficient income to make him independent, settled down inLondon and gave his time to pioneering experiments in many branches ofscience. He contributed largely to founding the science of meteorology, opened new paths in experimental psychology, introduced the system offinger prints to anthropology, and took up the study of heredity, publishing in 1865 a series of articles under the title of "HereditaryTalent and Genius, " which contained his first utterances on eugenics. 

The present generation can hardly understand what a new field Galtonbroke. Even Darwin had supposed that men do not differ very much inintellectual endowment, and that their differences in achievement areprincipally the result of differences in zeal and industry. Galton'sarticles, whose thesis was that better men could be bred by consciousselection, attracted much attention from the scientific world and wereexpanded in 1869 in his book _Hereditary Genius_. 

This was an elaborate and painstaking study of the biographies of 977men who would rank, according to Galton's estimate, as about 1 to 4, 000of the general population, in respect to achievement. The number offamilies found to contain more than one eminent man was 300, divided asfollows: Judges, 85; Statesmen, 39; Commanders, 27; Literary, 33;Scientific, 43; Poets, 20; Artists, 28; Divines, 25. The close groupingsof the interrelated eminence led to the conclusion that heredity plays avery important part in achievement. The greater success of real sons ofgreat men as compared with adopted sons of great men likewise indicated, he thought, that success is due to actual biological heredity ratherthan to the good opportunities afforded the scion of the illustriousfamily. Galton's conclusion was that by selecting from strains thatproduced eminence, a superior human stock could be bred. 

In 1874 he published a similar study of the heredity of 180 eminentEnglish scientists, reëmphasizing the claims of nature over nurture, touse his familiar antithesis. In 1883 he published "Inquiries into theHuman Faculty and Its Development, " a collection of evolutionary andanthropometric essays where the word Eugenics was first used in a newexposition of the author's views. "Natural Inheritance" appeared in1889, being the essence of various memoirs published since "HereditaryGenius, " dealing with the general biological principles underlying thestudy of heredity and continuing the study of resemblances betweenindividuals in respect to stature, eye color, artistic faculty andmorbid conditions. 

Galton's interest in eugenics was not lessened by the abundant criticismhe received, and in 1901 he defended "The Possible Improvement of theHuman Breed under Existing Conditions of Law and Sentiment" before theAnthropological Society. Three years later he read a paper entitled"Eugenics; Its Definition, Scope and Aims, " to the Sociological Society. His program, in brief, was as follows:

1. Disseminate knowledge of hereditary laws as far as surely known andpromote their further study. 

2. Inquire into birth rates of various strata of society (classifiedaccording to civic usefulness) in ancient and modern nations. 

3. Collect reliable data showing how large and thriving families havemost frequently originated. 

4. Study the influences affecting marriage. 

5. Persistently set forth the national importance of Eugenics. 

The following year, Galton again read a paper before the Society, suggesting the award of certificates of quality to the eugenically fit. He also maintained that marriage customs which are largely controlled bypublic opinion could be modified for racial welfare through a molding ofpublic sentiment. 

In 1904 he founded a Research Fellowship at the University of London todetermine, if possible, what the standard of fitness is, and in 1905 aScholarship was added. Edgar Schuster and Miss E. M. Elderton held theseposts until 1907, when Professor Karl Pearson took charge of theresearch work and, at the resignation of Mr. Schuster, David Heron wasappointed Fellow. On Galton's death, January 17, 1911, it became knownthat through the terms of his will a professorship was founded andProfessor Pearson was invited to hold it. His corps of workersconstitutes the Galton Eugenics Laboratory staff. 

To spread throughout the British Empire such knowledge of eugenics asmight be gathered by specialists, the Eugenics Education Society wasformed in 1908 with Galton as honorary president. Its field comprises:(1) Biology in so far as it concerns hereditary selection; (2)Anthropology as related to race and marriage; (3) Politics, where itbears on parenthood in relation to civic worth; (4) Ethics, in so far asit promotes ideals that lead to the improvement of social quality; (5)Religion, in so far as it strengthens and sanctifies eugenic duty. 

In America the movement got an early start but developed slowly. Thefirst definite step was the formation of an Institute of Heredity inBoston, shortly after 1880, by Loring Moody, who was assisted by thepoet Longfellow, Samuel E. Sewall, Mrs. Horace Mann, and otherwell-known people. He proposed to work very much along the lines thatthe Eugenics Record Office later adopted, but he was ahead of his time, and his attempt seems to have come to nothing. 

In 1883 Alexander Graham Bell, who may be considered the firstscientific worker in eugenics in the United States, published a paper onthe danger of the formation of a deaf variety of the human race in thiscountry, in which he gave the result of researches he had made atMartha's Vineyard and other localities during preceding years, on thepedigrees of congenitally deaf persons--deaf mutes, as they were thencalled. He showed clearly that congenital deafness is largely due toheredity, that it is much increased by consanguineous marriages, andthat it is of great importance to prevent the marriage of persons, inboth of whose families congenital deafness is present. About five yearslater he founded the Volta Bureau in Washington, D. C. , for the study ofdeafness, and this has fostered a great deal of research work on thisparticular phase of heredity. 

In 1903 the American Breeders' Association was founded at St. Louis byplant and animals breeders who desired to keep in touch with the newsubject of genetics, the science of breeding, which was rapidly comingto have great practical importance. From the outset, the membersrealized that the changes which they could produce in races of animalsand plants might also be produced in man, and the science of eugenicswas thus recognized on a sound biological basis. Soon a definiteeugenics section was formed, and as the importance of this sectionincreased, and it was realized that the name of Breeders' Associationwas too narrowly construed by the public, the association changed itsname (1913) to the American Genetic Association, and the name of itsorgan from the _American Breeders' Magazine_ to the _Journal ofHeredity_. 

Under the auspices of this association, the Eugenics Record Office wasestablished at Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, by Dr. C. B. Davenport. It has been mainly supported by Mrs. E. H. Harriman, but has since beentaken over by the Carnegie Institution of Washington. It is gatheringpedigrees in many parts of the United States, analyzing them andpublishing the results in a series of bulletins. 

In the last few years, the public has come to take a keen interest inthe possibilities of eugenics. This has led some sex hygienists, childwelfare workers, and persons similarly engaged, to attempt to capitalizethe interest in eugenics by appropriating the name for their own use. Westrongly object to any such misuse of the word, which should designatethe application of genetics to the human race. Sex hygiene, childwelfare, and other sanitary and sociological movements should stand ontheir own feet and leave to eugenics the scope which its Greekderivation indicates for it, --the science of good breeding. [73]

In all parts of Europe, the ideas of eugenics have gradually spread. In1912 the first International Eugenics Congress was held at London, underauspices of the Eugenics Education Society; more than 700 delegates werein attendance. 

Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and Austria are united in an InternationalEugenics Society and the war led to the formation of a number ofseparate societies in Germany. Hungary has formed an organization of itsown, France has its society in Paris, and the Italian AnthropologicalSociety has given much attention to the subject. The AnthropologicalSociety of Denmark has similarly recognized eugenics by the formation ofa separate section. The Institut Solvay of Belgium, a foundation withsociological aims, created a eugenics section several years ago; and inHolland a strong committee has been formed. Last of all, Sweden has puta large separate organization in the field. 

In the United States the subject has interested many women's clubs, college organizations and Young Men's Christian Associations, while theperiodical press has given it a large amount of attention. Publicenthusiasm, often ill-guided, has in a few cases outrun the facts, andhas secured legislation in some states, which by no means meets theapproval of most scientific eugenists. 

When we speak of scientific eugenists, it may appear that we use theword in an invidious way. We use it deliberately, and by using it wemean to intimate that we do not think enthusiasm is an adequatesubstitute for knowledge, in anyone who assumes to pass judgment upon ameasure as being eugenic or dysgenic--as likely to improve the race orcause its deterioration. Eugenics is a biological science which, in itsapplication, must be interpreted with the help of the best scientificmethod. Very few social workers, whose field eugenics touches, arecompetent to understand its bearings without some study, and anappreciation of eugenics is the more difficult for them, because anunderstanding of it will show them that some of their work is based onfalse premises. The average legislator is equally unlikely to understandthe full import of eugenics, unless he has made a definite effort to doso. All the more honor, then, to the rapidly increasing number of socialworkers and legislators who have grasped the full meaning of eugenicsand are now striving to put it in effect. The agriculturist, through hisexperience with plants and animals, is probably better qualified thananyone else to realize the practicability of eugenics, and it isaccordingly not a matter of mere chance that the science of eugenics inAmerica was built up by a breeders' association, and has found and stillfinds hundreds of effective advocates in the graduates of theagricultural colleges. 

The program of eugenics naturally divides itself in two parts:

(1) Reducing the racial contribution of the least desirable part of thepopulation. 

(2) Increasing the racial contribution of the superior part of thepopulation. 

The first part of this program is the most pressing and the most easilydealt with; it is no cause for surprise, then, that to many people ithas seemed to be the predominant aim of eugenics. Certainly the problemis great enough to stagger anyone who looks it full in the face;although for a variety of reasons, satisfactory statistical evidence ofracial degeneracy is hard to get. 

Considering only the "institutional population" of the United States, one gets the following figures:

BLIND: total, 64, 763 according to census of 1900. Of these, 35, 645 were totally blind and 29, 118 partly blind. The affection isstated to have been congenital in 4, 730 cases. Nineteen per cent of theblind were found to have blind relatives; 4. 5% of them were returned asthe offspring of cousin marriages. 

DEAF: total, 86, 515, according to the census of 1900. More than50, 000 of them were deaf from childhood (under 20), 12, 609 being deaffrom birth. At least 4. 5% of the deaf were stated to be offspring ofcousin marriages, and 32. 1% to have deaf relatives. The significance ofthis can not be determined unless it is known how many normal personshave deaf relatives (or blind relatives, in considering the precedingparagraph), but it points to the existence of families that arecharacterized by deafness (or blindness). 

INSANE: the census of 1910 enumerated only the insane who werein institutions; they numbered 187, 791. The number outside ofinstitutions is doubtless considerable but can not be computed. Theinstitutional population is not a permanent, but mainly a transient one, the number of persons discharged from institutions in 1910 being 29, 304. As the number and size of institutions does not increase very rapidly, it would appear probable that 25, 000 insane persons pass through and outof institutions, and back into the general population, each year. Fromthis one can get some idea of the amount of neurotic weakness in thepopulation of the United States, --much of it congenital and heritable incharacter. 

FEEBLE-MINDED: the census (1910) lists only those ininstitutions, who totaled about 40, 000. The census experts believe that200, 000 would be a conservative estimate of the total number offeeble-minded in the country, and many psychologists think that 300, 000would be more nearly accurate. The number of feeble-minded who arereceiving institutional care is almost certainly not more than 10% or15% of the total, and many of these (about 15, 000) are in almshouses, not special institutions. 

PAUPERS: There were 84, 198 paupers enumerated in almshouses onJanuary 1, 1910, and 88, 313 admitted during the year, which indicatesthat the almshouse paupers are a rapidly shifting group. Thispopulation, probably of several hundred thousand persons, who driftinto and out of almshouses, can hardly be characterized accurately, butin large part it must be considered at least inefficient and probably ofmentally low grade. 

CRIMINALS: The inmates of prisons, penitentiaries, reformatories, and similar places of detention numbered 111, 609 in 1910;this does not include 25, 000 juvenile delinquents. The jail populationis nearly all transient; one must be very cautious in inferring thatconviction for an offense against the law indicates lack of eugenicvalue; but it is worth noting that the number of offenders who arefeeble-minded is probably not less than one-fourth or one-third. If thenumber of inebriates could be added, it would greatly increase thetotal; and inebriacy or chronic alcoholism is generally recognized nowas indicating in a majority of cases either feeble-mindedness or someother defect of the nervous system. The number of criminals who are insome way neurotically tainted is placed by some psychologists at 50% ormore of the total prison population. 

Add to these a number of epileptics, tramps, prostitutes, beggars, andothers whom the census enumerator finds it difficult to catch, and thetotal number of possible undesirable parents becomes very large. It isin fact much larger than appears in these figures, because of the factthat many people carry defects that are latent and only appear in theoffspring of a marriage representing two tainted strains. Thus thefeeble-minded child usually if not always has feeble-mindedness in bothhis father's and mother's ancestry, and for every one of the patentfeeble-minded above enumerated, there may be several dozen latent ones, who are themselves probably normal in every way and yet carry thedangerously tainted germ-plasm. 

The estimate has frequently been made that the United States would bemuch better off eugenically if it were deprived of the future racialcontributions of at least 10% of its citizens. While literally true thisestimate is too high for the group which could be considered forattempts to directly control in a practical eugenics program. 

Natural selection, in the early days of man's history, would have killedoff many of these people early in life. They would have been unable tocompete with their physically and mentally more vigorous fellows andwould have died miserably by starvation or violence. Natural selection'suse of the death-rate was a brutal one, but at least it prevented suchtraits as these people show from increasing in each generation. Eugenists hope to arrive at the same result, not by the death-rate butby the birth-rate. If germinally anti-social persons are kept humanelysegregated during their lifetime, instead of being turned out after afew years of institutional life and allowed to marry, they will leave nodescendants, and the number of congenital defectives in the communitywill be notably diminished. If the same policy is followed throughsucceeding generations, the number of defectives, of those incapable oftaking a useful part in society, will become smaller and smaller. Onewho does not believe that these people hand on their traits to theirdescendants may profitably consider the famous history of the so-calledJuke family, a strain originating among the "finger lakes" of New York, whose history was published by R. L. Dugdale as far back as 1877 andlately restudied by A. H. Estabrook. 

"From one lazy vagabond nicknamed 'Juke, ' born in 1720, whose two sonsmarried five degenerate sisters, six generations numbering about 1, 200persons of every grade of idleness, viciousness, lewdness, pauperism, disease, idiocy, insanity and criminality were traced. Of the totalseven generations, 300 died in infancy; 310 were professional paupers, kept in almshouses a total of 2, 300 years; 440 were physically wreckedby their own 'diseased wickedness'; more than half the women fell intoprostitution; 130 were convicted criminals; 60 were thieves; 7 weremurderers; only 20 learned a trade, 10 of these in state prison, and allat a state cost of over $1, 250, 000. "[74]

How heredity works both ways, is shown by the history of the Kallikakfamily, published by H. H. Goddard a few years ago. 

"At the beginning of the Revolutionary War a young man, known in thehistory as Martin Kallikak, had a son by a nameless, feeble-minded girl, from whom there have descended in the direct line four hundred andeighty individuals. One hundred and forty-three of these are known tohave been feeble-minded, and only forty-six are known to have beennormal. The rest are unknown or doubtful. Thirty-six have beenillegitimate; thirty-three, sexually immoral, mostly prostitutes;twenty-four, alcoholic; three, epileptic; eighty-two died in infancy;three were criminal, and eight kept houses of ill-fame. After the war, Martin Kallikak married a woman of good stock. From this union have comein direct line four hundred and ninety-six, among whom only two werealcoholic, and one known to be sexually immoral. The legitimate childrenof Martin have been doctors, lawyers, judges, educators, traders, landholders, in short, respectable citizens, men and women prominent inevery phase of social life. These two families have lived on the samesoil, in the same atmosphere, and in short, under the same generalenvironment, yet the bar sinister has marked every generation of one andhas been unknown in the other. "

If it were possible to improve or eradicate these defective strains bygiving them better surroundings, the nation might easily get rid of thisburden. But we have given reasons in Chapter I for believing that theproblem can not be solved in that way, and more evidence to the sameeffect will be present in other chapters of the book. 

An understanding of the nature of the problem will show that presentmethods of dispensing justice, giving charity, dealing with defectivesand working for social betterment need careful examination and numerousmodifications, if they are not to be ineffectual or merely palliative, or worse still, if they are not to give temporary relief at the cost ofgreatly aggravating the social disease in the end. 

In the past America has given and at present still gives much thought tothe individual and little, if any, to posterity. Eugenics does not wantto diminish this regard for the individual, but it does insistentlydeclare that the interests of the many are greater than those of thefew, and it holds that a statesmanlike policy requires thought for thefuture as well as the present. It would be hard to find a eugenistto-day who would propose, with Plato, that the infants with bad heredityshould be put to death, but their right to grow up to the fullestenjoyment of life does not necessarily include the right to pass ontheir defective heredity to a long line of descendants, naturallyincreasing in number in each generation. Indeed a regard for thetotality of human happiness makes it necessary that they should not socontinue. 

While it is the hope of eugenics that fewer defective and anti-socialindividuals shall be born in the future, it has been emphasized so muchthat the program of eugenics is likely to be seen in false perspective. In reality it is the less important side of the picture. More goodcitizens are wanted, as well as fewer bad ones. Every race requiresleaders. These leaders appear from time to time, and enough is knownabout eugenics now to show that their appearance is frequentlypredictable, not accidental. It is possible to have them appear morefrequently; and in addition, to raise the level of the whole race, making the entire nation happier and more useful. These are the greattasks of eugenics. America needs more families like that old Puritanstrain which is one of the familiar examples of eugenics:

"At their head stands Jonathan Edwards, and behind him an array of hisdescendants numbering in 1900, 1, 394, of whom 295 were collegegraduates; 13 presidents of our greatest colleges; 65 professors incolleges, besides many principals of other important educationalinstitutions; 60 physicians, many of whom were eminent; 100 and moreclergymen, missionaries, or theological professors; 75 were officers inthe army and navy; 60 prominent authors and writers, by whom 135 booksof merit were written and published and 18 important periodicals edited;33 American states and several foreign countries, and 92 American citiesand many foreign cities have profited by the beneficent influences oftheir eminent activity; 100 and more were lawyers, of whom one was ourmost eminent professor of law; 30 were judges; 80 held public office, ofwhom one was vice president of the United States; three were UnitedStates senators; several were governors, members of Congress, framers ofstate constitutions, mayors of cities and ministers of foreign courts;one was president of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company; 15 railroads, many banks, insurance companies, and large industrial enterprises havebeen indebted to their management. Almost if not every department ofsocial progress and of the public weal has felt the impulse of thishealthy and long-lived family. It is not known that any one of them wasever convicted of crime. "

Every one will agree that the nation needs more families like that. Howcan it get them? Galton blazed the way in 1865, when he pointed toselective breeding as the effective means. The animal breeder knows whatmarvels he can accomplish by this means; but it is not practicable tobreed human beings in that direct way. Is there any indirect method ofreaching the same ends?

There are, in our opinion, a good many such means, and it is theprincipal purpose of this book to point them out. The problem ofconstructive or positive eugenics, naturally divides itself into twoparts:

1. To secure a sufficient number of marriages of the superior. 

2. To secure an adequate birth-rate from these marriages. 

The problem of securing these two results is a complex one, which mustbe attacked by a variety of methods. It is necessary that superiorpeople first be made to desire marriage and children; and secondly, thatit be economically and otherwise possible for them to carry out thisdesire. 

It may be of interest to know how the Germans are attacking the problem, even though some of their measures may be considered ineffective orinadvisable. 

At its annual meeting in 1914 the German Society for Race Hygieneadopted a resolution on the subject of applied eugenics. "The future ofthe German people is at stake, " it declares. "The German empire can notin the long run maintain its true nationality and the independence ofits development, if it does not begin without delay and with thegreatest energy to mold its internal and external politics as well asthe whole life of the people in accordance with eugenic principles. Mostimportant of all are measures for a higher reproduction of healthy andable families. The rapidly declining birth-rate of the healthy and ablefamilies necessarily leads to the social, economical and politicalretrogression of the German people, " it points out, and then goes on toenumerate the causes of this decline, which it thinks is partly due tothe action of racial poisons but principally to the increasing willfulrestriction of the number of children. 

The society recognizes that the reasons for this limitation of the sizeof families are largely economic. It enumerates the question of expense, considerations of economic inheritance--that is, a father does not liketo divide up his estate too much; the labor of women, which isincompatible with the raising of a large family; and the difficultiescaused by the crowded housing in the large cities. 

In order to secure a posterity sufficient in number and ability, theresolution continues, The German Society for Race Hygiene demands:

1. A back-to-the farm movement. 

2. Better housing facilities in the cities. 

3. Economic assistance of large families through payment of asubstantial relief to married mothers who survive their husbands, andconsideration of the number of children in the payment of public andprivate employees. 

4. Abolition of certain impediments to marriage, such as the armyregulation forbidding officers to marry before they reach a certaingrade. 

5. Increase of tax on alcohol, tobacco and luxuries, the proceeds to beused to subsidize worthy families. 

6. Medical regulations of a hygienic nature. 

7. Setting out large prizes for excellent works of art (novels, dramas, plastic arts) which glorify the ideal of motherhood, the family andsimple life. 

8. Awakening a national mind ready to undergo sacrifices on behalf offuture generations. 

In spite of some defects such a program brings out clearly the principleof eugenics, --the substitution of a selective birth-rate for theselective death-rate by which natural selection has brought the race toits present level. Nature lets a multitude of individuals be born andkills off the poorer ones; eugenics proposes to have fewer poor ones andmore good ones born in each generation. 

Any means which tends to bring about one of those ends, is a part ofApplied Eugenics. 

By this time the reader will have seen that eugenics has some definiteideals not only as to how the race can be kept from deterioratingfurther, under the interference with natural selection whichcivilization entails, but as to how its physical, mental and moral levelcan actually be raised. He can easily draw his own conclusions as towhat eugenics does _not_ propose. No eugenist worthy of the name hasever proposed to breed genius as the stockman breeds trotting horses, despite jibes of the comic press to the contrary. But if young people, before picking out their life partners, are thoroughly imbued with theidea that such qualities as energy, longevity, a sound constitution, public and private worth, are primarily due to heredity, and if they aretaught to realize the fact that one marries not an individual but afamily, the eugenist believes that better matings will be made, sometimes realized, sometimes insensibly. 

Furthermore, if children from such matings are made an asset rather thana liability; if society ceases to penalize, in a hundred insidious ways, the parents of large and superior families, but honors and aids theminstead, one may justifiably hope that the birth-rate in the most usefuland happy part of the population will steadily increase. 

Perhaps that is as far as it is necessary that the aim of eugenicsshould be defined; yet one can hardly ignore the philosophical aspectof the problem. Galton's suggestion that man should assist the course ofhis own evolution meets with the general approval of biologists; butwhen one asks what the ultimate goal of human evolution should be, onefaces a difficult question. Under these circumstances, can it be saidthat eugenics really has a goal, or is it merely stumbling along in thedark, possibly far from the real road, of whose existence it is awarebut of whose location it has no knowledge?

There are several routes on which one can proceed with the confidencethat, if no one of them is the main road, at least it is likely to leadinto the latter at some time. Fortunately, eugenics is, paradoxical asit may seem, able to advance on all these paths at once; for it proposesno definite goal, it sets up no one standard to which it would make thehuman race conform. Taking man as it finds him, it proposes to multiplyall the types that have been found by past experience or present reasonto be of most value to society. Not only would it multiply them innumbers, but also in efficiency, in capacity to serve the race. 

By so doing, it undoubtedly fulfills the requirements of that popularphilosophy which holds the aim of society to be the greatest happinessfor the greatest number, or more definitely the increase of the totalityof human happiness. To cause not to exist those who would be doomed frombirth to give only unhappiness to themselves and those about them; toincrease the number of those in whom useful physical and mental traitsare well developed; to bring about an increase in the number ofenergetic altruists and a decrease in the number of the anti-social ordefective; surely such an undertaking will come nearer to increasing thehappiness of the greatest number, than will any temporary socialpalliative, any ointment for incurable social wounds. To those whoaccept that philosophy, made prominent by Jeremy Bentham, John StuartMill, Herbert Spencer, and a host of other great thinkers, eugenicsrightly understood must seem a prime necessity of society. 

But can any philosophy dispense with eugenics? Take those to whom thepopular philosophy of happiness seems a dangerous goal and to whom theonly object of evolution that one is at present justified inrecognizing is that of the perpetuation of the species and of theprogressive conquest of nature, the acquiring of an ascendancy over allthe earth. This is now as much a matter of self-preservation as it is ofprogress: although man no longer fights for life with the cave bear andsaber-toothed tiger, the microbes which war with him are far moredangerous enemies than the big mammals of the past. The continuation ofevolution, if it means conquest, is not a work for dilettantes and LotosEaters; it is a task that demands unremitting hard work. 

To this newer philosophy of creative work eugenics is none the lessessential. For eugenics wants in the world more physically sound men andwomen _with greater ability in any valuable way_. Whatever the actualgoal of evolution may be, it can hardly be assumed by any except theprofessional pessimist, that a race made up of such men and women isgoing to be handicapped by their presence. 

The correlation of abilities is as well attested as any fact inpsychology. Those who decry eugenics on the ground that it is impossibleto establish any "standard of perfection, " since society needs manydiverse kinds of people, are overlooking this fact. Any plan whichincreases the production of children in able families of _various_ typeswill thereby produce more ability of all kinds, since if a family isparticularly gifted in one way, it is likely to be gifted above theaverage in several other desirable ways. 

Eugenics sets up no specific superman, as a type to which the rest ofthe race must be made to conform. It is not looking forward to thecessation of its work in a eugenic millenium. It is a perpetual process, which seeks only to raise the level of the race by the production offewer people with physical and mental defects, and more people withphysical and mental excellencies. Such a race should be able toperpetuate itself, to subdue nature, to improve its environmentprogressively; its members should be happy and productive. To establishsuch a goal seems justified by the knowledge of evolution which is nowavailable; and to make progress toward it is possible. 

CHAPTER VIII

DESIRABILITY OF RESTRICTIVE EUGENICS

In a rural part of Pennsylvania lives the L. Family. Three generationsstudied "all show the same drifting, irresponsible tendency. No one cansay they are positively bad or serious disturbers of the communitieswhere they may have a temporary home. Certain members are epileptic anddefective to the point of imbecility. The father of this family drankand provided little for their support. The mother, though hard working, was never able to care for them properly. So they and their 12 childrenwere frequent recipients of public relief, a habit which they haveconsistently kept up. Ten of the children grew to maturity, and all butone married and had in their turn large families. With two exceptionsthese have lived in the territory studied. Nobody knows how they havesubsisted, even with the generous help they have received. They drift inand out of the various settlements, taking care to keep their residencein the county which has provided most liberally for their support. Insome villages it is said that they have been in and out half a dozentimes in the last few years. First one family comes slipping back, thenone by one the others trail in as long as there are cheap shelters to behad. Then rents fall due, neighbors become suspicious of invadedhenroosts and potato patches, and one after another the families taketheir departure, only to reappear after a year or two. 

"The seven children of the eldest son were scattered years ago throughthe death of their father. They were taken by strangers, and though keptin school, none of them proved capable of advancement. Three at leastcould not learn to read or handle the smallest quantities. The rest dothis with difficulty. All but two are now married and founding thefourth generation of this line. The family of the fourth son are nowcounty charges. Of the 14 children of school age in this and theremaining families, all are greatly retarded. One is an epileptic and at16 can not read or write. One at 15 is in the third reader and should beset down as defective. The remainder are from one to four yearsretarded. 

"There is nothing striking in the annals of this family. It comes asnear the lowest margin of human existence as possible and illustrateshow marked defect may sometimes exist without serious results in theinfringement of law and custom. Its serious menace, however, lies in thecertain marriage into stocks which are no better, and the production oflarge families which continue to exist on the same level ofsemi-dependency. In place of the two dependents of a generation ago wenow find in the third generation 32 descendants who bid fair to continuetheir existence on the same plane--certainly an enormous multiplicationof the initial burden of expense. "[75]

From cases of this sort, which represent the least striking kind of badbreeding, the student may pass through many types up to the great tribesof Jukes, Nams, Kallikaks, Zeros, Dacks, Ishmaels, Sixties, Hickories, Hill Folk, Piney Folk, and the rest, with which the readers of theliterature of restrictive eugenics are familiar. It is abundantlydemonstrated that much, if not most, of their trouble is the outcome ofbad heredity. Indeed, when a branch of one of these clans istransported, or emigrates, to a wholly new environment, it soon createsfor itself, in many cases, an environment similar to that from which itcame. Whether it goes to the city, or to the agricultural districts ofthe west, it may soon manage to reëstablish the debasing atmosphere towhich it has always been accustomed. [76] Those who see in improvementof the environment the cure for all such plague spots as these tribesinhabit, overlook the fact that man largely creates his own environment. The story of the tenement-dwellers who were supplied with bath tubs butrefused to use them for any other purpose than to store coal, exemplifies a wide range of facts. 

[Illustration: FIG. 26. --To this shanty an elderly man of the"Hickory" family, a great clan of defectives in rural Ohio, brought hisgirl-bride, together with his two grown sons by a former marriage. Theshanty was conveniently located at a distance of 100 feet from the citydump where the family, all of which is feeble-minded, secured its food. Such a family is incapable of protecting either itself or its neighbors, and should be cared for by the state. Photograph from Mina A. Sessions. ]

[Illustration: A CHIEFTAIN OF THE HICKORY CLAN

FIG. 27. --This is "Young Hank, " otherwise known as "Sore-EyedHank. " He is the eldest son and heir of that Hank Hickory who, with hiswife and seven children, applied for admission to their County Infirmarywhen it was first opened. For generation after generation, his familyhas been the chief patron of all the charities of its county. "YoungHank" married his cousin and duplicated his father's record by begettingseven children, three of whom (all feeble-minded) are now living. Thenumber of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren is increasing everyyear, but the total can not be learned from him, for he is mentallyincapable of counting even the number of his own children. He is about70 years of age, and has never done any work except to make baskets. Hehas lived a wandering life, largely dependent on charity. For the last25 years he has been partly blind, due to trachoma. He gets a blindpension of $5 a month, which is adequate to keep him supplied withchewing tobacco, his regular mastication being 10 cents a day. Suchspecimens can be found in many rural communities; if they weresegregated in youth both they and the community would be much betteroff. Photograph from Mina A. Sessions. ]

Although conditions may be worst in the older and more densely populatedstates, it is probable that there is no state in the union which has notmany families, or group of families, of this dependent type, which infavorable cases may attract little notice, but therefore do all the moreharm eugenically; in other cases may be notorious as centers ofcriminality. Half a dozen well-defined areas of this kind have beenfound in Pennsylvania, which is probably not exceptional in thisrespect. "These differ, of course, in extent and character and thegravity of the problems they present. In some there is great sexuallaxity, which leads to various forms of dependency and sometimes toextreme mental defect. In others alcoholism prevails and the people showa propensity for deeds of violence. All informants, however, practicallyagreed to the following characterization:

"1. Because of the thefts and depredations and the frequent applicationsfor charitable relief from such sections they constitute a parasiticgrowth which saps the resources of the self-respecting, self-sustainingcontingent of the population. 

"2. They furnish an undue proportion of court cases, and are thus aserious expense to county and state. 

"3. They are a source of physical decay and moral contamination, andthus menace the integrity of the entire social fabric. "[77]

Society has long since admitted that it is desirable to restrict thereproduction of certain classes of gross defectives, and criminals, bythe method of segregation. The ground for this is sometimes biological, perhaps more often legal, as in the case of the insane and criminal, where it is held that the individual is legally incapacitated fromentering into a contract, such as that of marriage. It would be betterto have the biological basis of restriction on marriage and reproductionrecognized in every case; but even with the present point of view thedesired end may be reached. 

From an ethical standpoint, so few people would now contend that twofeeble-minded or epileptic persons have any "right" to marry andperpetuate their kind, that it is hardly worth while to argue the point. We believe that the same logic would permit two individuals to marry, but deny them the privilege of having children. The reasons for this maybe considered under three heads. 

1. Biological. Are there cases in which persons may properly marry butmay properly be prevented by society from having any offspring, on theground that such offspring would be undesirable components of the race?

The right of marriage is commonly, and may well be properly, regarded asan inalienable right of the individual, in so far as it does notconflict with the interests of the race. The companionship of twopersons between whom true love exists, is beyond all question thehighest happiness possible, and one which society should desire andstrive to give its every member. On that point there will be nodifference of opinion, but when it is asked whether there can be aseparation between the comradeship aspect and the reproduction aspect, in marriage, whether any interest of the race can justifiably divorcethese two phases, often considered inseparable, protests are at oncearoused. In these protests, there is some justice. We would be the lastones to deny that a marriage has failed to achieve its goal, has failedto realize for its participants the greatest possible happiness, unlessit has resulted in sound offspring. 

That word "sound" is the key to the distinction which must be made. Theinterests of the race demand sound offspring from every couple in aposition to furnish them--not only in the interests of thatcouple, --interests the importance of which it is not easy tounderestimate--but in the interests of the future of the race, whosewelfare far transcends in importance the welfare of any one individual, or any pair of individuals. As surely as the race needs a constantsupply of children of sound character, so surely is it harmed by asupply of children of inherently unsound character, physically ormentally, who may contribute others like themselves to the nextgeneration. A recollection of the facts of heredity, and of the factthat the offspring of any individual tend to increase in geometricratio, will supply adequate grounds for holding this conviction:--thatfrom a biological point of view, every child of congenitally inferiorcharacter is a racial misfortune. The Spartans and other peoples ofantiquity fully realized this fact, and acted on it by exposing deformedinfants. Christianity properly revolted as such an action; but inrepudiating the action, it lost sight of the principle back of theaction. The principle should have been regarded, and civilized races arenow coming back to a realization of that fact--are, indeed, realizingits weight far more fully than any other people has ever done, becauseof the growing realization of the importance of heredity. No one islikely seriously to argue again that deformed infants (whether theirdeformity be physical or mental) should be exposed to perish; but theargument that in the interests of the future of the race _they wouldbetter not be born_, is one that admits of no refutation. 

From a biological point of view, then, it is to the interest of the racethat the number of children who will be either defective themselves, ortransmit anti-social defects to their offspring, should be as small aspossible. 

2. The humanitarian aspect of the case is no less strong and is likely, in the present state of public education, to move a larger number ofindividuals. A visit to the children's ward of any hospital, anacquaintance with the sensitive mother of a feeble-minded or deformedchild, will go far to convince anyone that the sum total of humanhappiness, and the happiness of the parents, would be greater had thesechildren never been born. As for the children themselves, they will inmany cases grow up to regret that they were ever brought into the world. We do not overlook the occasional genius who may be crippled physicallyor even mentally; we are here dealing with only the extreme defectives, such as the feeble-minded, insane, and epileptic. Among such persons, human happiness would be promoted both now and in the future if thenumber of offspring were naught. 

3. There is another argument which may legitimately be brought forward, and which may appeal to some who are relatively insensitive to thebiological or even the humanitarian aspects of the case. This is thefinancial argument. 

Except students of eugenics, few persons realize how staggering is thebill annually paid for the care of defectives. The amount which thestate of New York expends yearly on the maintenance of its insane wards, is greater than it spends for any other purpose except education; and ina very few years, if its insane population continues to increase at thepresent rate, it will spend more on them than it does on the educationof its normal children. The cost of institutional care for the sociallyinadequate is far from being all that these people cost the state; butthose figures at least are not based on guesswork. The annual cost[78]of maintaining a feeble-minded ward of the state, in variouscommonwealths, is:

 Illinois $136. 50 Indiana 147. 49 Minnesota 148. 05 Ohio 155. 47 Wisconsin 159. 77 Kansas 170. 16 Michigan 179. 42 Kentucky 184. 77 California 208. 97 Maine 222. 99

At such prices, each state maintains hundreds, sometimes thousands, offeeble-minded, and the number is growing each year. In the near futurethe expenditures must grow much more rapidly, for public sentiment isbeginning to demand that the defectives and delinquents of thecommunity be properly cared for. The financial burden is becoming aheavy one; it will become a crushing one unless steps are taken to makethe feeble-minded productive (as described in the next chapter) and anintangible "sinking fund" at the same time created to reduce the burdengradually by preventing the production of those who make it up. Theburden can never be wholly obliterated, but it can be largely reduced bya restriction of the reproduction of those who are themselves sociallyinadequate. 

[Illustration: TWO JUKE HOMES OF THE PRESENT DAY

FIG. 28. --The Jukes have mostly been country-dwellers, a factwhich has tended to increase the amount of consanguineous marriage amongthem. Removal into a new environment usually does not mean anysubstantial change for them, because they succeed immediately inre-creating the same squalid sort of an environment from which theycame. In the house below, one part was occupied by the family and theother part by pigs. Photographs from A. H. Estabrook. ]

Alike then on biological, humanitarian and financial grounds, the nationwould be the better for a diminution in the production of physically, mentally or morally defective children. And the way to secure thisdiminution is to prevent reproduction by parents whose offspring wouldalmost certainly be undesirable in character. 

Granted that such prevention is a proper function of society, thequestion again arises whether it is an ethically correct procedure toallow these potentially undesirable parents to marry at all. Should theybe doomed to perpetual celibacy, or should they be permitted to mate, oncondition that the union be childless. 

The eugenic interests of society, of course, are equally safeguarded byeither alternative. All the other interests of society appear to us tobe better safeguarded by marriage than by celibacy. Adding the interestsof the individual, which will doubtless be for marriage, it seems to usthat there is good reason for holding such a childless marriageethically correct, in the relatively small number of cases where itmight seem desirable. 

Though such unions may be ethically justifiable, yet they would often beimpracticable; the limits will be discussed in the next chapter. 

It is constantly alleged that the state can not interfere with anindividual matter of this sort: "It is an intolerable invasion ofpersonal liberty; it is reducing humanity to the level of the barn-yard;it is impossible to put artificial restraints on the relations betweenthe sexes, founded as they are on such strong and primal feelings. "

The doctrine of personal liberty, in this extreme form, was enunciatedand is maintained by people who are ignorant of biology andevolution;[79] people who are ignorant of the world as it is, and dealonly with the world as they think it ought to be. Nature reveals no suchextreme "law of personal liberty, " and the race that tries to carry sucha supposed law to its logical conclusion will soon find, in the supremetest of competition with other races, that the interests of theindividual are much less important to nature than the interests of therace. Perpetuation of the race is the first end to be sought. So far asaccording a wide measure of personal liberty to its members will compassthat end, the personal liberty doctrine is a good one; but if it is heldas a metaphysical dogma, to deny that the race may take any actionnecessary in its own interest, at the expense of the individual, thisdogma becomes suicidal. 

As for "reducing humanity to the level of the barn-yard, " this is merelya catch-phrase intended to arouse prejudice and to obscure the facts. The reader may judge for himself whether the eugenic program willdegrade mankind to the level of the brutes, or whether it will ennobleit, beautify it, and increase its happiness. 

The delusion which so many people hold, that it is impossible to putartificial restraint on the relations between the sexes, is amazing. Restraint is already a _fait accompli_. Every civilized nation alreadyputs restrictions on numerous classes of people, as has beennoted--minors, criminals, and the insane, for example. Even though thisrestriction is usually based on legal, rather than biological grounds, it is nevertheless a restriction, and sets a precedent for furtherrestrictions, if any precedent were needed. 

[Illustration: "MONGOLIAN" DEFICIENCY

FIG. 29. --A common type of feeble-mindedness is accompanied bya face called Mongoloid, because of a certain resemblance to that ofsome of the Mongolian races as will be noted above. The mother at theleft and the father were normal. This type seems not to be inherited, but due to some other influence, --Goddard suggests uterine exhaustionfrom too many frequent pregnancies. ]

It is, we conclude, both desirable and possible to enforce certainrestrictions on marriage and parenthood. What these restrictions may be, and to whom they should be applied, is next to be considered. 

CHAPTER IX

THE DYSGENIC CLASSES

Before examining the methods by which society can put into effect somemeasure of negative or restrictive eugenics, it may be well to decidewhat classes of the population can properly fall within the scope ofsuch treatment. Strictly speaking, the problem is of course one ofindividuals rather than classes, but for the sake of convenience it willbe treated as one of classes, it being understood that no individualshould be put under restriction with eugenic intent merely because hemay be supposed to belong to a given class; but that each case must beinvestigated on its own merits, --and investigated with much more carethan has hitherto usually been thought necessary by many of those whohave advocated restrictive eugenic measures. 

The first class demanding attention is that of those feeble-minded whosecondition is due to heredity. There is reason to believe that at leasttwo-thirds of the feeble-minded in the United States owe their conditiondirectly to heredity, [80] and will transmit it to a large per cent oftheir descendants, if they have any. Feeble-minded persons from soundstock, whose arrested development is due to scarlet fever or somesimilar disease of childhood, or to accident, are of course not ofdirect concern to eugenists. 

The number of patent feeble-minded in the United States is probably notless than 300, 000, while the number of latent individuals--thosecarrying the taint in their germ-plasm and capable of transmitting it totheir descendants, although the individuals themselves may show goodmental development--is necessarily much greater. The defect is highlyhereditary in nature: when two innately feeble-minded persons marry, all their offspring, almost without exception, are feeble-minded. Thefeeble-minded are never of much value to society--they never presentsuch instances as are found among the insane, of persons with somemental lack of balance, who are yet geniuses. If restrictive eugenicsdealt with no other class than the hereditarily feeble-minded, and dealtwith that class effectively, it would richly justify its existence. 

But there are other classes on which it can act with safety as well asprofit, and one of these is made up by the germinally insane. Accordingto the census of 1910, there are 187, 791 insane in institutions in theUnited States; there are also a certain number outside of institutions, as to whom information can not easily be obtained. The number in thehospitals represented a ratio of 204. 3 per 100, 000 of the generalpopulation. In 1880, when the enumeration of insane was particularlycomplete, a total of 91, 959 was reported--a ratio of 188. 3 per 100, 000of the total population at that time. This apparent increase of insanityhas been subjected to much analysis, and it is admitted that part of itcan be explained away. People are living longer now than formerly, andas insanity is primarily a disease of old age, the number of insane isthus increased. Better means of diagnosis are undoubtedly responsiblefor some of the apparent increase. But when every conceivable allowanceis made, there yet remains ground for belief that the proportion ofinsane persons in the population is increasing each year. This is partlydue to immigration, as is indicated by the immense and constantlyincreasing insane population of the state of New York, where mostimmigrants land. In some cases, people who actually show some form ofinsanity may slip past the examiners; in the bulk of cases, probably, anindividual is adapted to leading a normal life in his nativeenvironment, but transfer to the more strenuous environment of anAmerican city proves to be too much for his nervous organization. Thegeneral flow of population from the country to large cities has asimilar effect in increasing the number of insane. 

But when all is said, the fact remains that there are several hundredthousand insane persons in the United States, many of whom are notprevented from reproducing their kind, and that by this failure torestrain them society is putting a heavy burden of expense, unhappinessand a fearful dysgenic drag on coming generations. 

The word "insanity, " as is frequently objected, means little or nothingfrom a biological point of view--it is a sort of catch-all to describemany different kinds of nervous disturbance. No one can properly be madethe subject of restrictive measures for eugenic reasons, merely becausehe is said to be "insane. " It would be wholly immoral so to treat, forexample, a man or woman who was suffering from the form of insanitywhich sometimes follows typhoid fever. But there are certain forms ofmental disease, generally lumped under the term "insanity, " whichindicate a hereditarily disordered nervous organization, and individualssuffering from one of these diseases should certainly not be given anychance to perpetuate their insanity to posterity. Two types of insanityare now recognized as especially transmissible:--dementia precox, a sortof precocious old age, in which the patient (generally young) sinks intoa lethargy from which he rarely recovers; and manic-depressive insanity, an over-excitable condition, in which there are occasional very erraticmotor discharges, alternating with periods of depression. Constitutionalpsychopathic inferiority, which means a lack of emotional adaptability, usually shows in the family history. The common type of insanity whichis characterized by mild hallucinations is of less concern from aeugenic point of view. 

In general, the insane are more adequately restricted than any otherdysgenic class in the community; not because the community recognizesthe disadvantage of letting them reproduce their kind, but because thereis a general fear of them, which leads to their strict segregation; andbecause an insane person is not considered legally competent to enterinto a marriage contract. In general, the present isolation of the sexesat institutions for the insane is satisfactory; the principal problemwhich insanity presents lies in the fact that an individual isfrequently committed to a hospital or asylum, kept there a few yearsuntil apparently cured, and then discharged; whereupon he returns to hisfamily to beget offspring that are fairly likely to become insane atsome period in their lives. Every case of insanity should be accompaniedby an investigation of the patient's ancestry, and if there isunmistakable evidence of serious neuropathic taint, such steps as arenecessary should be taken to prevent that individual from becoming aparent at any time. 

The hereditary nature of most types of epilepsy is generally held to beestablished, [81] and restrictive measures should be used to prevent theincrease of the number of epileptics in the country. It has beencalculated that the number of epileptics in the state of New Jersey, where the most careful investigation of the problem has been made, willdouble every 30 years under present conditions. 

In dealing with both insanity and epilepsy, the eugenist faces thedifficulty that occasionally people of the very kind whose production hemost wishes to see encouraged--real geniuses--may carry the taint. Theexaggerated claims of the Italian anthropologist C. Lombroso and hisschool, in regard to the close relation between genius and insanity, have been largely disproved; yet there remains little doubt that the twosometimes do go together; and such supposed epileptics as Mohammed, Julius Cæsar, and Napoleon will at once be called to mind. To applysweeping restrictive measures would prevent the production of a certainamount of talent of a very high order. The situation can only be met bydealing with every case on its individual merits, and recognizing thatit is to the interests of society to allow some very superiorindividuals to reproduce, even though part of their posterity may bementally or physically somewhat unsound. 

A field survey in two typical counties of Indiana (1916) showed thatthere were 1. 8 recognizable epileptics per thousand population. Ifthese figures should approximately hold good for the entire UnitedStates, the number of epileptics can hardly be put at less than 150, 000. Some of them are not anti-social, but many of them are. 

Feeble-mindedness and insanity were also included in the censusmentioned, and the total number of the three kinds of defectives wasfound to be 19 per thousand in one county and 11. 4 per thousand in theother. This would suggest a total for the entire United States ofsomething like one million. 

In addition to these well-recognized classes of hopelessly defective, there is a class of defectives embracing very diverse characteristics, which demands careful consideration. In it are those who are germinallyphysical weaklings or deformed, those born with a hereditary diathesisor predisposition toward some serious disease (e. G. , Huntington'sChorea), and those with some gross defect of the organs of specialsense. The germinally blind and deaf will particularly occur to mind inthe latter connection. Cases falling in this category demand carefulscrutiny by biological and psychological experts, before any action canbe taken in the interest of eugenics; in many cases the affectedindividual himself will be glad to coöperate with society by remainingcelibate or by the practice of birth control, to the end of leaving nooffspring to bear what he has borne. 

Finally, we come to the great class of delinquents who have hithertobeen made the particular object of solicitude, on the part of those whohave looked with favor upon sterilization legislation. The chronicinebriate, the confirmed criminal, the prostitute, the pauper, alldeserve careful study by the eugenist. In many cases they will be foundto be feeble-minded, and proper restriction of the feeble-minded willmeet their cases. Thus there is reason to believe that from a third totwo-thirds of the prostitutes in American cities are feeble-minded. [82]They should be committed to institutions for the feeble-minded and keptthere. It is certain that many of the pauper class, which fills upalmshouses, are similarly deficient. Indeed, the census of 1910discovered that of the 84, 198 paupers in institutions on the first ofJanuary in that year, 13, 238 were feeble-minded, 3, 518 insane, 2, 202epileptic, 918 deaf-mute, 3, 375 blind, 13, 753 crippled, maimed ordeformed. A total of 63. 7% of the whole had some serious physical ormental defect. Obviously, most of these would be taken care of undersome other heading, in the program of restrictive eugenics. Whilepaupers should be prohibited from reproduction as long as they are instate custody, careful discrimination is necessary in the treatment ofthose whose condition is due more to environment than heredity. 

In a consideration of the chronic inebriate, the problem ofenvironmental influences is again met in an acute form, aggravated bythe venom of controversy engendered by bigotry and self-interest. Thatmany chronic inebriates owe their condition almost wholly to heredity, and are likely to leave offspring of the same character, isindisputable. As to the possibility of "reforming" such an individual, there may be room for a difference of opinion; as to the possibility ofreforming his germ-plasm, there can be none. Society owes them the bestpossible care, and part of its care should certainly be to see that theydo not reproduce their kind. As to the borderland cases--and in thematter of inebriety borderland is perhaps bigger than mainland--it isdoubtful whether much direct action can be taken in the present state ofscientific knowledge and of public sentiment. Education of publicopinion to avoid marriage with drunkards will probably be the mosteffective means of procedure. 

Finally, there is the criminal class, over which the respectivechampions of heredity and environment have so often waged partisanwarfare. There is probably no field in which restrictive eugenics wouldthink of interfering, where it encounters so much danger as here--dangerof wronging both the individual and society. Laws such as have beenpassed in several states, providing for the sterilization of criminals_as such, _ must be deplored by the eugenist as much as they are by thepseudo-sociologist who "does not believe in heredity"; but this is notsaying that there are not many cases in which eugenic action isdesirable; for inheritance of a lack of emotional control makes a manin one sense a "born criminal. "[83] He is not, in most respects, thecreature which he was made out to be by Lombroso and his followers; buthe exists, nevertheless, and no ameliorative treatment given him will beof such value to society as preventing his reproduction. 

The feeble-minded who make up a large proportion of the petty criminalsthat fill the jails, must, of course, be excluded from this discussionexcept to note that their conviction assists in discovering theirdefect. They should be treated as feeble-minded, not as criminals. [84]Those who may have been made criminals by society, by their environment, must also be excepted. In an investigation, the benefit of the doubtshould be given to the individual. But when every possible concession ismade to the influence of environment, the psychiatric study of theindividual and the investigation of his family history still show thatthere are criminals who congenitally lack the inhibitions and instinctswhich make it possible for others to be useful members of society. [85]When a criminal of this natural type is found, the duty of society isunquestionably to protect itself by cutting off that line of descent. 

This, we believe, covers all the classes which are at this time propersubjects for direct restrictive action with eugenic intent; and werepeat that the problem is not to deal with classes as a whole, but todeal with individuals of the kind described, for the sake ofconvenience, in the above categories. Artificial class names meannothing to evolution. It would be a crime to cut off the posterity of adesirable member of society merely because he happened to have beenpopularly stigmatized by some class name that carried opprobrium withit. Similarly it would be immoral to encourage or permit thereproduction of a manifestly defective member of society of the kindsindicated, even though that individual might in some way have securedthe protection of a class name that was generally considered desirable. Bearing this in mind, we believe no one can object to a proposal toprevent the reproduction of those feeble-minded, insane, epileptic, grossly defective or hopelessly delinquent people, whose condition canbe proved to be due to heredity and is therefore probably transmissibleto their offspring. We can imagine only one objection that might beopposed to all the advantages of such a program--namely, that no propermeans can be found for putting it into effect. This objection isoccasionally urged, but we believe it to be wholly without weight. Wenow propose to examine the various possible methods of restrictiveeugenics, and to inquire which of them society can most profitablyadopt. 

CHAPTER X

METHODS OF RESTRICTION

The means of restriction can be divided into coercive and non-coercive. We shall discuss the former first, interpreting the word "coercive" verybroadly. 

From an historical point of view, the first method which presents itselfis execution. This has been used since the beginning of the race, veryprobably, although rarely with a distinct understanding of its eugeniceffect; and its value in keeping up the standard of the race should notbe underestimated. It is a method the use of which prevents therectification of mistakes. There are arguments against it on othergrounds, which need not be discussed here, since it suffices to say thatto put to death defectives or delinquents is wholly out of accord withthe spirit of the times, and is not seriously considered by the eugenicsmovement. 

The next possible method castration. This has practically nothing torecommend it, except that it is effective--an argument that can also bemade for the "lethal chamber. " The objections against it areoverwhelming. It has hardly been advocated, even by extremists, save forthose whose sexual instincts are extremely disordered; but such advocacyis based on ignorance of the results. As a fact, castration frequentlydoes not diminish the sexual impulses. Its use should be limited tocases where desirable for therapeutic reasons as well. 

It is possible, however, to render either a man or woman sterile by amuch less serious operation than castration. This operation, which hasgained wide attention in recent years under the name of "sterilization, "usually takes the form of vasectomy in man and salpingectomy in woman;it is desirable that the reader should have a clear understanding of itsnature. 

Vasectomy is a trivial operation performed in a few minutes, almostpainlessly with the use of cocain as a local anæsthetic; it is sometimesperformed with no anæsthetic whatever. The patient's sexual life is notaffected in any way, save in the one respect that he is sterile. 

Salpingectomy is more serious, because the operation can not beperformed so near the surface of the body. The sexual life of thesubject is in no way changed, save that she is rendered barren; but theoperation is attended by illness and expense. 

The general advantage claimed for sterilization, as a method ofpreventing the reproduction of persons whose offspring would probably bea detriment to race progress, is the accomplishment of the end in viewwithout much expense to the state, and without interfering with the"liberty and pursuit of happiness" of the individual. The generalobjection to it is that by removing all fear of consequences from anindividual, it is likely to lead to the spread of sexual immorality andvenereal disease. This objection is entitled to some consideration; butthere exists a still more fundamental objection against sterilization asa program--namely, that it is sometimes not fair to the individual. Itseugenic effects may be all that are desired; but in some cases itseuthenic effects must frequently be deplorable. Most of the persons whomit is proposed to sterilize are utterly unfit to hold their own in theworld, in competition with normal people. For society to sterilize thefeeble-minded, the insane, the alcoholic, the born criminals, theepileptic, and then turn them out to shift for themselves, saying, "Wehave no further concern with you, now that we know you will leave nochildren behind you, " is unwise. People of this sort should be humanelyisolated, so that they will be brought into competition only with theirown kind; and they should be kept so segregated, not only until theyhave passed the reproductive age, but until death brings them relieffrom their misfortunes. Such a course is, in most cases, the only oneworthy of a Christian nation; and it is obvious that if such a course isfollowed, the sexes can be effectively separated without difficulty, andany sterilization operation will be unnecessary. 

Generally speaking, the only objection urged against segregation isthat of expense. In reply, it may be said that the expense will decreasesteadily, when segregation is viewed as a long-time investment, becausethe number of future wards of the state of any particular type will bedecreasing every year. Moreover, a large part of the expense can be metby properly organizing the labor of the inmates. This is particularlytrue of the feeble-minded, who will make up the largest part of theburden because of their numbers and the fact that most of them are notnow under state care. As for the insane, epileptic, incorrigiblycriminal, and the other defectives and delinquents embraced in theprogram, the state is already taking care of a large proportion of them, and the additional expense of making this care life-long, and extendingit to those not yet under state control, but equally deserving of it, could probably be met by better organization of the labor of the personsinvolved, most of whom are able to do some sort of work that will atleast cover the cost of their maintenance. 

That the problem is less serious than has often been supposed, may beillustrated by the following statement from H. Hastings Hart of theRussell Sage Foundation:

"Of the 10, 000 (estimated) mentally defective women of child-bearing agein the state of New York, only about 1, 750 are cared for in institutionsdesignated for the care of the feeble-minded, and about 4, 000 areconfined in insane asylums, reformatories and prisons, while at least4, 000 (probably many more) are at large in the community. 

"With reference to the 4, 000 feeble-minded who are confined in hospitalsfor insane, prisons and reformatories and almshouses, the state wouldactually be the financial gainer by providing for them in custodialinstitutions. At the Rome Custodial Asylum 1, 230 inmates are humanelycared for at $2. 39 per week. The same class of inmates is being caredfor in the boys' reformatories at $4. 66; in the hospitals for insane at$3. 90; in the girls' reformatory at $5. 47, and in the almshouse at about$1. 25. If all of these persons were transferred to an institutionconducted on the scale of the Rome Custodial Asylum, they would not onlyrelieve these other institutions of inmates who do not belong there andwho are a great cause of care and anxiety, but they would make room fornew patients of the proper class, obviating the necessity forenlargement. The money thus saved would build ample institutions for thecare of these people at a much less per capita cost than that of theprisons, reformatories and asylums where they are now kept, and theannual per capita cost of maintenance would be reduced from 20 to 50 percent. , except in almshouses, where the cost would be increased about $1per week, but the almshouse inmates compose only a small fraction of thewhole number. 

"I desire to emphasize the fact that one-half of the feeble-minded ofthis state are already under public care, but that two-thirds of themare cared for in the wrong kind of institutions. This difficulty can beremedied without increasing the public burden, in the manner alreadysuggested. That leaves 15, 000 feeble-minded for whom no provision hasyet been made. It must be remembered that these 15, 000 persons are beingcared for in some way. We do not allow them to starve to death, but theyare fed, clothed and housed, usually by the self-denying labor of theirrelatives. Thousands of poor mothers are giving up their lives largelyto the care of a feeble-minded child, but these mothers are unable to soprotect them from becoming a menace to the community, and, in the longrun, it would be far more economical for the community to segregate themin institutions than to allow them to remain in their homes, only tobecome ultimately paupers, criminals, prostitutes or parents of childrenlike themselves. "

Some sort of provision is now made for some of the feeble-minded inevery state excepting eleven, viz. : Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah andWest Virginia. Delaware sends a few cases to Pennsylvania institutions;other states sometimes care for especially difficult cases in hospitalsfor the insane. The District of Columbia should be added to the list, ashaving no institution for the care of its 800 or more feeble-minded. Alaska is likewise without such an institution. 

Of the several hundred thousand feeble-minded persons in the UnitedStates, probably not more than a tenth are getting the institutionalcare which is needed in most cases for their own happiness, and innearly every case for the protection of society. It is evident that agreat deal of new machinery must be created, or old institutionsextended, to meet this pressing problem--[86] a problem to which, fortunately, the public is showing signs of awakening. In our opinion, the most promising attempt to solve the problem has been made by theTraining School of Vineland, New Jersey, through its "Colony Plan. "Superintendent E. R. Johnstone of the Training School describes thepossibilities of action along this line, as follows:[87]

 There are idiots, imbeciles, morons and backward children. The morons and the backward children are found in the public schools in large numbers. Goddard's studies showed twelve per cent. Of an entire school district below the high school to be two or three years behind their grades, and three per cent. Four or more years behind. 

 It is difficult for the expert to draw the line between these two classes, and parents and teachers are loth to admit that the morons are defective. This problem can best be solved by the establishment of special classes in the public schools for all who lag more than one year behind. If for no other reason, the normal children should be relieved of the drag of these backward pupils. The special classes will become the clearing houses. The training should be largely manual and industrial and as practical as possible. As the number of classes in any school district increases, the classification will sift out those who are merely backward and a little coaching and special attention will return them to the grades. The others--the morons--will remain and as long as they are not dangerous to society (sexually or otherwise) they may live at home and attend the special classes. As they grow older they will be transferred to proper custodial institutions. In the city districts, where there are many classes, this will occur between twelve and sixteen years of age. In the country districts it will occur earlier. 

These institutions will be the training schools and will form the centerfor the training and care of the other two groups, i. E. , the imbecilesand idiots. Branching out from the training schools should be colonies(unless the parent institution is on a very large tract of ground, whichis most advisable). These colonies, or groups of comparatively smallbuildings, should be of two classes. For the imbeciles, simple buildingscosting from two to four hundred dollars per inmate. The units mightwell be one hundred. A unit providing four dormitories, bath house, dining-halls, employees' buildings, pump house, water tank, sewagedisposal, laundry, stables and farm buildings can be built within theabove figures providing the buildings are of simple construction and onestory. This has been done at Vineland by having the larger imbecile andmoron boys make the cement blocks of which the buildings areconstructed. 

For the idiots the construction can be much the same. Larger porchesfacing the south and more toilet fixtures will be necessary, and so adda little to the cost. 

The colony should be located on rough uncleared land--preferableforestry land. Here these unskilled fellows find happy and usefuloccupation, waste humanity taking waste land and thus not onlycontributing toward their own support, but also making over land thatwould otherwise be useless. 

One reason for building inexpensive buildings is that having cleared alarge tract--say 1, 000 acres--the workers can be moved to another wastetract and by brushing, clearing of rocks, draining and what not, increase its value sufficiently to keep on moving indefinitely. 

Many of these boy-men make excellent farmers, dairymen, swineherds andpoultry raisers under proper direction, and in the winter they can workin the tailor, paint, carpenter, mattress and mat shops. 

Nor need this be confined to the males alone. The girl-women raisepoultry, small fruits and vegetables very successfully. They pickle andcan the products of the land, and in winter do knitting, netting andsewing of all kinds. 

No manufacturer of to-day has let the product of his plant go to wasteas society has wasted the energies of this by-product of humanity. Andthe feeble-minded are happy when they have occupation suited to theirneeds. If one will but see them when they are set at occupations withintheir comprehension and ability, he will quickly understand the joy theyget out of congenial work. 

Colonies such as Mr. Johnstone describes will take care of theable-bodied feeble-minded; other institutions will provide for the veryyoung and the aged; finally, there will always be many of thesedefectives who can best be "segregated" in their own homes; whoserelatives have means and inclination to care for them, and sufficientfeeling of responsibility to see that the interests of society areprotected. If there is any doubt on this last point, the state shoulditself assume charge, or should sterilize the defective individuals; butit is not likely that sterilization will need to be used to any largeextent in the solution of this problem. In general it may be said thatfeeble-mindedness is the greatest single dysgenic problem facing thecountry, that it can be effectively solved by segregation, and that itpresents no great difficulty save the initial one of arousing the publicto its importance. 

Similarly the hereditarily insane and epileptic can best be cared forthrough life-long segregation--a course which society is likely to adoptreadily, because of a general dread of having insane and epilepticpersons at liberty in the community. There are undoubtedly cases wherethe relatives of the affected individual can and should assumeresponsibility for his care. No insane or epileptic person whosecondition is probably of a hereditary character should be allowed toleave an institution unless it is absolutely certain that he or she willnot become a parent: if sterilization is the only means to assure this, then it should be used. In many cases it has been found that theindividual and his relatives welcome such a step. 

The habitual criminals, the chronic alcoholics, and the other defectiveswhom we have mentioned as being undesirable parents, will in most casesneed to be given institutional care throughout life, in their owninterest as well as that of society. This is already being done withmany of them, and the extension of the treatment involves no newprinciple nor special difficulty. 

It should be borne in mind that, from a eugenic point of view, theessential element in segregation is not so much isolation from society, but separation of the two sexes. Properly operated, segregationincreases the happiness of the individuals segregated, as well asworking to the advantage of the body politic. In most cases the onlyobjection to it is the expense, and this, as we have shown, need not bean insuperable difficulty. For these reasons, we believe thatsegregation is the best way in which to restrict the reproduction ofthose whose offspring could hardly fail to be undesirable, and thatsterilization should be looked upon only as an adjunct, to be used inspecial cases where it may seem advantageous to allow an individual fullliberty, or partial liberty, and yet where he or she can not be trustedto avoid reproduction. 

Having reached this point in the discussion of restrictive eugenics, itmay be profitable to consider the so-called "eugenic laws" which havebeen before the public in many states during recent years. They are oneof the first manifestations of an awakening public conscience on thesubject of eugenics; they show that the public, or part of it, feels thenecessity of action; they equally show that the principles which shouldguide restrictive eugenics are not properly understood by most of thosewho have interested themselves in the legislative side of the program. 

Twelve states now have laws on their statute books (but usually not inforce) providing for the sterilization of certain classes ofindividuals. Similar laws have been passed in a number of other states, but were vetoed by the governors; while in many others bills have beenintroduced but not passed. We shall review only the bills which areactually on the statute books in 1916, and shall not attempt to detailall the provisions of them, but shall consider only the means by whichthey propose to attain a eugenic end. 

The state of Indiana allows the sterilization of all inmates of stateinstitutions, deemed by a commission of three surgeons to beunimprovable physically or mentally, and unfit for procreation. Theobject is purely eugenic. After a few hundred operations had beenperformed in Jeffersonville reformatory, the law aroused the hostilityof Governor Thomas R. Marshall, who succeeded in preventing itsenforcement; since 1913 we believe it has not been in effect. It isdefectively drawn in some ways, particularly because it includes thosewho will be kept in custody for life, and who are therefore not properobjects of sterilization. 

The Washington law applies to habitual criminals and sex offenders; itis a punitive measure which may be ordered by the court passing sentenceon the offender, but has never been put in force. Sterilization is not asuitable method of punishment, and its value as a eugenic instrument isjeopardized by the interjection of the punitive motive. 

California applied her law to all inmates (not voluntary) of statehospitals for the insane and the state home for the feeble-minded, andall recidivists in the state prisons. The motive is partly eugenic, partly therapeutic, partly punitive. It is reported[88] that 635operations have been performed under this law, which is administered bythe state commission for the insane, the resident physician of any stateprison, and the medical superintendent of any state institution for"fools and idiots. " For several years California had the distinction ofbeing the only state where sterilization was actually being performed inaccordance with the law. The California measure applies to those servinglife sentences--an unnecessary application. Although falling short of anideal measure in some other particulars, it seems on the whole to besatisfactorily administered. 

Connecticut's law provides that all inmates of state prisons and of thestate hospitals at Middletown and Norwich may be sterilized if suchaction is recommended by a board of three surgeons, on eugenic ortherapeutic grounds. It has been applied to a few insane persons (21, upto September, 1916). 

Nevada has a purely punitive sterilization law applying to habitualcriminals and sex offenders. The courts, which are authorized to applyit, have never done so. 

[Illustration: FEEBLE-MINDED MEN ARE CAPABLE OF MUCH ROUGH LABOR

FIG. 30. --Most of the cost of segregating the mentallydefective can be met by properly organizing their labor, so as to makethem as nearly self-supporting as possible. It has been found that theyperform excellently such work as clearing forest land, or reforestingcleared land, and great gangs of them might profitably be put at suchwork, in most states. Photograph from the Training School, Vineland, N. J. ]

[Illustration: FEEBLE-MINDED AT A VINELAND COLONY

FIG. 31. --They have the bodies of adults but the minds ofchildren. It is not to the interest of the state that they should beallowed to mingle with the normal population; and it is quite as littleto their own interest, for they are not capable of competingsuccessfully with people who are normal mentally. ]

Iowa's comprehensive statute applies to inmates of public institutionsfor criminals, rapists, idiots, feeble-minded, imbeciles, lunatics, drug fiends, epileptics, syphilitics, moral and sexual perverts anddiseased and degenerate persons. It is compulsory in case of personstwice convicted of felony or of a sexual offense other than "whiteslavery, " in which offense one conviction makes sterilization mandatory. The state parole board, with the managing officer and physician of eachinstitution, constitute the executive authorities. The act has manyobjectionable features, one of the most striking of which is theinclusion of syphilitics under the head of persons whom it is proposedto sterilize. As syphilis is a curable disease, there is scarcely morereason for sterilizing those afflicted with it than there is forsterilizing persons with measles. It is true that the sterilization of alarge number of syphilitics might have a eugenic effect, if the curedsyphilitics had a permanently impaired germ-plasm--a proposition whichis very doubtful. But the framers of the law apparently were notinfluenced by that aspect of the case, and in any event such a method ofprocedure is too round-about to be commendable. Criminals as such, andsyphilitics, should certainly be removed from the workings of this law, and dealt with in some other way. However, no operations are reported ashaving been performed under the act. 

New Jersey's law, which has never been operative, represents a much moreadvanced statute; it applies to inmates of state reformatories, charitable and penal institutions (rapists and confirmed criminals) andprovides for a board of expert examiners, as well as for legalprocedure. 

New York's law, applying to inmates of state hospitals for the insane, state prisons, reformatories and charitable institutions, is also fairlywell drawn, providing for a board of examiners, and surrounding theoperation with legal safeguards. No operations have been performed underit. 

North Dakota includes inmates of state prisons, reform school, schoolfor feeble-minded and asylum for the insane in its law, which isadministered by a special board. Although an emergency clause was tackedon, when it was passed in 1913, putting it into effect at once, nooperations have been performed under it. 

Michigan's law applies to all inmates of state institutions maintainedwholly or in part at public expense. It lacks many of the provisions ofan ideal law, but is being applied to some of the feeble-minded. 

The Kansas law, which provides suitable court procedure, embracesinmates of all state institutions intrusted with the care or custody ofhabitual criminals, idiots, epileptics, imbeciles or insane, an"habitual criminal" being defined as "a person who has been convicted ofsome felony involving moral turpitude. " It has been a dead letter eversince it was placed on the statute books. 

Wisconsin[89] provides for a special board to consider the cases of "allinmates of state and county institutions for criminal, insane, feeble-minded and epileptic persons, " prior to their release. The lawhas some good features, and has been applied to a hundred or morefeeble-minded persons. 

In 1911 the American Breeders' Association appointed a "Committee toStudy and Report on the Best Practical Means of Cutting Off theDefective Germ-Plasm in the American Population, " and this committee hasbeen at work ever since, under auspices of the Eugenics Record Office, making a particular study of legal sterilization. It points out[90] thata sterilization law, to be of the greatest possible value, must:

(1) Consider sterilization as a eugenic measure, not as a punitive oreven therapeutic one. 

(2) Provide due process of law, before any operation is carried out. 

(3) Provide adequate and competent executive agents. 

(4) Designate only proper classes of persons as subject to the law. 

(5) Provide for the nomination of individuals for sterilization, bysuitable procedure. 

(6) Make an adequate investigation of each case, the family historybeing the most important part, and one which is often neglected atpresent. 

(7) Have express and adequate criteria for determining uponsterilization. 

(8) Designate the type of operation authorized. 

(9) Make each distinct step mandatory and fix definitely theresponsibility for it. 

(10) Make adequate appropriation for carrying out the measure. 

Tested by such standards, there is not a sterilization law in existencein the United States at the time this is written that is whollycommendable; and those introduced in various states during the last fewyears, but not passed, show few signs of improvement. It is evident thatthe commendable zeal has not had adequate guidance, in the drafting ofsterilization legislation. The committee above referred to has drawn upa model law, and states which wish to adopt a program of legislativesterilization should pass a measure embodying at least the principles ofthis model law. But, as we have pointed out, wholesale sterilization isan unsatisfactory substitute for segregation. There are cases where itis advisable, in states too poor or niggardly to care adequately fortheir defectives and delinquents, but eugenists should favor segregationas the main policy, with sterilization for the special cases aspreviously indicated. 

There is another way in which attempts have recently been made torestrict the reproduction of anti-social persons: by puttingrestrictions on marriage. This form of campaign, although usuallycalling itself eugenic, has been due far less to eugenists than to sexhygienists who have chosen to sail under a borrowed flag. Every eugenistmust wish them success in their efforts to promote sex hygiene, but itis a matter of regret that they can not place their efforts in theproper light, for their masquerade as a eugenic propaganda has broughtundeserved reproach on the eugenics movement. 

The customary form of legal action in this case is to demand that bothapplicants for a marriage license, or in some cases only the male, signan affidavit or present a certificate from some medical authoritystating that an examination has been made and the applicant found to befree from any venereal disease. In some cases other diseases or mentaldefects are included. When the law prevents marriage on account ofinsanity, feeble-mindedness, or other hereditary defect, it obviouslyhas a eugenic value; but in so far as it concerns itself with venerealdiseases, which are not hereditary, it is only of indirect interest toeugenics. The great objection to such laws is that they are too easilyevaded by the persons whom they are intended to reach--a fact that hasbeen demonstrated conclusively wherever they have been put in force. Furthermore, the nature of the examination demanded is usually whollyinadequate to ascertain whether the applicant really is or is notafflicted with a venereal disease. Finally, it is to be borne in mindthat the denial of a marriage license will by no means preventreproduction, among the anti-social classes of the community. 

For these reasons, the so-called eugenic laws of several states, whichprovide for a certificate of health before a marriage license is issued, are not adequate eugenic measures. They have some value in awakeningpublic sentiment to the value of a clean record in a prospective lifepartner. To the extent that they are enforced, the probability thatpersons afflicted with venereal disease are on the average eugenicallyinferior to the unaffected gives these laws some eugenic effect. We arenot called on to discuss them from a hygienic point of view; but webelieve that it is a mistake for eugenists to let legislation of thissort be anything but a minor achievement, to be followed up by moreefficient legislation. 

Laws which tend to surround marriage with a reasonable amount offormality and publicity are, in general, desirable eugenically. Theytend to discourage hasty and secret marriages, and to make matrimonyappear as a matter in which the public has a legitimate interest, andwhich is not to be undertaken lightly and without consideration. Lawscompelling the young to get the consent of their parents before marriageare to be placed in this category; and likewise the German law whichrequires the presentation of birth-certificates before a marriagelicense is issued. 

A revival under proper form of the old custom of publishing the banns isdesirable. Undoubtedly many hasty and ill-considered marriages arecontracted at the present time, with dysgenic results, which could beprevented if the relatives and friends of the contracting parties knewwhat was going on, and could bring to light defects or objectionsunknown or not properly realized by the young people. Among otherstates, Missouri has recently considered such a law, proposing that eachapplicant for a marriage license be required to present a certificatefrom a reputable physician, stating in concise terms the applicant'shealth and his fitness to marry. Notice of application for a marriagelicense shall be published in a daily paper three consecutive times, atthe expense of the county. If at the expiration of one day from thepublication of the last notice, no charges have been filed with therecorder alleging the applicants' unfitness to marry, license shall begranted. If objection be made by three persons not related in blood toeach other, on the ground of any item mentioned in the physician'scertificate, the case shall be taken before the circuit court; if thecourt sustains the objection of these three unrelated persons, a licenseto wed shall be denied; if the court overrules the objection, thelicense shall be granted and court costs charged to the objectors. 

Although interesting as showing the drift of public sentiment toward arevival of the banns, this proposed law is poorly drawn. Three unrelatedlaymen and the judge of a circuit court are not the proper persons todecide on the biological fitness of a proposed marriage. We believe theinterests of eugenics would be sufficiently met at this time by a lawwhich provided that adequate notice of application for marriage licenseshould be published, and no license granted (except under exceptionalcircumstances) until the expiration of two weeks from the publication ofthe notice. This would give families and friends time to act; but it isprobably not practicable to forbid the issuance of a license at theexpiration of the designated time, unless evidence is brought forwardshowing that one of the applicants is not legally capable ofcontracting marriage because of a previous mate still living andundivorced, or because of insanity, feeble-mindedness, under age, etc. Such a law, we believe, could be put on the statute books of any state, and enforced, without arousing prejudices or running counter to publicsentiment; and its eugenic value, if small, would certainly be real. 

This exhausts the list of suggested coercive means of restricting thereproduction of the inferior. What we propose is, we believe, a verymodest program, and one which can be carried out, as soon as publicopinion is educated on the subject, without any great sociological, legal or financial hindrances. We suggest nothing more than thatindividuals whose offspring would almost certainly be subversive of thegeneral welfare, be prevented from having any offspring. In most cases, such individuals are, or should be, given life-long institutional carefor their own benefit, and it is an easy matter, by segregation of thesexes, to prevent reproduction. In a few cases, it will probably befound desirable to sterilize the individual by a surgical operation. 

Such coercive restriction does, in some cases, sacrifice what may beconsidered personal rights. In such instances, personal rights must giveway before the immensely greater interests of the race. But there is amuch larger class of cases, where coercion can not be approved, and yetwhere an enlightened conscience, or the subtle force of public opinion, may well bring about some measure of restraint on reproduction. Thisclass includes many individuals who are not in any direct waydetrimental to society; and who yet have some inherited taint or defectthat should be checked, and of which they, if enlightened, wouldprobably be the first to desire the elimination. The number ofhigh-minded persons who deliberately refrain from marriage, orparenthood, in the interests of posterity, is greater than any oneimagines, except a eugenist brought into intimate relations with peoplewho take an intelligent interest in the subject. 

X. Comes, let us say, from a family in which there is a persistent taintof epilepsy, or insanity. X. Is a normal, useful, conscientious memberof society. To talk of segregating such an individual would be rash. ButX. Has given some thought to heredity and eugenics, and decides that he, or she, will refrain from marriage, in order to avoid transmitting thefamily taint to another generation. Here we have, in effect, anon-coercive restriction of reproduction. What shall we say of theaction of X. In remaining celibate, --is it wise or unwise? To beencouraged or condemned?

It is perhaps the most delicate problem which applied eugenics offers. It is a peculiarly personal one, and the outsider who advises in such acase is assuming a heavy responsibility, not only in regard to thefuture welfare of the race, but to the individual happiness of X. We cannot accept the sweeping generalization sometimes made that "Strengthshould marry weakness and weakness marry strength. " No more can we holdfast to the ideal, which we believe to be utopian, that "Strength shouldonly marry strength. " There are cases where such glittering generalitiesare futile; where the race and the individual would both be gainers by amarriage which produced children that had the family taint, but eitherlatent or not to a degree serious enough to counteract their value. Theindividual must decide for himself with especial reference to the traitin question and his other compensating qualities; but he should at leasthave the benefit of whatever light genetics can offer him, before hemakes his decision. 

For the sake of a concrete example, let us suppose that a man, in whoseancestry tuberculosis has appeared for several generations, iscontemplating marriage. The first thing to be remembered is that if hemarries a woman with a similar family history, their children will havea double inheritance of the taint, and are almost certain to be affectedunless living in an especially favorable region. It would _in mostcases_ be best that no children result from such a marriage. 

On the other hand, the man may marry a woman in whose family consumptionis unknown. The chance of their children being tuberculous will not begreat; nevertheless the taint, the diathesis, will be passed on just thesame, although concealed, possibly to appear at some future time. Sucha marriage is in some ways more dangerous to the race, in the long run, than that of "weakness with weakness. " Yet society at present certainlyhas no safe grounds for interference, if such a marriage is made. If thetwo persons come of superior stock, it seems _probable_ that the gainwill outweigh the loss. In any event, it is at least to be expected thatboth man and woman would have a deliberate consciousness of what theyare doing, and that no person with any honor would enter into amarriage, concealing a defect in his or her ancestry. Love is usuallyblind enough to overlook such a thing, but if it chooses not to, itought not to be blindfolded. 

In short, the mating of strength with strength is certainly the idealwhich society should have and which every individual should have. Buthuman heredity is so mixed that this ideal is not always practicable;and if any two persons wish to abandon it, society is hardly justifiedin interfering, unless the case be so gross as those which we werediscussing in the first part of this chapter. Progress in this directionis to be expected mainly from the enlightened action of the individual. Much more progress in the study of heredity must be made before adviceon marriage matings can be given in any except fairly obvious cases. Themost that can now be done is to urge that a full knowledge of the familyhistory of an intended life partner be sought, to encourage the discreetinquiries and subtle guidance of parents, and to appeal to the eugenicconscience of a young man or woman. In case of doubt the advice of acompetent biologist should be taken. There is a real danger thathigh-minded people may allow some minor physical defect to outweigh agreater mental excellence. 

There remains one other non-coercive method of influencing thedistribution of marriage, which deserves consideration in thisconnection. 

We have said that society can not well put many restrictions on marriageat the present time. We urge by every means at our command that marriagebe looked upon more seriously, that it be undertaken with moredeliberation and consideration. We consider it a crime for people tomarry, without knowing each other's family histories. But in spite ofall this, ill-assorted, dysgenic marriages will still be made. When sucha marriage is later demonstrated to have been a mistake, not only froman individual, but also from a eugenic point of view, society should beready to dissolve the union. Divorce is far preferable to mereseparation, since the unoffending party should not be denied theprivilege of remarriage, as the race in most cases needs his or hercontribution to the next generation. In extreme cases, it would beproper for society to take adequate steps to insure that the dysgenicparty could neither remarry nor have offspring outside marriage. Thetime-honored justifiable grounds for divorce, --adultery, sterility, impotence, venereal infection, desertion, non-support, habitualcruelty, --appear to us to be no more worthy of legal recognitionthan the more purely dysgenic grounds of chronic inebriety, feeble-mindedness, epilepsy, insanity or any other serious inheritablephysical, mental or moral defect. 

This view of the eugenic value of divorce should not be construed as aplea for the admission of mutual consent as a ground for divorce. It isdesirable, however, to realize that mismating is the real evil. Divorcein such cases is merely a cure for an improper condition. Socialcondemnation should stigmatize the wrong of mismating, not the undoingof such a wrong. 

Restrictions on age at marriage are almost universal. The object is toprevent too early marriages. The objections which are commonly urgedagainst early marriage (in so far as they bear upon eugenics) are thefollowing:

1. That it results in inferior offspring. This objection is not wellsupported except possibly in the most extreme cases. Physically, thereis evidence that the younger parents on the whole bear the sounderchildren. 

2. That a postponement of marriage provides the opportunity for bettersexual selection. This is a valid ground for discouraging the marriageof minors. 

3. The better educated classes are obliged to marry late, because a manusually can not marry until he has finished his education andestablished himself in business. A fair amount of restriction as to ageat marriage will therefore not affect these classes, but may affect theuneducated classes. In so far as lack of education is correlated witheugenic inferiority, some restriction of this sort is desirable, becauseit will keep inferiors from reproducing too rapidly, as compared withthe superior elements of the population. 

While the widespread rule that men should not marry under 21 and womenunder 18 has some justification, then, an ideal law would permitexceptions where there was adequate income and good mating. 

Laws to prohibit or restrict consanguineous marriages fall within thescope of this chapter, in so far as they are not based on dogma alone, since their aim is popularly supposed to be to prevent marriages thatwill result in undesirable offspring. Examining the laws of all theUnited States, C. B. Davenport[91] found the following classes excludedfrom marriage:

1. Sibs (i. E. , full brothers and sisters) in all states, and half sibsin most states. 

2. Parent and child in all states, and parent and grandchild in allstates except Pennsylvania. 

3. Child and parent's sibs (i. E. , niece and uncle, nephew and aunt). Prohibited in all but four states. 

4. First cousins. Marriages of this type are prohibited in over a thirdof the states, and tacitly or specifically permitted in the others. 

5. Other blood relatives are occasionally prohibited from marrying. Thus, second cousins in Oklahoma and a child and his or her parent'shalf sibs in Alabama, Minnesota, New Jersey, Texas, and other states. 

In the closest of blood-relationships the well-nigh universalrestrictions should be retained. But when marriage between cousins--thecommonest form of consanguineous marriage--is examined, it is found toresult frequently well, sometimes ill. There is a widespread belief thatsuch marriages are dangerous, and in support of this idea, one isreferred to the histories of various isolated communities whereconsanguineous marriage is alleged to have led to "an appalling amountof defect and degeneracy. " Without questioning the facts, one mayquestion the interpretation of the facts, and it seems to us that awrong interpretation of these stories is partly responsible for thewidespread condemnation of cousin marriage at the present time. 

The Bahama Islands furnish one of the stock examples. Clement A. Penrosewrites[92] of them:

"In some of the white colonies where black blood has been excluded, andwhere, owing to their isolated positions, frequent intermarriage hastaken place, as for instance at Spanish Wells, and Hopetown, muchdegeneracy is present, manifested by many abnormalities of mind andbody. . . . I am strongly of the opinion that the deplorable state ofdegeneracy which we observed at Hopetown has been in a great measure, ifnot entirely, brought about by too close intermarrying of theinhabitants. "

To demonstrate his point, he took the pains to compile a family tree ofthe most degenerate strains at Hopetown. There are fifty-five marriagesrepresented, and the chart is overlaid with twenty-three red lines, eachof which is said to represent an intermarriage. This looks like a gooddeal of consanguineous mating; but to test the matter a little fartherthe fraternity at the bottom of the chart, --eight children, of whom fivewere idiots, --was traced. In the second generation it ran to anotherisland, and when the data gave out, at the fourth generation, there wasnot a single case of consanguineous marriage involved. 

Another fraternity was then picked out consisting of two men, bothidiots and congenitally blind, and a woman who had married and givenbirth to ten normal children. In the fourth generation this pedigree, which was far from complete, went out of the islands; so far as the datashowed there was not a single case of consanguineous marriage. There wasone case where a name was repeated, but the author had failed to markthis as a case of intermarriage, if it really was such. It is difficultto share the conviction of Dr. Penrose, that the two pedigreesinvestigated, offer an example of the nefarious workings ofintermarriage. 

Finally a fraternity was traced to which the author had calledparticular attention because three of its eleven members were bornblind. The defect was described as "optic atrophy associated with apigmentary retinitis and choryditis" and "this condition, " Dr. Penroseaverred, "is one stated by the authorities to be due to the effects ofconsanguineous marriage. "

Fortunately, the pedigree was fairly full and several lines of it couldbe carried through the sixth generation. There was, indeed, aconsiderable amount of consanguineous marriage involved. When the amountof inbreeding represented by these blind boys was measured, it proved tobe almost identical with the amount represented by the present Kaiser ofGermany. [93]

We are unable to see in such a history as that of Hopetown, BahamaIslands, any evidence that consanguineous marriage necessarily resultsin degeneracy. Dr. Penrose himself points to a potent factor when hesays of his chart in another connection: "It will be noticed that only afew of the descendants of Widow Malone [the first settler at Hopetown]are indicated as having married. By this it is not meant that the othersdid not marry; many of them did, but they moved away and settledelsewhere, and in no way affected the future history of the settlementof Hopetown. "

By moving away, it appears to us, they did very decidedly affect thefuture history of Hopetown. Who are the emigrants? Might they not havebeen the more enterprising and intelligent, the physically and mentallysuperior of the population, who rebelled at the limited opportunities oftheir little village, and went to seek a fortune in some broader field?Did not the best go in general; the misfits, the defectives, stay behindto propagate? Emigration in such a case would have the same effect aswar; it would drain off the best stock and leave the weaklings to stayhome and propagate their kind. Under such conditions, defectives wouldbe bound to multiply, regardless of whether or not the marriages areconsanguineous. 

"It will be seen at a glance, " Dr. Penrose writes, "that early in thehistory of the Malone family these indications of degeneracy wereabsent; but they began in the fourth generation and rapidly increasedafterward until they culminated by the presence of five idiots in onefamily. The original stock was apparently excellent, but the presentstate of the descendants is deplorable. "

Now three generations of emigration from a little community, which evento-day has only 1, 000 inhabitants, would naturally make quite adifference in the average eugenic quality of the population. In almostany population, a few defectives are constantly being produced. Take outthe better individuals, and leave these defectives to multiply, and theamount of degeneracy in the population will increase, regardless ofwhether the defectives are marrying their cousins, or unrelated persons. The family of five idiots, cited by Dr. Penrose, is an excellentillustration, for it is not the result of consanguineous marriage--atleast, not in a close enough degree to have appeared on the chart. It isdoubtless a mating of like with like; and biologically, consanguineousmarriage is nothing more. 

Honesty demands, therefore, that consanguineous marriage be not creditedwith results for which the consanguineous element is in no wiseresponsible. The prevailing habit of picking out a community or a strainwhere consanguineous marriage and defects are associated and loudlydeclaring the one to be the cause of the other, is evidence of the lackof scientific thought that is all too common. 

Most of the studies of these isolated communities where intermarriagehas taken place, illustrate the same point. C. B. Davenport, for example, quotes[94] an anonymous correspondent from the island of Bermuda, which"shows the usual consequence of island life. " He writes: "In some of theparishes (Somerset and Paget chiefly) there has been much intermarriage, not only with cousins but with double first cousins in several cases. Intermarriage has chiefly caused weakness of character leading to drink, not lack of brains or a certain amount of physical strength, but a veryinert and lazy disposition. "

It is difficult to believe that anyone who has lived in the tropicscould have written this except as a practical joke. Those who haveresided in the warmer parts of the world know, by observation if not byexperience, that a "weakness of character leading to drink" and "aninert and lazy disposition" are by no means the prerogatives of theinbred. 

If one is going to credit consanguineous marriage with these evilresults, what can one say when evil results fail to follow?

What about Smith's Island, off the coast of Maryland, where all theinhabitants are said to be interrelated, and where a physician who livedin the community for three years failed to find among the 700 persons asingle case of idiocy, insanity, epilepsy or congenital deafness?

What about the community of Batz, on the coast of France, where Voisinfound five marriages of first cousins and thirty-one of second cousins, without a single case of mental defect, congenital deafness, albinism, retinitis pigmentosa or malformation? The population was 3, 000, all ofwhom were said to be interrelated. 

What about Cape Cod, whose natives are known throughout New England fortheir ability? "At a recent visit to the Congregational Sunday-School, "says a student, "I noticed all officers, many teachers, organist, ex-superintendent, and pastor's wife all Dyers. A lady at Truro unitedin herself four quarters Dyer, father, mother and both grandmothersDyers. "

And finally, what about the experience of livestock breeders? Not onlyhas strict brother and sister mating--the closest inbreedingpossible--been carried on experimentally for twenty or twenty-fivegenerations without bad results; but the history of practically everyfine breed shows that inbreeding is largely responsible for itsexcellence. 

The Ptolemies, who ruled Egypt for several centuries, wanted to keep thethrone in the family, and hence practiced a system of intermating whichhas long been the classical evidence that consanguineous marriage isnot necessarily followed by immediate evil effects. The followingfragment of the genealogy of Cleopatra VII (mistress of Julius Cæsar andMarc Antony) is condensed from Weigall's _Life and Times of Cleopatra_(1914) and

 Ptolemy I | | Ptolemy II | | Ptolemy III m. Berenice II, his half-cousin. | | Ptolemy IV m. Arsinoë III, his full sister. | | Ptolemy V. | | Ptolemy VII m. Cleopatra II, his full sister. | | Cleopatra III m. Ptolemy IX (brother of VII), her uncle. | | Ptolemy X. M. Cleopatra IV, his full sister. | -----| | Berenice II m. Ptolemy XI (brother of X), her uncle. | | | | | Ptolemy XII, d. Without issue, succeeded by his uncle. | | | | ---Ptolemy XIII. | | Cleopatra VII. 

shows an amount of continued inbreeding that has never been surpassed inrecorded history, and yet did not produce any striking evil results. Theruler's consort is named, only when the two were related. Theconsanguineous marriages shown in this line of descent are by no meansthe only ones of the kind that took place in the family, many like thembeing found in collateral lines. 

It is certain that consanguineous marriage, being the mating of likewith like, intensifies the inheritance of the offspring, which gets a"double dose" of any trait which both parents have in common. If thetraits are good, it will be an advantage to the offspring to have adouble dose of them; if the traits are bad, it will be a disadvantage. The marriage of superior kin should produce children better than theparents; the marriage of inferior kin should produce children even worsethan their parents. 

In passing judgment on a proposed marriage, therefore, the vitalquestion is not, "Are they related by blood?" but "Are they carriers ofdesirable traits?"

The nature of the traits can be told only by a study of the ancestry. Ofcourse, characters may be latent or recessive, but this is also the casein the population at large, and the chance of unpleasant results is sosmall, when no instance can be found in the ancestry, that it can bedisregarded. If the same congenital defect or undesirable trait does notappear in the three previous generations of two cousins, includingcollaterals, the individuals need not be discouraged from marrying ifthey want to. 

Laws which forbid cousins to marry are, then, on an unsound biologicalbasis. As Dr. Davenport remarks, "The marriage of Charles Darwin andEmma Wedgewood would have been illegal and void, and their childrenpronounced illegitimate in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, Wyoming, and other states. " The vitality and greatcapacity of their seven children are well known. A law which would haveprevented such a marriage is certainly not eugenic. 

We conclude, then, that laws forbidding cousin marriages are notdesirable. Since it would be well to make an effort to increase theopportunities for further play of sexual selection, the lack of which issometimes responsible for cousin marriages, consanguineous marriage isby no means to be indiscriminately indorsed. Still, if there are caseswhere it is eugenically injurious, there are also cases where itsresults are eugenically highly beneficial, as in families with noserious defects and with outstanding ability. 

The laws prohibiting marriage between persons having no bloodrelationship but connected by marriage should all be repealed. Thebest-known English instance, which was eugenically veryobjectionable, --the prohibition of marriage between a man and hisdeceased wife's sister, --has fortunately been extirpated, but laws stillexist, in some communities, prohibiting marriage between a man and hisstepchild or stepparent, between a woman and her deceased husband'sbrother, and between the second husband or wife of a deceased aunt oruncle and the wife or husband of a deceased nephew or niece, etc. 

The only other problem of restrictive eugenics which it seems necessaryto consider is that offered by miscegenation. This will be considered inChapters XIV and XV. 

To sum up: we believe that there are urgent reasons for and noobjections to preventing the reproduction of a number of persons in theUnited States, many of whom have already been recognized by society asbeing so anti-social or inferior as to need institutional care. Suchrestriction can best be enforced by effective segregation of the sexes, although there are cases where individuals might well be released andallowed full freedom, either "on parole, " so to speak, or after havingundergone a surgical operation which would prevent their reproduction. 

Laws providing for sterilization, such as a dozen states now possess, are not framed with a knowledge of the needs of the case; but a properlydrafted sterilization law to provide for cases not better treated bysegregation is desirable. Segregation should be considered the mainmethod. 

It is practicable to place only minor restrictions on marriage, with aeugenic goal in view. A good banns law, however, could meet noobjections and would yield valuable results. Limited age restrictionsare proper. 

Marriages of individuals whose families are marked by minor taints cannot justify social interference; but an enlightened conscience and aeugenic point of view should lead every individual to make as good achoice as possible. 

If a eugenically bad mating has been made, society should minimize asfar as possible the injurious results, by means of provision forproperly restricted divorce. 

Consanguineous marriages in a degree no closer than that of firstcousins, are neither to be condemned nor praised indiscriminately. Theirdesirability depends on the ancestry of the two persons involved; eachcase should therefore be treated on its own merits. 

CHAPTER XI

THE IMPROVEMENT OF SEXUAL SELECTION

"Love is blind" and "Marriage is a lottery, " in the opinion ofproverbial lore. But as usual the proverbs do not tell the whole truth. Mating is not wholly a matter of chance; there is and always has been aconsiderable amount of selection involved. This selection must of coursebe with respect to individual traits, a man or woman being for thispurpose merely the sum of his or her traits. Reflection will show thatwith respect to any given trait there are three ways of mating: random, assortative and preferential. 

1. Random mating is described by J. Arthur Harris[95] as follows:

"Suppose a most highly refined socialistic community should set about toequalize as nearly as possible not only men's labor and theirrecompense, but the quality of their wives. It would never do to allowindividuals to select their own partners--superior cunning might resultin some having mates above the average desirability, which would besocially unfair!

"The method adopted would be to write the names of an equal number ofmen and women officially condemned to matrimony on cards, and to placethose for men in one lottery wheel and those for women in another. Thedrawing of a pair of cards, one from each wheel, would then replace the'present wasteful system' of 'competitive' courtship. If the cards werethoroughly shuffled and the drawings perfectly at random, we shouldexpect only chance resemblances between husband and wife for age, stature, eye and hair color, temper and so on; in the long run, a wifewould resemble her husband no more than the husband of some otherwoman. In this case, the mathematician can give us a coefficient ofresemblance, or of assortative mating, which we write as zero. The otherextreme would be the state of affairs in which men of a certain type(that is to say men differing from the general average by a definiteamount) always chose wives of the same type; the resemblance would thenbe perfect and the correlation, as we call it, would be expressed by acoefficient of 1. "

If all mating were at random, evolution would be a very slow process. But actual measurement of various traits in conjugal pairs shows thatmating is very rarely random. There is a conscious or unconsciousselection for certain traits, and this selection involves other traitsbecause of the general correlation of traits in an individual. Randommating, therefore, need not be taken into account by eugenists, who mustrather give their attention to one of the two forms of non-randommating, namely, assortative and preferential. 

2. If men who were above the average height always selected as brideswomen who were equally above the average height and short men selectedsimilarly, the coefficient of correlation between height in husbands andwives would be 1, and there would thus be perfect assortative mating. Ifonly one half of the men who differed from the average height alwaysmarried women who similarly differed and the other half married atrandom, there would be assortative mating for height, but it would notbe perfect: the coefficient would only be half as great as in the firstcase, or . 5. If on the other hand (as is indeed the popular idea) a tallman tended to marry a woman who was shorter than the average, thecoefficient of correlation would be less than 0; it would have somenegative value. 

Actual measurement shows that a man who exceeds the average height by agiven amount will most frequently marry a woman who exceeds the averageby a little more than one-fourth as much as her husband does. There isthus assortative mating for height, but it is far from perfect. Theactual coefficient given by Karl Pearson is . 28. In this case, then, theidea that "unlikes attract" is found to be the reverse of the truth. 

If other traits are measured, assortative mating will again be found. Whether it be eye color, hair color, general health, intelligence, longevity, insanity, or congenital deafness, exact measurements showthat a man and his wife, though not related by blood, actually resembleeach other as much as do uncle and niece, or first cousins. 

In some cases assortative mating is conscious, as when two congenitallydeaf persons are drawn together by their common affliction and mutualpossession of the sign language. But in the greater number of cases itis wholly unconscious. Certainly no one would suppose that a man selectshis wife deliberately because her eye color matches his own; much lesswould he select her on the basis of resemblance in longevity, which cannot be known until after both are dead. 

Sigmund Freud and Ernest Jones explain such selection by the suppositionthat a man's ideal of everything that is lovely in womankind is based onhis mother. During his childhood, her attributes stamp themselves on hismind as being the perfect attributes of the female sex; and when helater falls in love it is natural that the woman who most attracts himshould be one who resembles his mother. But as he, because of heredity, resembles his mother, there is thus a resemblance between husband andwife. Cases where there is no resemblance would, on this hypothesis, either be not love matches, or else be cases where the choice was madeby the woman, not the man. Proof of this hypothesis has not yet beenfurnished, but it may very well account for some part of the assortativemating which is so nearly universal. 

The eugenic significance of assortative mating is obvious. Marriage ofrepresentatives of two long-lived strains ensures that the offspringwill inherit more longevity than does the ordinary man. Marriage of twopersons from gifted families will endow the children with more than theordinary intellect. On the other hand, marriage of two members offeeble-minded strains (a very common form of assortative mating) resultsin the production of a new lot of feeble-minded children, while marriagecontracted between families marked by criminality or alcoholism meansthe perpetuation of such traits in an intensified form. For alcoholism, Charles Goring found the resemblance between husband and wife in thefollowing classes to be as follows:

 Very poor and destitute . 44 Prosperous poor . 58 Well-to-do . 69

The resemblance of husband and wife, in respect of possession of apolice record, he found to be . 20. Of course alcoholism and criminalityare not wholly due to heredity; the resemblance between man and wife ispartly a matter of social influences. But in any case the existence ofassortative mating for such traits is significant. 

3. Preferential mating occurs when certain classes of women arediscriminated against by the average man, or by men as a class; or _viceversa_. It is the form of sexual selection made prominent by CharlesDarwin, who brought it forward because natural selection, operatingsolely through a differential death-rate, seemed inadequate to accountfor many phases of evolution. By sexual selection he meant that anindividual of one sex, in choosing a mate, is led to select out ofseveral competitors the one who has some particular attribute in a highdegree. The selection may be conscious, and due to the exercise ofæsthetic taste, or it may be unconscious, due to the greater degree ofexcitation produced by the higher degree of some attribute. However theselection takes place, the individual so selected will have anopportunity to transmit his character, in the higher degree in which hepossesses it, to his descendants. In this way it was supposed by Darwinthat a large proportion of the ornamental characters of living creatureswere produced: the tail of the peacock, the mane of the lion, and eventhe gorgeous coloring of many insects and butterflies. In the earlyyears of Darwinism, the theory of sexual selection was pushed to whatnow seems an unjustifiable extent. Experiment has often failed todemonstrate any sexual selection, in species where speculation supposedit to exist. And even if sexual selection, conscious or unconscious, could be demonstrated in the lower animals, yet the small percentage ofunmated individuals indicates that its importance in evolution could notbe very great. [96]

[Illustration: HOW BEAUTY AIDS A GIRL'S CHANCE OF MARRIAGE

FIG. 32. --Graph showing the marriage rate of graduates of anormal school, correlated with their facial attractiveness as graded byestimates. The column of figures at the left-hand side shows thepercentage of girls who married. Of the prettiest girls (those graded 80or over), 70% married. As the less attractive girls are added to thechart, the marriage rate declines. Of the girls who graded around 50 onlooks, only about one-half married. In general, the prettier the girl, the greater the probability that she will not remain single. ]

In man, however, there is--nowadays at least--a considerable percentageof unmated individuals. The Census of 1910 shows that in the UnitedStates one-fourth of all the men between 25 and 44 years of age, andone-sixth of all the women, were unmarried. Many of the men, and asmaller number of the women, will still marry; yet at the end therewill remain a large number, particularly in the more highly educatedclasses, who die celibate. If these unmated individuals differ in anyimportant respect from the married part of the population, preferentialmating will be evident. 

[Illustration: INTELLIGENT GIRLS ARE MOST LIKELY TO MARRY

FIG. 33. --Graph showing the marriage-rate (on the same scale asin Fig. 32) of the graduates of a normal school, as correlated withtheir class standing. The girls who received the highest marks in theirstudies married in the largest numbers. It is evident that, on thewhole, girls who make a poor showing in their studies in such schools asthis are more likely to be life-long celibates than are the brightstudents. ]

At the extremes, there is no difficulty in seeing such mating. Certainmen and women are so defective, physically, mentally, or morally, as tobe unable to find mates. They may be idiots, or diseased, or lackingnormal sexuality, or wrongly educated. 

But to get any adequate statistical proof of preferential mating on abroad scale, has been found difficult. Two small but suggestive studiesmade by Miss Carrie F. Gilmore of the University of Pittsburgh areinteresting, though far from conclusive. She examined the records ofthe class of 1902, Southwestern State Normal School of Pennsylvania, tofind which of the girls had married. By means of photographs, and theopinions of disinterested judges, the facial appearance of all the girlsin the class was graded on a scale of 100, and the curve in Fig. 32plotted, which shows at a glance just what matrimonial advantage awoman's beauty gives her. In general, it may be said that the prettierthe girl, the better her chance of marriage. 

[Illustration: YEARS BETWEEN GRADUATION AND MARRIAGE

FIG. 34. --Curve showing period that elapsed between thegraduation of women at Washington Seminary (at the average age of 19years) and their marriage. It includes all the graduates of the classesof 1841 to 1900, status of 1913. ]

Miss Gilmore further worked out the marriage rate of these normal schoolgirls, on the basis of the marks they obtained in their class work, andfound the results plotted in Fig. 33. It is evident that the mostintelligent girls, measured by their class standing, were preferred aswives. 

[Illustration: THE EFFECT OF LATE MARRIAGES

FIG. 35. --Given a population divided in two equal parts, one ofwhich produces a new generation every 25 years and the other every33-1/3 years, the diagram shows that the former group will outnumber thelatter two to one, at the end of a century. The result illustrated isactually taking place, in various groups of the population of the UnitedStates. Largely for economic reasons, many superior people arepostponing the time of marriage. The diagram shows graphically how theyare losing ground, in comparison with other sections of the populationwhich marry only a few years earlier, on the average. It is assumed inthe diagram that the two groups contain equal numbers of the two sexes;that all persons in each group marry; and that each couple produces fourchildren. ]

It will be noted that these studies merely show that the brighter andprettier girls were preferred by men as a class. If the individual menwhom the girls married had been studied, it would probably have beenfound that the mating was also partly assortative. 

If the choice of a life partner is to be eugenic, random mating must beas nearly as possible eliminated, and assortative and preferentialmating for desirable traits must take place. 

The concern of the eugenist is, then, (1) to see that young people havethe best ideals, and (2) to see that their matings are actually guidedby these ideals, instead of by caprice and passion alone. 

1. In discussing ideals, we shall ask (a) what are the present idealsgoverning sexual selection in the United States; (b) is itpsychologically possible to change them; (c) is it desirable that theybe changed, and if so, in what ways?

(a) There are several studies which throw light on the current ideals. _Physical Culture_ magazine lately invited its women readers to send inthe specifications of an ideal husband, and the results are worthconsidering because the readers of that publication are probably lessswayed by purely conventional ideas than are most accessible groups ofwomen whom one might question. The ideal husband was held by these womento be made up of the following qualities in the proportions given:

 Per cent. 

 Health 20 Financial success 19 Paternity 18 Appearance 11 Disposition 8 Education 8 Character 6 Housekeeping 7 Dress 3 --- 100

Without laying weight on the exact figures, and recognizing that eachwoman may have defined the qualities differently, yet one must admitaside from a low concern for mental ability that this is a fairly goodeugenic specification. Appearance, it is stated, meant not so muchfacial beauty as intelligent expression and manly form. Financialsuccess is correlated with intelligence and efficiency, and probably isnot rated too high. The importance attached to paternity--which, it isexplained, means a clean sex life as well as interest in children--isworth noticing. 

For comparison there is another census of the preferences of 115 youngwomen at Brigham Young College, Logan, Utah. This is a "Mormon"institution and the students, mostly farmers' daughters, are probablyexpressing ideals which have been very little affected by thedemoralizing influences of modern city life. The editor of the collegepaper relates that:

 Eighty-six per cent of the girls specifically stated that the young man must be morally pure; 14% did not specifically state. 

 Ninety-nine per cent specifically stated that he must be mentally and physically strong. 

 Ninety-three per cent stated that he must absolutely not smoke, chew, or drink; 7% did not state. 

 Twenty per cent named an occupation they would like the young man to follow, and these fell into three different classes, that of farmer, doctor and business. 

 Four and seven-tenths per cent of the 20% named farmer; 2. 7% named doctor, and 1. 7% named business man; 80% did not state any profession. 

 Thirty-three and one-third per cent specifically stated that he must be ambitious; 66-2/3% did not state. 

 Eight per cent stated specifically that he must have high ideals. 

 Fifty-two per cent demanded that he be of the same religious conviction; 48% said nothing about religion. 

 Seventy-two per cent said nothing regarding money matters; 28% stated what his financial condition must be, but none named a specific amount. One-half of the 28% stated that he must be rich, and three-fourths of these were under twenty years of age; the other half of the 28% said that he must have a moderate income and two-thirds of these were under twenty years of age. 

 Forty-five per cent stated that the young man must be taller than they; 55% did not state. 

 Twenty per cent stated that the young man must be older, and from two to eight years older; 80% did not state. 

 Fifty per cent stated that he must have a good education; one-fourth of the 50% stated that he must have a college education; 95% of these were under twenty-one years of age; 50% did not state his intellectual attainments. 

 Ninety-one per cent of all the ideals handed in were written by persons under twenty years of age; the other 8-1/2% were over twenty years of age. 

_Physical Culture_, on another occasion, invited its male readers toexpress their requirements of an ideal wife. The proportions of thevarious elements desired are given as follows:

 Per cent

 Health 23 "Looks" 14 Housekeeping 12 Disposition 11 Maternity 11 Education 10 Management 7 Dress 7 Character 5 --- 100

One might feel some surprise at the low valuation placed on "character, "but it is really covered by other points. On the whole, one can not bedissatisfied with these specifications aside from its slight concernabout mental ability. 

Such wholesome ideals are probably rather widespread in the lesssophisticated part of the population. In other strata, social andfinancial criteria of selection hold much importance. As a familyascends in economic position, its standards of sexual selection arelikely to change. And in large sections of the population, there is afluctuation in the standards from generation to generation. There isreason to suspect that the standards of sexual selection among educatedyoung women in the United States to-day are higher than they were aquarter of a century, or even a decade, ago. They are demanding a higherdegree of physical fitness and morality in their suitors. Men, in turn, are beginning to demand that the girls they marry shall be fitted forthe duties of home-maker, wife and mother, --qualifications which wereessential in the colonial period but little insisted on in the immediatepast. 

(b) It is evident, then, that the standards of sexual selection dochange; there is therefore reason to suppose that they can change stillfurther. This is an important point, for it is often alleged as anobjection to eugenics that human affections are capricious and can notbe influenced by rational considerations. Such an objection will beseen, on reflection, to be ill-founded. 

As to the extent of change possible, the psychologist must have thefinal word. The ingenious Mr. Diffloth, [97] who reduced love to a seriesof algebraical formulæ and geometrical curves, and proposed that everyyoung man should find a girl whose curve was congruent to his own, andat once lead her to the altar, is not likely to gain many adherents. Butthe psychologist declares without hesitation that it is possible toinfluence the course of love in its earlier, though rarely in its later, stages. Francis Galton pointed this out with his usual clearness, showing that in the past the "incidence" of love, to borrow a technicalterm, had been frequently and sometimes narrowly limited by custom--bythose unwritten laws which are sometimes as effective as the writtenones. Monogamy, endogamy, exogamy, Australian marriages, tabu, prohibited degrees and sacerdotal celibacy all furnished him withhistorical arguments to show that society could bring about almost anyrestriction it chose; and a glance around at the present day will showthat the barriers set up by religion, race and social position arefrequently of almost prohibitive effect. 

There is, therefore, from a psychological point of view, no reason whythe ideals of eugenics should not become a part of the mores orunwritten laws of the race, and why the selection of life partnersshould not be unconsciously influenced to a very large extent by them. As a necessary preliminary to such a condition, intelligent people mustcultivate the attitude of conscious selection, and get away from thecrude, fatalistic viewpoint which is to-day so widespread, and which isexploited _ad nauseam_ on the stage and in fiction. It must beremembered that there are two well-marked stages preceding a betrothal:the first is that of mere attraction, when reason is still operative, and the second is that of actual love, when reason is relegated to thebackground. During the later stage, it is notorious that good counsel isof little avail, but during the preliminary period direction of theaffections is still possible, not only by active interference of friendsor relatives, but much more easily and usefully by the tremendousinfluence of the mores. 

Eugenic mores will exist only when many intelligent people become soconvinced of the ethical value of eugenics that that conviction sinksinto their subconscious minds. The general eugenics campaign can beexpected to bring that result about in due time. Care must be taken toprevent highly conscientious people from being too critical, and lettinga trivial defect outweigh a large number of good qualities. Moreover, changes in the standards of sexual selection should not be too rapid, asthat results in the permanent celibacy of some excellent buthyper-critical individuals. The ideal is an advance of standards asrapidly as will yet keep all the superior persons married. This isaccomplished if all superior individuals marry as well as possible, yetwith advancing years gradually reduce the standard so that celibacy maynot result. 

Having decided that there is room for improvement in the standards ofsexual selection, and that such improvement is psychologically feasible, we come to point (c): in what particular ways is this improvementneeded? Any discussion of this large subject must necessarily be onlysuggestive, not exhaustive. 

If sexual selection is to be taken seriously, it is imperative thatthere be some improvement in the general attitude of public sentimenttoward love itself. It is difficult for the student to acquire soundknowledge[98] of the normal manifestations of love: the psychology ofsex has been studied too largely from the abnormal and pathologicalside; while the popular idea is based too much on fiction and dramawhich emphasize the high lights and make love solely an affair ofemotion. We are not arguing for a rationalization of love, for the termsare almost contradictory; but we believe that more common sense couldprofitably be used in considering the subject. 

If a typical "love affair" be examined, it is found that propinquity anda common basis for sympathy in some probably trivial matter lead to thedevelopment of the sex instinct; the parental instinct begins to makeitself felt, particularly among women; the instincts of curiosity, acquisitiveness, and various others play their part, and there thenappears a well-developed case of "love. " Such love may satisfy a purelybiological definition, but it is incomplete. Love that is worthy of thename must be a function of the will as well as of the emotions. Theremust be a feeling on the part of each which finds strong satisfaction inservice rendered to the other. If the existence of this constituent oflove could be more widely recognized and watched for, it would probablyprevent many a sensible young man or woman from being stampeded into amarriage of passion, where the real community of interest is slight;[99]and sexual selection would be improved in a way that would countimmensely for the future of the race. Moreover, there would be much morereal love in the world. Eugenics, as Havelock Ellis has well pointedout, [100] is not plotting against love but against those influences thatdo violence to love, particularly: (1) reckless yielding to meremomentary desire; and (2) still more fatal influences of wealth andposition and worldly convenience which give a factitious value topersons who would never appear attractive partners in life were love andeugenic ideals left to go hand in hand. 

"The eugenic ideal, " Dr. Ellis foresees, "will have to struggle with thecriminal and still more resolutely with the rich; it will have fewserious quarrels with normal and well-constituted lovers. "

The point is an important one. To "rationalize" marriage, is out of thequestion. Marriage must be mainly a matter of the emotions; but it isimportant that the emotions be exerted in the right direction. Theeugenist seeks to remove the obstacles that are now driving theemotions into wrong channels. If the emotions can only be headed in theright direction, then the more emotions the better, for they are thesource of energy which are responsible for almost everything that isdone in the world. 

There is in the world plenty of that love which is a matter of mutualservice and of emotions unswayed by any petty or sordid influences; butit ought not only to be common, it ought to be universal. It is notlikely to be in the present century; but at least, thinking people canconsciously adopt an attitude of respect toward love, and consciouslyabandon as far as possible the attitude of jocular cynicism with whichthey too often treat it, --an attitude which is reflected so disgustinglyin current vaudeville and musical comedy. 

It is the custom to smile at the extravagantly romantic idea of lovewhich the boarding-school girl holds; but unrealizable as it may be, hers is a nobler conception than that which the majority of adultsvoice. Very properly, one does not care to make one's deepest feelingspublic; but if such subjects as love and motherhood can not be discussednaturally and without affectation, they ought to be left alone. Ifintelligent men and women will set the example, this attitude of mindwill spread, and cultured families at least will rid themselves of suchdeplorable habits as that of plaguing children, not yet out of thenursery, about their "sweethearts. "

No sane man would deny the desirability of beauty in a wife, particularly when it is remembered that beauty, especially as determinedby good complexion, good teeth and medium weight, is correlated withgood health in some degree, and likewise with intelligence. Nevertheless, we are strongly of the opinion that beauty of face is nowtoo highly valued, as a standard of sexual selection. [101]

Good health in a mate is a qualification which any sensible man or womanwill require, and for which a "marriage certificate" is in most casesquite unnecessary. [102] What other physical standard is there thatshould be given weight?

Alexander Graham Bell has lately been emphasizing the importance oflongevity in this connection, and in our judgment he has thereby openedup a very fruitful field for education. It goes without saying thatanyone would prefer to marry a partner with a good constitution. "Howcan we find a test of a good, sound constitution?" Dr. Bell asked in arecent lecture. "I think we could find it in the duration of life in afamily. Take a family in which a large proportion live to old age withunimpaired faculties. There you know is a good constitution in aninheritable form. On the other hand, you will find a family in which alarge proportion die at birth and in which there are relatively fewpeople who live to extreme old age. There has developed an hereditaryweakness of constitution. Longevity is a guide to constitution. " Notonly does it show that one's vital organs are in good running order, butit is probably the only means now available of indicating strains whichare resistant to zymotic disease. Early death is not necessarily anevidence of physical weakness; but long life is a pretty good proof ofconstitutional strength. 

Dr. Bell has elsewhere called attention to the fact that, longevitybeing a characteristic which is universally considered creditable in afamily, there is no tendency on the part of families to conceal itsexistence, as there is in the case of unfavorable characters--cancer, tuberculosis, insanity, and the like. This gives it a great advantage asa criterion for sexual selection, since there will be little difficultyin finding whether or not the ancestors of a young man or woman werelong-lived. [103]

Karl Pearson and his associates have shown that there is a tendency toassortative mating for longevity: that people from long-lived stocksactually do marry people from similar stocks, more frequently than wouldbe the case if the matings were at random. An increase of this tendencywould be eugenically desirable. [104] So much for the physique. 

Though eugenics is popularly supposed to be concerned almost wholly withthe physical, properly it gives most attention to mental traits, recognizing that these are the ones which most frequently make racesstand or fall, and that attention to the physique is worth while mainlyto furnish a sound body in which the sound mind may function. Now menand women may excel mentally in very many different ways, and eugenics, which seeks not to produce a uniform good type, but excellence in alldesirable types, is not concerned to pick out any particular sort ofmental superiority and exalt it as a standard for sexual selection. Butthe tendency, shown in Miss Gilmore's study, for men to prefer the moreintelligent girls in secondary schools, is gratifying to the eugenist, since high mental endowment is principally a matter of heredity. From aeugenic point of view it would be well could such intellectualaccomplishments weigh even more heavily with the average young man, andless weight be put on such superficial characteristics as "flashiness, "ability to use the latest slang freely, and other "smart" traits whichare usually considered attractive in a girl, but which have no realvalue and soon become tiresome. They are not wholly bad in themselves, but certainly should not influence a young man very seriously in hischoice of a wife, nor a young woman in her choice of a husband. It is tobe feared that such standards are largely promoted by the stage, thepopular song, and popular fiction. 

In a sense, the education which a young woman has received is noconcern of the eugenist, since it can not be transmitted to herchildren. Yet when, as often happens, children die because their motherwas not properly trained to bring them up, this feature of educationdoes become a concern of eugenics. Young men are more and more coming todemand that their wives know something about woman's work, and thisdemand must not only increase, but must be adequately met. Woman'seducation is treated in more detail in another chapter. 

It is proper to point out here, however, that in many cases woman'seducation gives no great opportunity to judge of her real intellectualability. Her natural endowment in this respect should be judged also bythat of her sisters, brothers, parents, uncles, aunts and grandparents. If a girl comes of an intellectual ancestry, it is likely that sheherself will carry such traits germinally, even if she has never had anopportunity to develop them. She can, then, pass them on to her ownchildren. Francis Galton long ago pointed out the good results of acustom obtaining in Germany, whereby college professors tended to marrythe daughters or sisters of college professors. A tendency for men ofscience to marry women of scientific attainments or training is markedamong biologists, at least, in the United States; and the number ofcases in which musicians intermarry is striking. Such assortative matingmeans that the offspring will usually be well endowed with a talent. 

Finally, young people should be taught a greater appreciation of thelasting qualities of comradeship, for which the purely emotional factorsthat make up mere sexual attraction are far from offering a satisfactorysubstitute. 

It will not be out of place here to point out that a change in thesocial valuation of reputability and honor is greatly needed for thebetter working of sexual selection. The conspicuous waste and leisurethat Thorstein Veblen points out as the chief criterion of reputabilityat present have a dubious relation to high mental or moral endowment, far less than has wealth. There is much left to be done to achieve ameritorious distribution of wealth. The fact that the insignia ofsuccess are too often awarded to trickery, callousness and luck does notargue for the abolition altogether of the financial success element inreputability, in favor of a "dead level" of equality such as wouldresult from the application of certain communistic ideals. Distinctions, rightly awarded, are an aid, not a hindrance to sexual selection, andeffort should be directed, from the eugenic point of view, no less tothe proper recognition of true superiority than to the elimination ofunjustified differentiations of reputability. 

This leads to the consideration of moral standards, and here againdetails are complex but the broad outlines clear. It seems probable thatmorality is to a considerable extent a matter of heredity, and the careof the eugenist should be to work with every force that makes for aclear understanding of the moral factors of the world, and to workagainst every force that tends to confuse the issues. When the issue isclear cut, most people will by instinct tend to marry into moral ratherthan immoral stocks. 

True quality, then, should be emphasized at the expense of falsestandards. Money, social status, family alignment, though indicators tosome degree, must not be taken too much at their face value. Emphasis isto be placed on real merit as shown by achievement, or on descent fromthe meritoriously eminent, whether or not such eminence has led to theaccumulation of a family fortune and inclusion in an exclusive socialset. In this respect, it is important that the value of a high averageof ancestry should be realized. A single case of eminence in a pedigreeshould not weigh too heavily. When it is remembered that statisticallyone grandparent counts for less than one-sixteenth in the heredity of anindividual, it will be obvious that the individual whose sole claim toconsideration is a distinguished grandfather, is not necessarily amatrimonial prize. A general high level of morality and mentality in afamily is much more advantageous, from the eugenic point of view, thanone "lion" several generations back. 

While we desire very strongly to emphasize the importance of breedingand the great value of a good ancestry, it is only fair to utter a wordof warning in this connection. Good ancestry does not _necessarily_ makea man or woman a desirable partner. What stockmen know as the "pure-bredscrub" is a recognized evil in animal breeding, and not altogetherabsent from human society. Due to any one or more of a number of causes, it is possible for a germinal degenerate to appear in a good family;discrimination should certainly be made against such an individual. Furthermore, it is possible that there occasionally arises what may becalled a mutant of very desirable character from a eugenic point ofview. Furthermore a stock in general below mediocrity will occasionally, due to some fortuitous but fortunate combination of traits, give rise toan individual of marked ability or even eminence, who will be able totransmit in some degree that valuable new combination of traits to hisor her own progeny. Persons of this character are to be regarded byeugenists as distinctly desirable husbands or wives. 

The desirability of selecting a wife (or husband) from a family of morethan one or two children was emphasized by Benjamin Franklin, and isalso one of the time-honored traditions of the Arabs, who have alwayslooked at eugenics in a very practical, if somewhat cold-blooded way. Ithas two advantages: in the first place, one can get a better idea ofwhat the individual really is, by examining sisters and brothers; and inthe second place, there will be less danger of a childless marriage, since it is already proved that the individual comes of a fertile stock. Francis Galton showed clearly the havoc wrought in the English peerage, by marriages with heiresses (an heiress there being nearly always anonly child). Such women were childless in a much larger proportion thanordinary women. 

"Marrying a man to reform him" is a speculation in which many women haveindulged and usually--it may be said without fear of contradiction--withunfortunate results. It is always likely that she will fail to reformhim; it is certain that she can not reform his germ-plasm. Psychologistsagree that the character of a man or woman undergoes little radicalchange after the age of 25; and the eugenist knows that it is largelydetermined, _potentially_, when the individual is born. It is, therefore, in most cases the height of folly to select a partner withany marked undesirable trait, with the idea that it will change after afew years. 

All these suggestions have in general been directed at the young man orwoman, but it is admitted that if they reach their target at all, it islikely to be by an indirect route. No rules or devices can take theplace, in influencing sexual selection, of that lofty and rational idealof marriage which must be brought about by the uplifting of publicopinion. It is difficult to bring under the control of reason a subjectthat has so long been left to caprice and impulse; yet much canunquestionably be done, in an age of growing social responsibility, toput marriage in a truer perspective. Much is already being done, but notin every case of change is the future biological welfare of the racesufficiently borne in mind. The interests of the individual are toooften regarded to the exclusion of posterity. The eugenist would notsacrifice the individual, but he would add the welfare of posterity tothat of the individual, when the standards of sexual selection are beingfixed. It is only necessary to make the young person remember that hewill marry, not merely an individual, but a family; and that not onlyhis own happiness but to some extent the quality of future generationsis being determined by his choice. 

We must have (1) the proper ideals of mating but (2) these ideals mustbe realized. It is known that many young people have the highest kind ofideals of sexual selection, and find themselves quite unable to act onthem. The college woman may have a definite idea of the kind of husbandshe wants; but if he never seeks her, she often dies celibate. The youngman of science may have an ideal bride in his mind, but if he neverfinds her, he may finally marry his landlady's daughter. Opportunity forsexual selection must be given, as well as suitable standards; and whileeducation is perhaps improving the standards each year, it is to befeared that modern social conditions, especially in the large cities, tend steadily to decrease the opportunity. 

Statistical evidence, as well as common observation, indicates that theupper classes have a much wider range of choice in marriage than thelower classes. The figures given by Karl Pearson for the degree ofresemblance between husband and wife with regard to phthisis are soremarkable as to be worth quoting in this connection:

 All poor +. 01 Prosperous poor +. 16 Middle classes +. 24 Professional classes +. 28

It can hardly be argued that infection between husband and wife wouldvary like this, even if infection, in general, could be proved. Moreover, the least resemblance is among the poor, where infectionshould be greatest. Professor Pearson thinks, as seems reasonable, thatthis series of figures indicates principally assortative mating, andshows that among the poor there is less choice, the selection of ahusband or wife being more largely due to propinquity or some other moreor less random factor. With a rise in the social scale, opportunity forchoice of one from a number of possible mates becomes greater andgreater; the tendency for an unconscious selection of likeness then hasa chance to appear, as the coefficients graphically show. 

If such a class as the peerage of Great Britain be considered, it isevident that the range of choice in marriage is almost unlimited. Thereare few girls who can resist the glamor of a title. The hereditary peercan therefore marry almost anyone he likes and if he does not marry oneof his own class he can select and (until recently) usually has selectedthe daughter of some man who by distinguished ability has risen from alower social or financial position. Thus the hereditary nobilities ofEurope have been able to maintain themselves; and a similar process isundoubtedly taking place among the idle rich who occupy an analogousposition in the United States. 

But it is the desire of eugenics to raise the average ability of thewhole population, as well as to encourage the production of leaders. Tofulfill this desire, it is obvious that one of the necessary means is toextend to all desirable classes that range of choice which is nowpossessed only by those near the top of the social ladder. It is hardlynecessary to urge young people to widen the range of theiracquaintance, for they will do it without urging if the opportunity ispresented to them. It is highly necessary for parents, and fororganizations and municipalities, deliberately to seek to further everymeans which will bring unmarried young people together under propersupervision. Social workers have already perceived the need ofinstitutional as well as municipal action on these lines, although theyhave not in every case recognized the eugenic aspect, and from theirefforts it is probable that suitable institutions, such as socialcenters and recreation piers, and municipal dance halls, will be greatlymultiplied. 

It is an encouraging sign to see such items as this from a Washingtonnewspaper: "The Modern Dancing Club of the Margaret Wilson Social Centergave a masquerade ball at the Grover Cleveland school last night, whichwas attended by about 100 couples. " Still more promising are suchinstitutions as the self-supporting Inkowa camp for young women, atGreenwood Lake, N. J. , conducted by a committee of which Miss Anne Morganis president, and directed by Miss Grace Parker. Near it is a similarcamp, Kechuka, for young men, and during the summer both are full ofyoung people from New York City. A newspaper account says:

 There is no charity, no philanthropy, no subsidy connected with Camp Inkowa. Its members are successful business women, who earn from $15 to $25 a week. Board in the camp is $9 a week. So every girl who goes there for a vacation has the comfortable feeling that she pays her way fully. This rate includes all the activities of camp life. 

 Architects, doctors, lawyers, bookkeepers, bank clerks, young business men of many kinds are the guests of Kechuka. Next week 28 young men from the National City Bank will begin their vacations there. 

 Inkowa includes young women teachers, stenographers, librarians, private secretaries and girls doing clerical work for insurance companies and other similar business institutions. 

 Saturday and Sunday are "at home" days at Camp Inkowa and the young men from Kechuka may come to call on the Inkowa girls, participate with them in the day's "hike" or go on the moonlight cruise around the lake if there happens to be one. 

 "Young men and women need clean, healthy association with each other, " Miss Parker told me yesterday, when I spent the day at Camp Inkowa. "Social workers in New York city ask me sometimes, 'How dare you put young men and women in camps so near to each other?'

 "How dare you not do it? No plan of recreation or out-of-door life which does not include the healthy association of men and woman can be a success. Young men and women need each other's society. And if you get the right kind they won't abuse their freedom. "

The churches have been important instruments in this connection, and theworth of their services can hardly be over-estimated, as they tend tobring together young people of similar tastes and, in general, of asuperior character. Such organizations as the Young People's Society ofChristian Endeavor serve the eugenic end in a satisfactory way; it isalmost the unanimous opinion of competent observers that matches "madein the church" turn out well. Some idea of the importance of thechurches may be gathered from a census which F. O. George of theUniversity of Pittsburgh made of 75 married couples of his acquaintance, asking them where they first met each other. The answers were:

 Church 32 School (only 3 at college) 19 Private home 17 Dance 7 -- 75

These results need not be thought typical of more than a small part ofthe country's population, yet they show how far-reaching the influenceof the church may be on sexual selection. Quite apart from altruisticmotives, the churches might well encourage social affairs where theyoung people could meet, because to do so is one of the surest way ofperpetuating the church. 

An increase in the number of non-sectarian bisexual societies, clubsand similar organizations, and a diminution of the number of thoselimited to men or to women alone is greatly to be desired. It isdoubtful whether the Y. M. C. A. And Y. W. C. A. Are, while separated, as useful to society as they might be. Each of them tends to create acelibate community, where the chance for meeting possible mates ispractically nil. The men's organization has made, so far as we areaware, little organized attempt to meet this problem. The women'sorganization in some cities has made the attempt, but apparently withindifferent success. The idea of a merger of the two organizations withreasonable differentiation as well would probably meet with littleapproval from their directors just now, but is worth considering as ananswer to the urgent problem of providing social contacts for youngpeople in large cities. 

It is encouraging that thoughtful people in all walks of life arebeginning to realize the seriousness of this problem of contacts for theyoung, and the necessity of finding some solution. The novelist MissMaria Thompson Davies of Sweetbriar Farm, Madison, Tenn. , is quoted in arecent newspaper interview as saying:

"I'm a Wellesley woman, but one reason why I'm dead against women'scolleges is because they shut girls up with women, at the mostimpressionable period of the girls' lives, when they should be meetingmembers of the opposite sex continually, learning to tolerate theirlittle weaknesses and getting ready to marry them. "

"The city should make arrangements to chaperon the meetings of its youngcitizens. There ought to be municipal gathering places where, under thesupervision of tactful, warm-hearted women--themselves successfullymarried--girls and young men might get introduced to each other andmight get acquainted. "

If it is thought that the time has not yet come for such municipalaction, there is certainly plenty of opportunity for action by theparents, relatives and friends of young persons. The match-makingproclivities of some mothers are matters of current jest: where subtlyand wisely done they might better be taken seriously and held up asexamples worthy of imitation. Formal "full dress" social functions foryoung people, where acquaintance is likely to be too perfunctory, shouldbe discouraged, and should give place to informal dances, beach parties, house parties and the like, where boys and girls will have a chance tocome to know each other, and, at the proper age, to fall in love. Letsocial stratification be not too rigid, yet maintained on the basis ofintrinsic worth rather than solely on financial or social position. Ifparents will make it a matter of concern to give their boys and girls asmany desirable acquaintances of the opposite sex as possible, and togive them opportunity for ripening these acquaintances, the problem ofthe improvement of sexual selection will be greatly helped. Young peoplefrom homes where such social advantages can not be given, or in largecities where home life is for most of them non-existent, must become theconcern of the municipality, the churches, and every institution andorganization that has the welfare of the community and the race atheart. 

To sum up this chapter, we have pointed out the importance of sexualselection, and shown that its eugenic action depends on young peoplehaving the proper ideals, and being able to live up to these ideals. Eugenists have in the past devoted themselves perhaps too exclusively tothe inculcation of sound ideals, without giving adequate attention tothe possibility of these high standards being acted upon. One of thegreatest problems confronting eugenics is that of giving young people ofmarriageable age a greater range of choice. Much could be done byorganized action; but it is one of the hopeful features of the problemthat it can be handled in large part by intelligent individual action. If older people would make a conscious effort to help young people widentheir circles of suitable acquaintances, they would make a valuablecontribution to race betterment. 

CHAPTER XII

INCREASING THE MARRIAGE RATE OF THE SUPERIOR

No race can long survive unless it conforms to the principles ofeugenics, and indisputably the chief requirement for race survival isthat the superior part of the race should equal or surpass the inferiorpart in fecundity. 

It follows that the superior members of the community must marry, and ata reasonably early age. If in the best elements of the communitycelibacy increases, or if marriage is postponed far into thereproductive period, the racial contribution of the superior willnecessarily fall, and after a few generations the race will consistmainly of the descendants of inferior people, its eugenic average beingthereby much lowered. 

In a survey of vital statistics, to ascertain whether marriages are asfrequent and as early as national welfare requires, the eugenist findsat first no particularly alarming figures. 

In France, to whose vital statistics one naturally turns whenever racesuicide is suggested (and usually with a holier-than-thou attitude whichthe Frenchman might much more correctly assume toward America), itappears that there has been a very slight decrease in the proportion ofpersons under 20 who are married, but that between the ages of 20 and 30the proportion of those married has risen during recent years. The samecondition exists all over Europe, according to F. H. Hankins, [105]except in England and Scotland. "Moreover on the whole marriages takeplace earlier in France than in England, Germany or America. Nor is thisall, for a larger proportion of the French population is married than inany of these countries. Thus the birth-rate in France has continued tofall in spite of those very conditions which should have sustained itor even caused it to increase. "

In America, conditions are not dissimilar. Although it is generallybelieved that young persons are marrying at a later age than they didformerly, the census figures show that for the population as a whole thereverse is the case. Marriages are not only more numerous, but arecontracted at earlier ages than they were a quarter of a century ago. Comparison of census returns for 1890, 1900 and 1910, reveals that forboth sexes the percentage of married has steadily increased and thepercentage listed as single has as steadily decreased. The censusclassifies young men, for this purpose, in three age-groups: 15-19, 20-24, and 25-34; and in every one of these groups, a larger proportionwas married in 1910 than in 1900 or 1890. Conditions are the same forwomen. So far as the United States as a whole is concerned, therefore, marriage is neither being avoided altogether, nor postponed unduly, --infact, conditions in both respects seem to be improving every year. 

So far the findings should gratify every eugenist. But the censusreturns permit further analysis of the figures. They classify thepopulation under four headings: Native White of Native Parentage, NativeWhite of Foreign Parentage or of Mixed Parentage, Foreign-born White, and Negro. Except among Foreign-born Whites, who are standing still, thereturns for 1910 show that in every one of these groups the marriagerate has steadily increased during the past three decades; and that theage of marriage is steadily declining in all groups during the sameperiod, with a slight irregularity of no real importance in thestatistics for foreign-born males. 

On the whole, then, the marriage statistics of the United States arereassuring. Even if examination is limited to the Native Whites ofNative Parentage, who are probably of greater eugenic worth, as a group, than any of the other three, the marriage rate is found to be moving inthe right direction. 

But going a step farther, one finds that within this group there aregreat irregularities, which do not appear when the group is consideredas a whole. And these irregularities are of a nature to give theeugenist grave concern. 

If one sought, for example, to find a group of women distinctly superiorto the average, he might safely take the college graduates. Theirsuperior quality as a class lies in the facts that:

(a) They have survived the weeding-out process of grammar and highschool, and the repeated elimination by examinations in college. 

(b) They have persevered, after those with less mental ability havegrown tired of the strain and have voluntarily dropped out. 

(c) Some have even forced their way to college against great obstacles, because attracted by the opportunities it offers them for mentalactivity. 

(d) Some have gone to college because their excellence has beendiscovered by teachers or others who have strongly urged it. 

All these attributes can not be merely acquired, but must be in somedegree inherent. Furthermore, these girls are not only superior inthemselves, but are ordinarily from superior parents, because

(a) Their parents have in most cases coöperated by desiring this highereducation for their daughters. 

(b) The parents have in most cases had sufficient economic efficiency tobe able to afford a college course for their daughters. 

Therefore, although the number of college women in the United States isnot great, their value eugenically is wholly disproportionate to theirnumbers. If marriage within such a selected class as this is beingavoided, or greatly postponed, the eugenist can not help feelingconcerned. 

And the first glance at the statistics gives adequate ground foruneasiness. Take the figures for Wellesley College, for instance:

 _Status in fall of 1912_ _Graduates_ _All students_

 Per cent married (graduated 1879-1888) 55% 60% Per cent married in: 10 years from graduation 35% 37% 20 years from graduation 48% 49%

From a racial standpoint, the significant marriage rate of any group ofwomen is the percentage that have married before the end of thechild-bearing period. Classes graduating later than 1888 are thereforenot included, and the record shows the marital status in the fall of1912. In compiling these data deceased members and the few lost fromrecord are of course omitted. 

In the foregoing study care was taken to distinguish as to when themarriage took place. Obviously marriages with the women at 45 or overbeing sterile must not be counted where it is the fecundity of themarriage that is being studied. The reader is warned therefore to makeany necessary correction for this factor in the studies to follow insome of which unfortunately care has not been taken to make thenecessary distinction. 

Turn to Mount Holyoke College, the oldest of the great institutions forthe higher education of women in this country. Professor Amy Hewes hascollected the following data:

 _Decade of graduation Per cent remaining single Per cent marrying_

 1842-1849 14. 6 85. 4 1850-1859 24. 5 75. 5 1860-1869 39. 1 60. 9 1870-1879 40. 6 59. 4 1880-1889 42. 4 57. 6 1890-1892 50. 0 50. 0

Bryn Mawr College, between 1888 and 1900, graduated 376 girls, of whom165, or 43. 9%, had married up to January 1, 1913. 

Studying the Vassar College graduates between 1867 and 1892, Robert J. Sprague found that 509 of the total of 959 had married, leaving 47%celibate. Adding the classes up to 1900, it was found that less thanhalf of the total number of graduates of the institution had married. 

Remembering what a selected group of young women go to college, theeugenist can hardly help suspecting that the women's colleges of theUnited States, as at present conducted, are from his point of view doinggreat harm to the race. This suspicion becomes a certainty, as oneinvestigation after another shows the same results. Statistics compiledon marriages among college women (1901) showed that:

 45% of college women marry before the age of 40. 90% of all United States women marry before the age of 40. 96% of Arkansas women marry before the age of 40. 80% of Massachusetts women marry before the age of 40. 

In Massachusetts, it is further to be noted, 30% of all women havemarried at the age when college women are just graduating. 

It has, moreover, been demonstrated that the women who belong to PhiBeta Kappa and other honor societies, and therefore represent a secondselection from an already selected class, have a lower marriage ratethan college women in general. 

In reply to such facts, the eugenist is often told that the collegegraduates marry as often and as early as the other members of theirfamilies. We are comparing conditions that can not properly be compared, we are informed, when we match the college woman's marriage rate withthat of a non-college woman who comes from a lower level of society. 

But the facts will not bear out this apology. Miss M. R. Smith'sstatistics[106] from the data of the Collegiate Alumnæ show the truesituation. The average age at marriage was found to be for

 _Years_ College women 26. 3 Their sisters 24. 2 Their cousins 24. 7 Their friends 24. 2

and the age distribution of those married was as follows:

 _Equivalent_ _Percentage of married_ _College_ _non-college_ Under 23 years 8. 6 30. 1 23-32 years 83. 2 64. 9 33 and over 8. 0 5. 0

[Illustration: Wellesley Graduates and Non-graduates

FIG. 36. --Graph showing at a glance the record of the studentbody in regard to marriage and birth rates, during the years indicated. Statistics for the latest years have not been compiled, because it isobvious that girls who graduated during the last fifteen years stillhave a chance to marry and become mothers. ]

If these differences did not bring about any change in the birth-rate, they could be neglected. A slight sacrifice might even be made, for thesake of having mothers better prepared. But taken in connection with thebirth-rate figures which we shall present in the next chapter, they forma serious indictment against the women's colleges of the United States. 

Such conditions are not wholly confined to women's colleges, or to anyone geographical area. Miss Helen D. Murphey has compiled the statisticsfor Washington Seminary, in Washington, Pennsylvania, a secondary schoolfor women, founded in 1837. The marriage rate among the graduates ofthis institution has steadily declined, as is shown in the followingtable where the records are considered by decades:

 '45 '55 '65 '75 '85 '95 '00 Per cent. Married 78 74 67 72 59 57 55 Per cent. Who have gone into 20 13 12 19 30 30 39 other occupations than home-making

A graph, plotted to show how soon after graduation these girls havemarried, demonstrates that the greatest number of them wed five or sixyears after receiving their diplomas, but that the number of thosemarrying 10 years afterward is not very much less than that of the girlswho become brides in the first or second year after graduation (see Fig. 35). 

C. S. Castle's investigation[107] of the ages at which eminent women ofvarious periods have married, is interesting in this connection, inspite of the small number of individuals with which it deals:

 _Century_ _Average age_ _Range_ _Number of cases_ 12 16. 2 8-30 5 13 16. 6 12-29 5 14 13. 8 6-18 11 15 17. 6 13-26 20 16 21. 7 12-50 28 17 20. 0 13-43 30 18 23. 1 13-53 127 19 26. 2 15-67 189

Women in coeducational colleges, particularly the great universities ofthe west, can not be compared without corrections with the women of theeastern separate colleges, because they represent different family andenvironmental selection. Their record none the less deserves carefulstudy. Miss Shinn[108] calculated the marriage rate of college women asfollows, assuming graduation at the age of 22:

 _Women over_ _Coeducated_ _Separate_ 25 38. 1 29. 6 30 49. 1 40. 1 35 53. 6 46. 6 40 56. 9 51. 8

She has shown that only a part of this discrepancy is attributable tothe geographic difference, some of it is the effect of lack ofco-education. Some of it is also attributable to the type of education. 

The marriage rate of women graduates of Iowa State College[109] is asfollows:

 1872-81 95. 8 1882-91 62. 5 1892-01 71. 2 1902-06 69. 0

Study of the alumni register of Oberlin, [110] one of the oldestcoeducational institutions, shows that the marriage rate of womengraduates, 1884-1905, was 65. 2%, only 34. 8% of them remaining unmarried. If the later period, 1890-1905, alone is taken, only 55. 2% of the girlshave married. The figures for the last few classes in this period areprobably not complete. 

At Kansas State Agricultural College, 1885-1905, 67. 6% of the womengraduates have married. At Ohio State University in the same period, thepercentage is only 54. 0. Wisconsin University, 1870-1905, shows apercentage of 51. 8, the figures for the last five years of that periodbeing:

 1901 33. 9 1902 52. 9 1903 45. 1 1904 32. 3 1905 37. 4

From alumni records of the University of Illinois, 54% of the women, 1880-1905, are found to be married. 

It is difficult to discuss these figures without extensive study of eachcase. But that only 53% of the women graduates of three greatuniversities like Illinois, Ohio and Wisconsin, should be married, 10years after graduation, indicates that something is wrong. 

In most cases it is not possible to tell, from the alumni records of theabove colleges, whether the male graduates are or are not married. Butthe class lists of Harvard and Yale have recently been carefully studiedby John C. Phillips, [111] who finds that in the period 1851-1890 74% ofthe Harvard graduates and 78% of the Yale graduates married. In thatperiod, he found, the age of marriage has advanced only about 1 year, from a little over 30 to just about 31. This is a much higher rate thanthat of college women. 

Statistics from Stanford University[112] offer an interesting comparisonbecause they are available for both men and women. Of 670 malegraduates, classes 1892 to 1900, inclusive, 490 or 73. 2% were reportedas married in 1910. Of 330 women, 160 or 48. 5% were married. Thesefigures are not complete, as some of the graduates in the later classesmust have married since 1910. 

The conditions existing at Stanford are likewise found at Syracuse, onthe opposite side of the continent. Here, as H. J. Banker has shown, [113]the men graduates marry most frequently 4. 5 years after taking theirdegrees, and the women 4. 7 years. Of the women 57% marry, of the men81%. The women marry at the average age of 27. 7 years and the men at28. 8. Less than one-fourth of the marrying men married women within thecollege. The last five decades he studied show a steady decrease in thenumber of women graduates who marry, while the men are much moreconstant. His figures are:

 _Per cent of men_ _Per cent of women_ _Decade_ _graduates_ _graduates_ _married_ _married_

 1852-61 81 87 1862-71 87 87 1872-81 90 81 1882-91 84 55 1892-01 73 48

C. B. Davenport, looking at the record of his own classmates at Harvard, found[114] in 1909 that among the 328 original members there were 287surviving, of whom nearly a third (31%) had never married. 

"Of these (287), " he continues, "26 were in 'Who's Who in America?' Weshould expect, were success in professional life promoted bybachelorship, to find something over a third of those in Who's Who to beunmarried. Actually all but two, or less than 8%, were married, and oneof these has since married. The only still unmarried man was a temporarymember of the class and is an artist who has resided for a large part ofthe time in Europe. There is, therefore, no reason to believe thatbachelorship favors professional success. "

Particularly pernicious in tending to prevent marriage is the influenceof certain professional schools, some of which have come to require acollege degree for entrance. In such a case the aspiring physician, forexample, can hardly hope to obtain a license to practice until he hasreached the age of 27 since 4 years are required in Medical College and1 year in a hospital. His marriage must in almost every case bepostponed until a number of years after that of the young men of his ownclass who have followed business careers. 

This brief survey is enough to prove that the best educated young women(and to a less extent young men) of the United States, who for manyreasons may be considered superior, are in many cases avoiding marriagealtogether, and in other cases postponing it longer than is desirable. The women in the separate colleges of the East have the worst record inthis respect, but that of the women graduates of some of thecoeducational schools leaves much to be desired. 

It is difficult to separate the causes which result in a postponement ofmarriage, from those that result in a total avoidance of marriage. To alarge extent the causes are the same, and the result differs only indegree. The effect of absolute celibacy of superior people, from aeugenic point of view, is of course obvious to all, but the racialeffect of postponement of marriage, even for a few years, is not alwaysso clearly realized. The diagram in Fig. 36 may give a clearerappreciation of this situation. 

Francis Galton clearly perceived the importance of this point, andattempted in several ways to arrive at a just idea of it. One of themost striking of his investigations is based on Dr. Duncan's statisticsfrom a maternity hospital. Dividing the mothers into five-year groups, according to their age, and stating the median age of the group for thesake of simplicity, instead of giving the limits, he arrived at thefollowing table:

 _Age of mother at_ _Approximate average_ _her marriage_ _fertility_ 17 9. 00--6 × 1. 5 22 7. 50--5 × 1. 5 27 6. 00--4 × 1. 5 32 4. 50--3 × 1. 5

which shows that the relative fertility of mothers married at the agesof 17, 22, 27 and 32, respectively, is as 6, 5, 4, and 3 approximately. 

"The increase in population by a habit of early marriages, " he adds, "isfurther augmented by the greater rapidity with which the generationsfollow each other. By the joint effect of these two causes, a largeeffect is in time produced. "

Certainly the object of eugenics is not to merely increase humannumbers. Quality is more important than quantity in a birth-rate. But itmust be evident that other things being equal, a group which marriesearly will, after a number of generations, supplant a group whichmarries even a few years later. And there is abundant evidence to showthat some of the best elements of the old, white, American race arebeing rapidly eliminated from the population of America, because ofpostponement or avoidance of marriage. 

Taking the men alone, we find that failure to marry may often beascribed to one of the following reasons:

1. The cultivation of a taste for sexual variety and a consequentunwillingness to submit to the restraints of marriage. 

2. Pessimism in regard to women from premature or unfortunate sexexperiences. 

3. Infection by venereal disease. 

4. Deficiency in normal sexual feeling, or perversion. 

5. Deficiency of one kind or another, physical or mental, causingdifficulty in getting an acceptable mate. 

The persons in groups 4 and 5 certainly and in groups 1, 2, and 3probably to a less extent, are inferior, and their celibacy is anadvantage to the race, rather than a disadvantage, from a eugenic pointof view. Their inferiority is in part the result of bad environment. Butsince innate inferiority is so frequently a large factor, the badenvironment often being experienced only because the nature was inferiorto start with, the average of the group as a whole must be consideredinnately inferior. 

Then there are among celibate men two other classes, largely superior bynature:

6. Those who seek some other end so ardently that they will not make thenecessary sacrifice in money and freedom, in order to marry. 

7. Those whose likelihood of early marriage is reduced by a prolongededucation and apprenticeship. Prolongation of the celibate period oftenresults in life-long celibacy. 

Some of the most important means of remedying the above conditions, inso far as they are dysgenic, can be grouped under three general heads:

1. Try to lead all young men to avoid a loose sexual life and venerealdisease. A general effort will be heeded more by the superior than bythe inferior. 

2. Hold up the rôle of husband and father as particularly honorable, andproclaim its shirking, without adequate cause, as dishonorable. Depictit as a happier and healthier state than celibacy or pseudo-celibacy. For a man to say he has never met a girl he can love simply means he hasnot diligently sought one, or else he has a deficient emotionalequipment; for there are many, surprisingly many, estimable, attractive, unmarried women. 

3. Cease prolonging the educational period past the early twenties. Itis time to call a halt on the schools and universities, whose constantlengthening of the educational period will result in a serious loss tothe race. External circumstances of an educational nature should not beallowed to force a young man to postpone his marriage past the age of25. This means that students must be allowed to specialize earlier. Ifthere is need of limiting the number of candidates, competitive entranceexaminations may be arranged on some rational basis. Superior young menshould marry, even at some cost to their early efficiency. The highefficiency of any profession can be more safely kept up by demanding aminimum amount of continuation work in afternoon, evening, or seasonalclasses, laboratories, or clinics. No more graduate fellowships shouldbe established until those now existing carry a stipend adequate formarriage. Those which already carry larger stipends should not belimited to bachelors, as are the most valuable awards at Princeton, theten yearly Proctor fellowships of $1, 000 each. 

The causes of the remarkable failure of college women to marry can notbe exhaustively investigated here, but for the purposes of eugenics theymay be roughly classified as unavoidable and avoidable. Under the firstheading must be placed those girls who are inherently unmarriageable, either because of physical defect or, more frequently, mentaldefect, --most often an over-development of intellect at the expense ofthe emotions, which makes a girl either unattractive to men, or inclinesher toward a celibate career and away from marriage and motherhood. Opinions differ as to the proportion of college girls who are inherentlyunmarriageable. Anyone who has been much among them will testify that alarge proportion of them are not inherently unmarriageable, however, andtheir celibacy for the most part must be classified as avoidable. Theirfailure to marry may be because

(1) They desire not to marry, due to a preference for a career, ordevelopment of a cynical attitude toward men and matrimony, due to afaulty education, or

(2) They desire to marry, but do not, for a variety of reasons such as:

(a) They are educated for careers, such as school-teaching, where theyhave little opportunity to meet men. 

(b) Their education makes them less desirable mates than girls who havehad some training along the lines of home-making and mothercraft. 

(c) They have remained in partial segregation until past the age whenthey are physically most attractive, and when the other girls of theirage are marrying. 

(d) Due to their own education, they demand on the part of suitors ahigher degree of education than the young men of their acquaintancepossess. A girl of this type wants to marry but desires a man who iseducationally her equal or superior. As men of such type are relativelyrare, her chances of marriage are reduced. 

(e) Their experience in college makes them desire a standard of livinghigher than that of their own families or of the men among whom theywere brought up. They become resistant to the suit of men who are ofordinary economic status. While waiting for the appearance of a suitorwho is above the average in both intelligence and wealth, they pass themarriageable age. 

(f) They are better educated than the young men of their acquaintance, and the latter are afraid of them. Some young men dislike to marry girlswho know more than they do, except in the distinctively feminine fields. 

These and various similar causes help to lower the marriage-rate ofcollege women and to account for the large number of alumnæ who desireto marry but are unable to do so. In the interest of eugenics, thevarious difficulties must be met in appropriate ways. 

Marriage is not desirable for those who are eugenically inferior, fromweak constitutions, defective sexuality, or inherent mental deficiency. But beyond these groups of women are the much larger groups of celibateswho are distinctly superior, and whose chances of marriage have beenreduced for one of the reasons mentioned above or through living incities with an undue proportion of female residents. Then there are, besides these, superior women who, because they are brought up infamilies without brothers or brothers' friends, are so unnaturally shythat they are unable to become friendly with men, however much they maycare to. It is evident that life in a separate college for women oftenintensifies this defect. There are still other women who repel men by amanner of extreme self-repression and coldness, sometimes the result ofparents' or teachers' over-zealous efforts to inculcate modesty andreserve, traits valuable in due degree but harmful in excess. 

When will educators learn that the education of the emotions is asimportant as that of the intellect? When will the schools awake to thefact that a large part of life consists in relations with other humanbeings, and that much of their educational effort is absolutelyvalueless, or detrimental, to success in the fundamentally necessarypractice of dealing with other individuals which is imposed on everyone? Many a college girl of the finest innate qualities, who sincerelydesires to enter matrimony, is unable to find a husband of her ownclass, simply because she has been rendered so cold and unattractive, soover-stuffed intellectually and starved emotionally, that a typical mandoes not desire to spend the rest of his life in her company. The sameindictment applies in a less degree to men. It is generally believedthat an only child is frequently to be found in this class. 

On the other hand, it is equally true--perhaps more important--that manyinnately superior young men are rejected, because of their manner oflife. Superior young men should be induced to keep their physicalrecords clean, in order that they may not suffer the severe depreciationwhich they would otherwise sustain in the eyes of superior women. 

But in efforts to teach chastity, sex itself must not be made to appearan evil thing. This is a grave mistake and all too common since the riseof the sex-hygiene movement. Undoubtedly a considerable amount of thecelibacy in sensitive women may be traced to ill-balanced mothers andteachers who, in word and attitude, build up an impression that sex isindecent and bestial, and engender in general a damaging suspicion ofmen. [115]

Level heads are necessary in the sex ethics campaign. Whereas thevenereal diseases will probably, with a continuation of present progressin treatment and prophylaxis, be brought under control in the course ofa century, the problem of differential mating will exist as long as therace does, which can hardly be less than tens of millions of years. Lurid presentation, by drama, novel, or magazine-story, of dramatic andhighly-colored individual sex histories, is to be avoided. These oftenimpress an abnormal situation on sensitive girls so strongly thataversion to marriage, or sex antagonism, is aroused. Every effort shouldbe made to permeate art--dramatic, plastic, or literary--with thehighest ideals of sex and parenthood. A glorification of motherhood andfatherhood in these ways would have a portentous influence on publicopinion. 

"The true, intimate chronicle of an everyday married life has not beenwritten. Here is a theme for genius; for only genius can divine andreveal the beauty, the pathos, and the wonder of the normal or thecommonplace. A felicitous marriage has its comedy, its complexities, itselement, too, of tragedy and grief, as well as its serenity and fealty. Matrimony, whether the pair fare well or ill, is always a greatadventure, a play of deep instincts and powerful emotions, a drama oftwo psyches. Every marriage provides a theme for the literary artist. Nolives are free from enigmas. "[116]

More "temperance" in work would probably promote marriage of able andambitious young people. Walter Gallichan complains that "we do not evenrecognize love as a finer passion than money greed. It is a kind ofluxury, or pleasant pastime, for the sentimentally minded. Love is soundervalued as a source of happiness, a means of grace, and a completionof being, that many men would sooner work to keep a motor car than tomarry. "

Men should be taught greater respect for the individuality of women, sothat no high-minded girl will shrink from marriage with the idea that itmeans a surrender of her personality and a state of domestic servitude. A more discriminating idea of sex-equality is desirable, and arecognition by men that women are not necessarily creatures of inferiormentality. It would be an advantage if men's education included someinstruction along these lines. It would be a great gain, also ifintelligent women had more knowledge of domestic economy andmothercraft, because one of the reasons why the well-educated girl ishandicapped in seeking a mate is the belief all too frequently wellfounded of many young men that she is a luxury which he can not afford. 

Higher education in general needs to be reoriented. It has too muchglorified individualism, and put a premium on "white collar" work. Thetrend toward industrial education will help to correct this situation. 

Professor Sprague[117] points out another very important fault, when hesays: "More strong men are needed on the staffs of public schools andwomen's colleges, and in all of these institutions more marriedinstructors of both sexes are desirable. The catalogue of one of the[women's] colleges referred to above shows 114 professors andinstructors, of whom 100 are women, of whom only two have ever married. Is it to be expected that the curriculum created by such a staff wouldidealize and prepare for family and home life as the greatest work ofthe world and the highest goal of woman, and teach race survival as apatriotic duty? Or, would it be expected that these bachelor staffswould glorify the independent vocation and life for women and createemployment bureaus to enable their graduates to get into the offices, schools and other lucrative jobs? The latter seems to be what occurs. "

Increase of opportunity for superior young people to meet each other, asdiscussed in our chapter on sexual selection, will play a very largepart in raising the marriage rate. And finally, the delayed or avoidedmarriage of the intellectual classes is in large part a reflection ofpublic opinion, which has wrongly represented other things as being moreworth while than marriage. 

"The promotion of marriage in early adult life, as a part of socialhygiene, must begin with a new canonization of marriage, " Mr. Gallichandeclares. "This is equally the task of the fervent poet and thescientific thinker, whose respective labors for humanity are never atvariance in essentials. . . . The sentiment for marriage can be deepened bya rational understanding of the passion that attracts and unites thesexes. We need an apotheosis of conjugal love as a basis for a newappreciation of marriage. Reverence for love should be fostered from theoutset of the adolescent period by parents and pedagogues. "

If, in addition to this "diffusion of healthier views of the conjugalrelation, " some of the economic changes suggested in later chapters areput in effect, it seems probable that the present racially disastroustendency of the most superior young men and women to postpone or avoidmarriage would be checked. 

CHAPTER XIII

INCREASE OF THE BIRTH-RATE OF THE SUPERIOR

Imagine 200 babies born to parents of native stock in the United States. On the average, 103 of them will be boys and 97 girls. By the time thegirls reach a marriageable age (say 20 years), at least 19 will havedied, leaving 78 possible wives, on whom the duty of perpetuating thatsection of the race depends. 

We said "Possible" wives, not probable; for not all will marry. It isdifficult to say just how many will become wives, but Robert J. Spraguehas reported on several investigations that illuminate the point. 

In a selected New England village in 1890, he says, "there were fortymarriageable girls between the ages of 20 and 35. To-day thirty-two ofthese are married, 20 per cent. Are spinsters. 

"An investigation of 260 families of the Massachusetts AgriculturalCollege students shows that out of 832 women over 40 years of age 755 or91 per cent. Have married, leaving only 9 per cent. Spinsters. This andother observations indicate that the daughters of farmers marry moregenerally than those of some other classes. 

"In sixty-nine (reporting) families represented by the freshman class ofAmherst College (1914) there are 229 mothers and aunts over 40 years ofage, of whom 186 or 81 per cent. Have already married. 

"It would seem safe to conclude that about 15 per cent. Of native womenin general American society do not marry during the child-bearingperiod. " Deducting 15 per cent. From the 78 possible wives leavessixty-six probable wives. Now among the native wives of Massachusetts 20per cent. Do not produce children, and deducting these thirteenchildless ones from the sixty-six probable wives leaves fifty-threeprobable, married, child-bearing women, who must be depended on toreproduce the original 200 individuals with whom we began this chapter. That means that each woman who demonstrates ability to bear offspringmust bear 3. 7 children. This it must be noted, is a minimum number, forno account has been taken of those who, through some defect or diseasedeveloped late in life, become unmarriageable. In general, unless everymarried woman brings three children to maturity, the race will not evenhold its own in numbers. And this means that each woman must bear fourchildren, since not all the children born will live. If the marriedwomen of the country bear fewer than nearly four children each, the raceis in danger of losing ground. 

Such a statement ought to strike the reader as one of grave importance;but we labor under no delusion that it will do so. For we are painfullyaware that the bugaboo of the declining birth-rate of superior peoplehas been raised so often in late years, that it has become stale byrepetition. It no longer causes any alarm. The country is filled withsincere but mentally short-sighted individuals, who are constantly readyto vociferate that numbers are no very desirable thing in a birth-rate;that quality is wanted, not quantity; that a few children given idealcare are of much more value to the state and the race than are manychildren, who can not receive this attention. 

And this attitude toward the subject, we venture to assert, is a graverperil to the race than is the declining birth-rate itself. For there isenough truth in it to make it plausible, and to separate the truth fromthe dangerous untruth it contains, and to make the bulk of thepopulation see the distinction, is a task which will tax every energy ofthe eugenist. 

Unfortunately, this is not a case of mere difference of opinion betweenmen; it is a case of antagonism between men and nature. If a racehypnotize itself into thinking that its views about race suicide aresuperior to nature's views, it may make its own end a little lesspainful; but it will not postpone that end for a single minute. Thecontest is to the strong, and although numbers are not the mostimportant element in strength, it is very certain that a race made upof families containing one child each will not be the survivor in thestruggle for existence. 

The idea, therefore, that race suicide and general limitation of birthsto the irreducible minimum, can be effectively justified by anyconceivable appeal to economic or sociological factors, is a mistakewhich will eventually bring about the extinction of the people makingit. 

This statement must not be interpreted wrongly. Certainly we would notargue that a high birth-rate in itself is necessarily a desirable thing. It is not the object of eugenics to achieve as big a population aspossible, regardless of quality. But in the last analysis, the onlywealth of a nation is its people; moreover some people, are as nationalassets, worth more than others. The goal, then, might be said to be: apopulation adjusted in respect to its numbers to the resources of thecountry, and that number of the very best quality possible. Greatdiversity of people is required in modern society, but of each desirablekind the best obtainable representatives are to be desired. 

It is at once evident that a decline, rather than an increase, in thebirth-rate of some sections of the population, is wanted. There are somestrata at the bottom that are a source of weakness rather than ofstrength to the race, and a source of unhappiness rather than ofhappiness to themselves and those around them. These should be reducedin number, as we have shown at some length earlier in this book. 

The other parts of the population should be perpetuated by the best, rather than the worst. In no other way can the necessary leaders besecured, without whom, in commerce, industry, politics, science, thenation is at a great disadvantage. The task of eugenics is by no meanswhat it is sometimes supposed to be: to breed a superior caste. But avery important part of its task is certainly to increase the number ofleaders in the race. And it is this part of its task, in particular, which is menaced by the declining birth-rate in the United States. 

As every one knows, race suicide is proceeding more rapidly among thenative whites than among any other large section of the population; andit is exactly this part of the population which has in the pastfurnished most of the eminent men of the country. 

It has been shown in previous chapters that eminent men do not appearwholly by chance in the population. The production of eminence islargely a family affair; and in America, "the land of opportunity" aswell as in older countries, people of eminence are much moreinterrelated than chance would allow. It has been shown, indeed, that inAmerica it is at least a 500 to 1 bet that an eminent person will berather closely related to some other eminent person, and will not be asporadic appearance in the population. [118]

Taken with other considerations advanced in earlier chapters, this meansthat a falling off in the reproduction of the old American best strainsmeans a falling off in the number of eminent men which the United Stateswill produce. No improvement in education can prevent a serious loss, for the strong minds get more from education. 

The old American stock has produced a vastly greater proportion ofeminence, has accomplished a great deal more proportionately, in moderntimes, than has other any stock whose representatives have been comingin large numbers as immigrants to these shores during the lastgeneration. It is, therefore, likely to continue to surpass them, unlessit declines too greatly in numbers. For this reason, we feel justifiedin concluding that the decline of the birth-rate in the old Americanstock represents a decline in the birth-rate of a superior element. 

There is another way of looking at this point. The stock underdiscussion has been, on the whole, economically ahead of such stocks asare now immigrating. In competition with them under equal conditions, itappears to remain pretty consistently ahead, economically. Now, although we would not insist on this point too strongly, it can hardlybe questioned that eugenic value is to some extent correlated witheconomic success in life, as all desirable qualities tend to becorrelated together. Within reasonable limits, it is justifiable totreat the economically superior sections of the nation as theeugenically superior. And it is among these economically superiorsections of the nation that the birth-rate has most rapidly anddangerously fallen. 

The constant influx of highly fecund immigrant women tends to obscurethe fact that the birth-rate of the older residents is falling belowpar, and analysis of the birth-rate in various sections of the communityis necessary to give an understanding of what is actually taking place. 

In Rhode Island, F. L. Hoffmann found the average number of children foreach foreign-born woman to be 3. 35, and for each native-born woman to be2. 06. There were wide racial differences among the foreign born; thevarious elements were represented by the following average number ofchildren per wife:

 French-Canadians 4. 42 Russians 3. 51 Italians 3. 49 Irish 3. 45 Scotch and Welsh 3. 09 English 2. 89 Germans 2. 84 Swedes 2. 58 English-Canadians 2. 56 Poles 2. 31

In short, the native-born whites in this investigation fell below everyone of the foreign nationalities. 

The Massachusetts censuses for 1875 and 1884 showed similar results: theforeign-born women had 4. 5 children each, and the native-born women 2. 7each. 

Frederick S. Crum's careful investigation[119] of New Englandgenealogies, including 12, 722 wives, has thrown a great deal of lighton the steady decline in their birth-rate. He found the average numberof children to be:

 1750-1799 6. 43 1800-1849 4. 94 1850-1869 3. 47 1870-1879 2. 77

There, in four lines, is the story of the decline of the old Americanstock. At present, it is barely reproducing itself, probably not eventhat, for there is reason to believe that 1879 does not mark the lowestpoint reached. Before 1700, less than 2% of the wives in thisinvestigation had only one child, now 20% of them have only one. Withthe emigration of old New England families to the west, and the constantimmigration of foreign-born people to take their places, it is no causefor surprise that New England no longer exercises the intellectualleadership that she once held. 

For Massachusetts as a whole, the birth-rate among the native-bornpopulation was 12. 7 per 1, 000 in 1890, 14. 9 in 1910, while in theforeign-born population it was 38. 6 in 1890 and 49. 1 in 1910. Afterexcluding all old women and young women, the birth-rate of theforeign-born women in Massachusetts is still found to be 3/4 greaterthan that of the native-born. [120]

In short, the birth-rate of the old American stock is now so low thatthat stock is dying out and being supplanted by immigrants. In orderthat the stock might even hold its own, we have shown that each marriedwoman should bear three to four children. At present the married womenof the old white American race in New England appear to be bringing twoor less to maturity. 

It will be profitable to digress for a moment to consider farther whatthis disappearance of the ancient population of Massachusetts means tothe country. When all the distinguished men of the United States aregraded, in accordance with their distinction, it is regularly found, asFrederick Adams Woods says, that "Some states in the union, somesections of the country, have produced more eminence than others, farbeyond the expectation from their respective white populations. In thisregard Massachusetts always leads, and Connecticut is always second, andcertain southern states are always behind and fail to render theirexpected quota. " The accurate methods used by Dr. Woods in thisinvestigation leave no room for doubt that in almost every wayMassachusetts has regularly produced twice as many eminent men as itspopulation would lead one to expect, and has for some ranks and types ofachievement produced about four times the expectation. 

Scott Nearing's studies[121] confirm those of Dr. Woods. Taking the mostdistinguished men and women America has produced, he found that thenumber produced in New England, per 100, 000 population, was much largerthan that produced by any other part of the country. Rhode Island, thepoorest New England state in this respect, was yet 30% above New York, the best state outside New England. 

The advantage of New England, however, he found to be rapidlydecreasing. Of the eminent persons born before 1850, 30% were NewEnglanders although the population of New England in 1850 was only 11. 8%of that of the whole country. But of the eminent younger men, --thoseborn between 1880 and 1889, New England, with 7. 5% of the country'spopulation, could claim only 12% of the genius. Cambridge, Mass. , hasproduced more eminent younger men of the present time than any othercity, he discovered, but the cities which come next in order areNashville, Tenn. , Columbus, Ohio, Lynn, Mass. , Washington, D. C. , Portland, Ore. , Hartford, Conn. , Boston, Mass. , New Haven, Conn. , KansasCity, Mo. , and Chicago, Ill. 

There is reason to believe that some of the old New England stock, whichemigrated to the West, retains a higher fecundity than does that part ofthe stock which remains on the Atlantic seaboard. This fact, while agratifying one, of course does not compensate for the low fertility ofthe families which still live in New England. 

Within this section of the population, the decline is undoubtedly takingplace faster in some parts than in others. Statistical evidence is notavailable, to tell a great deal about this, but the birth-rate for thegraduates of some of the leading women's colleges is known, and theirstudent bodies are made up largely of girls of superior stork. AtWellesley, the graph in Fig. 36 shows at a glance just what ishappening. Briefly, the graduates of that college contribute less thanone child apiece to the race. The classes do not even reproduce theirown numbers. Instead of the 3. 7 children which, according to Sprague'scalculation, they ought to bear, they are bearing . 86 of a child. 

The foregoing study is one of the few to carefully distinguish betweenfamilies which were complete at the time of study and those familieswhere additional children may yet be born. In the studies to follow thisdistinction may in some cases be made by the reader in interpreting thedata while in other cases families having some years of possibleproductiveness ahead are included with others and the relativeproportion of the types is not indicated. The error in these cases istherefore important and the reader is warned to accept them only with amental allowance for this factor. 

The best students make an even worse showing in this respect. TheWellesley alumnæ who are members of Phi Beta Kappa, --that is, thesuperior scholars--have not . 86 of a child each, but only . 65 of achild; while the holders of the Durant and Wellesley scholarships, awarded for intellectual superiority, [122] make the following patheticshowing in comparison with the whole class. 

WELLESLEY COLLEGE

Graduates of '01, '02, '03, '04, Status of Fall of 1912

 _All_ _Durant or Wellesley_ _scholars_ Per cent married 44 35

 Number of children: Per graduate . 37 . 20 Per wife . 87 . 57

It must not be thought that Wellesley's record is an exception, for mostof the large women's colleges furnish deplorable figures. MountHolyoke's record is:

 _Children per_ _Children per_ _Decade of graduation_ _married_ _graduate_ _graduate_

 1842-1849 2. 77 2. 37 1850-1859 3. 38 2. 55 1860-1869 2. 64 1. 60 1870-1879 2. 75 1. 63 1880-1889 2. 54 1. 46 1890-1892 1. 91 0. 95

Nor can graduation from Bryn Mawr College be said to favor motherhood. By the 376 alumnæ graduated there between 1888 and 1900, only 138children had been produced up to Jan. 1, 1913. This makes . 84 of a childper married alumna, or . 37 of a child per graduate, since less than halfof the graduates marry. These are the figures published by the collegeadministration. 

Professor Sprague's tabulation of the careers of Vassar collegegraduates, made from official records of the college, is worth quotingin full, for the light it throws on the histories of college girls, after they leave college:

 CLASSES FROM 1867 TO 1892

 Number of graduates 959 Number that taught 431 (45%) Number that married 509 (53%) Number that did not marry 450 (47%) Number that taught and afterward married 166 (39% of all who taught) Number that taught, married and had children 112 (67% of all who taught and married) Number that taught, married and were childless 54 (33%) Number of children of those who taught and had children 287 (1. 73 children per family) Number of children of those who married but did not teach 686 (2 per married graduate that did not teach) Total number of children of all graduates 973 (1 child per graduate) Average number of children per married graduate 1. 91 Average number of children per graduate 1. 00

 CLASSES FROM 1867 TO 1900

 Number of graduates 1739 Number that taught 800 (46%) Number that married 854 (49%) Number that did not marry 885 (51%) Number that taught and afterward married 294 (31%) Number that taught, married and had children 203 (69% of all who taught and married) Number that taught, married and were childless 91 (31%) Number of children of those who taught and had children 463 (1. 57 children per family) Number of children of those who married but did not teach 1025 (2 each) Total number of children of all graduates 1488 (. 8 child per graduate) Average number of children per married graduate 1. 74 (per married graduate) Average number of children per graduate 0. 8

If the women's colleges were fulfilling what the writers consider to betheir duty toward their students, their graduates would have a highermarriage and birth-rate than that of their sisters, cousins and friendswho do not go to college. But the reverse is the case. M. R. Smith'sinvestigation showed the comparison between college girls and girls ofequivalent social position and of the same or similar families, asfollows:

 _Number of_ _Per cent childless_ _children_ _at time_

 College 1. 65 25. 36 Equivalent Non-College 1. 874 17. 89

Now if education is tending toward race suicide, then the writersbelieve there is something wrong with modern educational methods. Andcertainly all statistics available point to the fact that girls who havebeen in such an atmosphere as that of some colleges for four years, are, from a eugenic point of view, of diminished value to the race. This isnot an argument against higher education for women, but it is a potentargument for a different kind of higher education than many of thecolleges of America are now giving them. 

This is one of the causes for the decline of the birth-rate in the oldAmerican stock. But of course it is only one. A very large number ofcauses are unquestionably at work to the same end, and the result can beadequately changed only if it is analyzed into as many of its componentparts as possible, and each one of these dealt with separately. Thewriters have emphasized the shortcoming of women's colleges, because itis easily demonstrated and, they believe, relatively easily mitigated. But the record of men's colleges is not beyond criticism. 

Miss Smith found that among the college graduates of the 18th century inNew England, only 2% remained unmarried, while in the Yale classes of1861-1879, 21% never married, and of the Harvard graduates from1870-1879 26% remained single. The average number of children perHarvard graduate of the earlier period was found to be 3. 44, for thelatest period studied 1. 92. Among the Yale graduates it was found thatthe number of children per father had declined from 5. 16 to 2. 55. 

[Illustration: BIRTH RATE OF HARVARD AND YALE GRADUATES

FIG. 37. --During the period under consideration it declinedsteadily, although marriage was about as frequent and as early at theend as at the beginning of the period. It is necessary to suppose thatthe decline in the birth rate is due principally to voluntary limitationof families. J. C. Phillips, who made the above graph, thinks that since1890 the birth rate among these college graduates may be tendingslightly to rise again. ]

Figures were obtained from some other colleges, which are incomplete andshould be taken with reservation. Their incompleteness probably led thenumber of children to be considerably underestimated. At Amherst, 1872-1879, it was found that 44 of the 440 graduates of the periodremained unmarried. The average number of children per married man was1. 72. At Wesleyan it was found that 20 of the 208 graduates, from 1863to 1870, remained single; the average number of children per married manwas 2. 31. 

The only satisfactory study of the birth-rate of graduates of men'scolleges is that recently made by John C. Phillips from the class listsof Harvard and Yale, 1850-1890, summarized in the accompanying graph(Fig. 37). In discussing his findings, Dr. Phillips writes:

"Roughly, the number of children born per capita per married graduatehas fallen from about 3. 25 in the first decade to 2. 50 in the lastdecade. The per cent of graduates marrying has remained about the samefor forty years, and is a trifle higher for Yale; but the low figure, 68% for the first decade of Harvard, is probably due to faulty records, and must not be taken as significant. 

"The next most interesting figure is the 'Children Surviving per Capitaper Graduate. ' This has fallen from over 2. 50 to about 1. 9. The per centof childless marriages increased very markedly during the first twodecades and held nearly level for the last two decades. For the lastdecade at Yale it has even dropped slightly, an encouraging sign. It isworthy of note that the number of children born to Yale graduates isalmost constantly a trifle higher than that for Harvard, while thenumber of childless marriages is slightly less. " This is probably owingto the larger proportion of Harvard students living in a large city. 

If the birth-rate of graduates both of separate men's colleges and ofseparate women's colleges is alarmingly low, that of graduates ofcoeducational institutions is not always satisfactory, either. To someextent the low birth-rate is a characteristic of educated people, without regard to the precise nature of their education. In a study ofthe graduates of Syracuse University, one of the oldest coeducationalcolleges of the eastern United States, H. J. Banker found[123] that thenumber of children declined with each decade. Thus married womengraduates prior to the Civil War had 2 surviving children each; in thelast decade of the nineteenth century they had only one. For married mengraduates, the number of surviving children had fallen in the samelength of time from 2. 62 to 1. 38. When all graduates, married or not, are counted in the decade 1892-1901, it is found that the men ofSyracuse have contributed to the next generation one surviving childeach, the women only half a child apiece. 

Dr. Cattell's investigation of the families of 1, 000 contemporaryAmerican men of science all of which were probably not complete however, shows that they leave, on the average, less than two surviving children. Only one family in 75 is larger than six, and 22% of them are childless. Obviously, as far as those families are concerned, there will be fewermen of inherent scientific eminence in the next generation than in this. 

The decline in the birth-rate is sometimes attributed to the fact thatpeople as a whole are marrying later than they used to; we have alreadyshown that this idea is, on the whole, false. The idea that people as awhole are marrying less than they used to is also, as we have shown, mistaken. The decline in the general birth-rate can be attributed toonly one fact, and that is that married people are having fewerchildren. 

The percentage of childless wives in the American stock is steadilyincreasing. Dr. Crum's figures show the following percentage ofchildless wives, in the New England genealogies with which he worked:

 1750-1799 1. 88 1800-1849 4. 07 1850-1869 5. 91 1870-1879 8. 10

J. A. Hill[124] found, from the 1910 census figures, that one in eightof the native-born wives is childless, as compared with one in fiveamong the Negroes, one in nineteen among the foreign born. Childlessnessof American wives is therefore a considerable, although not apreponderant factor, in this decline of the birth rate. 

Dr. Hill further found that from 10 marriages, in various stocks, thefollowing numbers of children could be expected:

 Native-born women 27 Negro-born women 31 English-born women 34 Russian-born women 54 French Canada-born women 56 Polish-born women 62

The women of the old American stock are on the whole more sterile or, ifnot sterile, less fecund, than other women in the United States. Why?

In answer, various physiological causes are often alleged. It is saidthat the dissemination of venereal diseases has caused an increase ofsterility; that luxurious living lowers fecundity, and so on. It isimpossible to take the time to analyze the many explanations of thissort which have been offered, and which are familiar to the reader; wemust content ourselves with saying that evidence of a great many kinds, largely statistical and, in our opinion, reliable, indicates thatphysiological causes play a minor part in the decrease of thebirth-rate. [125]

Or, plainly, women no longer bear as many children, because they don'twant to. 

This accords with Dr. Cattel's inquiry of 461 American men of science;in 285 cases it was stated that the family was voluntarily limited, thecause being given as health in 133 cases, expense in 98 cases, andvarious in 54 cases. Sidney Webb's investigation among "intellectuals"in London showed an even greater proportion of voluntary limitation. Theexhaustive investigation of the Galton Laboratory of National Eugenicsleaves little room for doubt that in England the decline in thebirth-rate began about 1876-78, when the trial of Charles Bradlaugh andthe Theosophist leader, Mrs. Annie Besant, on the charge of circulating"neo-Malthusian" literature, focused public attention on thepossibility of birth control, and gradually brought a knowledge of themeans of contraception within reach of many. In the United Statesstatistics are lacking, but medical men and others in a position to formopinions generally agree that the limitation of births has been steadilyincreasing for the last few decades; and with the propaganda at presentgoing on, it is pretty sure to increase much more rapidly during thenext decade or two. 

Some instructive results can be drawn, in this connection, from a studyof the families of Methodist clergymen in the United States. [126]Although 98 out of every hundred of them marry, and they marry early, the birth-rate is not high. Its distribution is presented in theaccompanying graph (Fig. 38). It is evident that they have tended tostandardize the two-child family which is so much in evidence amongcollege professors and educated classes generally, all over the world. The presence of a considerable number of large families raises theaverage number of surviving children of prominent Methodists to 3. 12. 

And in so explaining the cause of the declining birth-rate amongnative-born Americans, we have also found the principal reason for the_differential_ nature of the decline in the nation at large, which isthe feature that alarms the eugenist. The more intelligent andwell-to-do part of the population has been able to get and use theneeded information, and limit its birth-rate; the poor and ignorant hasbeen less able to do so, and their rate of increase has therefore beenmore natural in a large percentage of cases. 

It is not surprising, therefore, that many eugenists should haveadvocated wider dissemination of the knowledge of means of limitingbirths, with the idea that if this practice were extended to the lowerclasses, their birth-rate would decrease just the same as has that ofthe upper classes, and the alarming differential rate would therefore beabolished. 

[Illustration: FAMILIES OF PROMINENT METHODISTS

FIG. 38. --The heavy line shows the distribution of families ofprominent Methodists (mostly clergymen) who married only once. Elevenpercent had no surviving children and nearly half of the familiesconsisted of two children or less. The dotted line shows the families ofthose who were twice married. It would naturally be expected that twowomen would bear considerably more children than one woman, but as anaverage fact it appears that a second wife means the addition of onlyhalf a child to the minister's family. It is impossible to avoid theconclusion that the birth-rate in these families is determined more bythe desire of the parents (based on economic grounds) than on thenatural fecundity of the women. In other words, the number of childrenis limited to the number whom the minister can afford to bring up on hisinadequate salary. ]

Against this it might be argued that the desired result will never bewholly attained, because the most effective means of birth controlinvolve some expense, and because their effective use presupposes acertain amount of foresight and self-control which is not always foundamong the lower strata of society. 

Despite certain dangers accompanying a widespread dissemination of theknowledge of how to limit births, it seems to be the opinion of mosteugenists that if free access to such information be not permitted thatat least such knowledge ought to be given in many families, where itwould be to the advantage of society that fewer children be produced. Such a step, of course, must be taken on the individual responsibilityof a doctor, nurse or other social worker. A propaganda has arisenduring recent years, in the United States, for the repeal of all lawswhich prohibit giving knowledge about and selling contraceptives. Whether or not it succeeds in changing the law it will, like theBradlaugh-Besant episode, spread contraception widely. This propagandais based largely on social and economic grounds, and is sometimesunscientific in its methods and avowed aims. But whatever its nature maybe, there seems little reason (judging from analogy in Europeancountries) to believe that it can be stopped. 

The "infant mortality movement" also has an effect here which is rarelyrecognized. It is a stock argument of birth control propagandists that ahigh birth-rate means a high rate of infant mortality; but A. O. Powyshas demonstrated that cause and effect are to some extent reversed inthis statement, and that it is equally true that a high rate of infantmortality means a high birth-rate, in a section of the population wherebirth control is not practiced. The explanation is the familiar factthat conception takes place less often in nursing mothers. But if achild dies early or is bottle-fed, a new conception is likely to occurmuch sooner than would otherwise be the case. By reducing infantmortality and teaching mothers to feed their babies naturally, theinfant mortality movement is thereby reducing the birth-rate in thepoorer part of the population, a eugenic service which to some extentoffsets the dysgenic results that, as we shall show in the last chapter, follow the "Save the Babies" propaganda. 

With the spread of the birth control and infant mortality movements onemay therefore look forward to some diminution of the differentialelement in the birth-rate, together with a further decline in thatbirth-rate as a whole. 

Such a situation, which seems to us almost a certainty within the nextdecade or two, will not change the duty of eugenics, on which we havebeen insisting in this chapter and, to a large extent, throughout thepresent book. It will be just as necessary as ever that the familieswhich are, and have been in the past, of the greatest benefit and valueto the country, have a higher birth-rate. The greatest task of eugenics, as we see it, will still be to find means by which the birth-rate amongsuch families can be increased. This increase in the birth-rate amongsuperior people must depend largely on a change in public sentiment. Such a change may be brought about in many ways. The authority ofreligion may be invoked, as it is by the Roman Catholic and Mormonchurches[127] whose communicants are constantly taught that fecundity isa virtue and voluntary sterility a sin. Unfortunately their appeal failsto make proper discriminations. Whatever may be the theological reasonsfor such an attitude on the part of the churches, its practical eugenicsignificance is clear enough. 

Nothing can be more certain than that, if present conditions continue, Roman Catholics will soon be in an overwhelming preponderance in theeastern United States, because of the differential birth-rate, if for noother reason; and that the Mormon population will steadily gain groundin the west. Similarly, it is alleged that the population of France isgradually assuming the characteristics of the Breton race, because thatrace is the notably fecund section of the population, while nearly allthe other components of the nation are committing race suicide (althoughnot so rapidly as is the old white stock in New England). Again, therôle of religion in eugenics is shown in China, where ancestor worshipleads to a desire for children, and makes it a disgrace to be childless. A process analogous to natural selection applies to religions much as itdoes to races; and if the Chinese religion, with its requirement of ahigh birth-rate, and the present-day American Protestant form of theChristian religion, with its lack of eugenic teaching, should come intodirect competition, under equal conditions of environment, it is obviousthat the Chinese form would be the eventual survivor, just because itsadherents would steadily increase and those of its rival would assteadily decrease. Such a situation may seem fanciful; yet the leadersof every church may well consider whether the religion which they preachis calculated to fill all the needs of its adherents, if it is silent onthe subject of eugenics. 

The influence of economic factors on the birth-rate is marked. Thechild, under modern urban conditions, is not an economic asset, as hewas on the farm in earlier days. He is an economic liability instead. And with the constant rise of the standard of living, with the increaseof taxation, the child steadily becomes more of a liability. Manymarried people desire children, or more children, but feel that they cannot have them without sacrificing something that they are unwilling tosacrifice. 

Analysis of this increase in the cost of children, reveals not less thanfive main elements which deserve attention from eugenists. 

1. It costs more to clothe children than it used to. Not only doesclothing of a given quality cost more now than it did a decade or twoago, but there are more fabrics and designs available, and many ofthese, while attractive, are costly and not durable. Compliance tofashion has increasingly made itself felt in the clothing of the child. 

2. It costs more to feed them than it used to. Not only has food foreveryone increased in price, but the standards for feeding childrenhave been raised. Once children were expected to be content with plainfare; now it is more frequently the custom to give them just what therest of the family eats. 

3. The cost of medical attention has increased. All demand more of thedoctors now than they did in the last generation. The doctors are ableto do more than they formerly could, and particularly for his children, every man wants the best that he can possibly afford. Hence medicalattendance for a child is constantly becoming more costly, because morefrequent; and further, the amount of money which parents spend onmedical attendance for their children usually increases with anyincrease in their income. 

4. The cost of domestic labor is greater. Most kinds of domestic servicehave more than doubled in price within the memory of relatively youngpeople. Moreover, it is gradually being realized that a high standard isdesirable in selecting a nurse for children. As a fact, a children'snurse ought to have much greater qualifications than the nurse whoseduty is to care for sick adults. If a mother is obliged to delegate partof the work of bringing up her children to some other woman, she isbeginning to recognize that this substitute mother should have superiorability; and the teachers of subconscious psychology have emphasized theimportance of giving a child only the best possible intellectualsurroundings. Ignorant nursemaids are unwillingly tolerated, and as thenumber of competent assistants for mothers is very small, the cost iscorrespondingly high. An increase in the number of persons trained forsuch work is to be anticipated, but it is likely that the demand forthem will grow even more rapidly; hence there is no reason to expectthat competent domestic help will become any less costly than it is now. 

5. The standards of education have risen steadily. There is perhaps noother feature which has tended more to limit families. Conscientiousparents have often determined to have no more children than they couldafford to educate in the best possible way. This meant at least acollege education, and frequently has led to one and two-child families. It is a motive of birth control which calls for condemnation. The oldidea of valuable mental discipline for all kinds of mental work to begained from protracted difficult formal education is now rejected byeducational psychologists, but its prevalence in the popular mind servesto make "higher education" still something of a fetish, from whichmarvelous results, not capable of precise comprehension, areanticipated. We do not disparage the value of a college education, insaying that parents should not attach such importance to it as to leadthem to limit their family to the number to whom they can give 20 yearsof education without pecuniary compensation. 

The effect of these various factors in the increasing cost of childrenis to decrease fecundity not so much on the basis of income of parents, as on the basis of their standards. The prudent, conscientious parent istherefore the one most affected, and the reduction in births is greatestin that class, where eugenics is most loth to see it. 

The remedy appears to be a change in public opinion which will result ina truer idea of values. Some readjustments in family budgets are calledfor, which will discriminate more clearly between expenditure that isworth while, and that which is not. Without depriving his children ofthe best medical attention and education, one may eliminate thoseinvidious sources of expense which benefit neither the children noranyone else, --overdressing, for instance. A simplification of life wouldnot only enable superior people to have larger families, but would oftenbe an advantage to the children already born. 

On the other hand, the fact that higher standards in a population leadto fewer children suggests a valuable means of reducing the birth-rateof the inferior. Raise their low standards of living and they willreduce their own fertility voluntarily (the birth control movementfurnishing them with the possibility). All educational work in the slumstherefore is likely to have a valuable though indirect eugenic outcome. The poor foreign-speaking areas in large cities, where immigrants livehuddled together in squalor, should be broken up. As these people aregiven new ideas of comfort, and as their children are educated inAmerican ways of living, there is every reason to expect a decline intheir birth-rate, similar to that which has taken place among thenative-born during the past generation. 

This elevation of standards in the lower classes will be accomplishedwithout any particular exertion from eugenists; there are many agenciesat work in this field, although they rarely realize the result of theirwork which we have just pointed out. 

But to effect a discriminating change in the standards of the moreintelligent and better educated classes calls for a real effort on thepart of all those who have the welfare of society at heart. Thedifficulties are great enough and the obstacles are evident enough; itis more encouraging to look at the other side, and to see evidences thatthe public is awakening. The events of every month show that the idealsof eugenics are filtering through the public mind more rapidly than someof us, a decade ago, felt justified in expecting. There is a growingrecognition of the danger of bad breeding; a growing recognition in somequarters at least of the need for more children from the superior partof the population; a growing outcry against the excessive standards ofluxury that are making children themselves luxuries. The number of thosewho call themselves eugenists, or who are in sympathy with the aims ofeugenics, is increasing every year, as is evidenced by the growth ofsuch an organization as the American Genetic Association. Legislatorsshow an eager desire to pass measures that as they (too often wrongly)believe will have a eugenic result. Most colleges and universities areteaching the principles of heredity, and a great many of them adddefinite instruction in the principles of eugenics. Although theultimate aim of eugenics--to raise the level of the whole human race--isperhaps as great an undertaking as the human mind can conceive, theAmerican nation shows distinct signs of a willingness to grapple withit. And this book will have failed in its purpose, if it has notconvinced the reader that means are available for attacking the problemat many points, and that immediate progress is not a mere dream. 

One of the first necessary steps is a change in educational methods togive greater emphasis to parenthood. And this change, it is a greatpleasure to be able to say, is being made in many places. The publicschools are gradually beginning to teach mothercraft, under variousguises, in many cities and the School of Practical Arts, Columbia Univ. , gives a course in the "Physical Care of the Infant. " Public and privateinstitutions are beginning to recognize, what has long been ignored, that parenthood is one of the functions of men and women, toward whichtheir education should be directed. Every such step will tend, webelieve, to increase the birth-rate among the superior classes of thecommunity; every such step is therefore, indirectly if not directly, again for eugenics; for, as we have emphasized time and again, a changein public opinion, to recognize parenthood as a beautiful and desirablething, is one of the first desiderata of the eugenics program. 

The introduction of domestic science and its rapid spread are verygratifying, yet there are serious shortcomings, as rather too vigorouslyset forth by A. E. Hamilton:

"There are rows of little gas stoves over which prospective wivesconduct culinary chemical experiments. There are courses in biology, something of physiology and hygiene, the art of interior decoration andthe science of washing clothes. There is text-book sociology andsometimes lectures on heredity or eugenics. But the smile of incredulityas to my seriousness when I asked a Professor in the Margaret MorrisonCarnegie School [a college of Practical Arts for Women], 'Where are thebabies?' is typical. Babies were impossible. They would interfere withthe curriculum, there was no time for practice with babies, and besides, where could they be got, and how could they be taken care of? Thestudents were altogether too busy with calories, balanced rations, andthe history of medieval art. "

Perhaps the time is not so far distant when babies will be considered anintegral part of a girl's curriculum. If educators begin systematicallyto educate the emotions as well as the intellect, they will have taken along step toward increasing the birth-rate of the superior. The nextstep will be to correlate income more truly with ability in such a wayas to make it possible for superior young parents to afford childrenearlier. The child ought, if eugenically desirable, to be made an assetrather than a liability; if this can not be done, the parents should atleast not be penalized for having children. In this chapter, emphasishas been laid on the need for a change in public opinion; in futurechapters some economic and social reforms will be suggested, which it isbelieved would tend to make superior parents feel willing to have morechildren. 

The education of public opinion which, acting through the many agenciesnamed, will gradually bring about an increase in the birth-rate ofsuperior people, will not be speedy; but it has begun. The writers, therefore, feel justified in thinking, not solely as a matter ofoptimistic affirmation, but because of the evidence available, that therace suicide now taking place in the old American stock will soon reachits lowest limit, and that thereafter the birth-rate in that particularstock will slowly rise. If it does, and if, as seems probable, thebirth-rate in some inferior sections of the American population at thesame time falls from its present level, a change in the racialcomposition of the nation will take place, which, judged by pasthistory, is bound to be of great eugenic value. 

CHAPTER XIV

THE COLOR LINE

"A young white woman, a graduate of a great university of the far North, where Negroes are seldom seen, resented it most indignantly when she wasthreatened with social ostracism in a city farther South with a largeNegro population because she insisted upon receiving upon terms ofsocial equality a Negro man who had been her classmate. [128]"

The incident seems trivial. But the phenomenon back of it, the "colorline, " is so far-reaching that it deserves careful examination. 

As the incident suggests, the color line is not a universal phenomenon. The Germans appear to have little aversion to receiving Negroes--_inGermany_--on terms of equality. These same Germans, when brought face toface with the question in their colonies, or in the southern UnitedStates, quickly change their attitude. Similarly a Negro in GreatBritain labors under much less disadvantage than he does among theBritish inhabitants of Australia or South Africa. 

The color line therefore exists only as the result of race experience. This fact alone is sufficient to suggest that one should not dismiss itlightly as the outgrowth of bigotry. Is is not perhaps a socialadaptation with survival value?

The purpose of this chapter is to analyze society's "unconsciousreasoning" which has led to the establishment of a color line--to thedenial of social equality--wherever the white[129] and black races havelong been in contact during recent history; and to see whether thisdiscrimination appears to be justified by eugenics. 

J. M. Mecklin[130] summarizes society's logic as follows:

"When society permits the free social intercourse of two young personsof similar training and interests, it tacitly gives its consent to thepossible legitimate results of such relations, namely, marriage. Butmarriage is not a matter that concerns the contracting parties alone; itis social in its origin and from society come its sanctions. It issociety's legitimatised method for the perpetuation of the race in thelarger and inclusive sense of a continuous racial type which shall bethe bearer of a continuous and progressive civilization. There are, however, within the community, two racial groups of such widelydivergent physical and psychic characteristics that the blending of thetwo destroys the purity of the type of both and introducesconfusion--the result of the blend is a mongrel. The preservation of theunbroken, self-conscious existence of the white or dominant ethnic groupis synonymous with the preservation of all that has meaning andinspiration in its past and hope for its future. It forbids by law, therefore, or by the equally effective social taboo, anything that wouldtend to contaminate the purity of its stock or jeopardize the integrityof its social heritage. "

It is needless to say that the "social mind" does not consciously gothrough any such process of reasoning, before it draws a color line. Thesocial mind rarely even attempts to justify its conclusions. It merelyholds a general attitude of superiority, which in many cases appears tobe nothing more than a feeling that another race is _different_. 

In what way different?

The difference between the white race and the black (or any other race)might consist of two elements: (1) differences in heredity--biologicaldifferences; (2) differences in traditions, environment, customs--socialdifferences, in short. A critical inquirer would want to know which kindof difference was greater, for he would at once see that the second kindmight be removed by education and other social forces, while the firstkind would be substantially permanent. 

It is not difficult to find persons of prominence who will assert thatall the differences between white and Negro are differences of a socialnature, that the differences of a physical nature are negligible, andthat if the Negro is "given a chance" the significant differences willdisappear. This attitude permeates the public school system of northernstates. A recent report on the condition of Negro pupils in the New YorkCity public schools professes to give "few, perhaps no, recommendationsthat would not apply to the children of other races. Where theapplication is more true in regard to colored children, it seems largelyto be because of this lack of equal justice in the cases of theirparents. Race weakness appears but this could easily be balanced by thesame or similar weakness in other races. Given an education carefullyadapted to his needs and a fair chance for employment, the normal childof any race will succeed, unless the burden of wrong home conditionslies too heavily upon him. "[131]

As the writer does not define what she means by "succeed, " one isobliged to guess at what she means: Her anthropology is apparentlysimilar to that of Franz Boas of Columbia University, who has said that, "No proof can be given of any material inferiority of the Negrorace;--without doubt the bulk of the individuals composing the race areequal in mental aptitude to the bulk of our own people. "

If such a statement is wholly true, the color line can hardly bejustified, but must be regarded, as it is now the case sometimes, asmerely the expression of prejudice and ignorance. If the onlydifferences between white and black, which can not be removed byeducation, are of no real significance, --a chocolate hue of skin, acertain kinkiness of hair, and so on, --then logically the white raceshould remove the handicaps which lack of education and bad environmenthave placed on the Negro, and receive him on terms of perfect equality, in business, in politics, and in marriage. 

The proposition needs only to be stated in this frank form, to arouse aninstinctive protest on the part of most Americans. Yet it has been urgedin an almost equally frank form by many writers, from the days of theabolitionists to the present, and it seems to be the logical consequenceof the position adopted by such anthropologists as Professor Boas, andby the educators and others who proclaim that there are no significantdifferences between the Negro and the white, except such as are due tosocial conditions and which, therefore, can be removed. 

But what are these social differences, which it is the custom to dismissin such a light-hearted way? Are they not based on fundamentalincompatibilities of racial temperament, which in turn are based ondifferences in heredity? Modern sociologists for the main part have noillusions as to the ease with which these differences in racialtradition and custom can be removed. 

The social heritage of the Negro has been described at great length andoften with little regard for fact, by hundreds of writers. Only a glancecan be given the subject here, but it may profitably be asked what theNegro did when he was left to himself in Africa. 

"The most striking feature of the African Negro is the low forms ofsocial organization, the lack of industrial and political cooperation, and consequently the almost entire absence of social and nationalself-consciousness. This rather than intellectual inferiority explainsthe lack of social sympathy, the presence of such barbarous institutionsas cannibalism and slavery, the low position of woman, inefficiency inthe industrial and mechanical arts, the low type of group morals, rudimentary art-sense, lack of race-pride and self-assertiveness, and inintellectual and religious life largely synonymous with fetishism andsorcery. "[132]

An elementary knowledge of the history of Africa, or the more recent andmuch-quoted example of Haiti, is sufficient to prove that the Negro'sown social heritage is at a level far below that of the whites amongwhom he is living in the United States. No matter how much one mayadmire some of the Negro's individual traits, one must admit that hisdevelopment of group traits is primitive, and suggests a mentaldevelopment which is also primitive. 

If the number of original contributions which it has made to the world'scivilization is any fair criterion of the relative value of a race, thenthe Negro race must be placed very near zero on the scale. [133]

The following historical considerations suggest that in comparison withsome other races the Negro race is germinally lacking in the higherdevelopments of intelligence:

1. That the Negro race in Africa has never, by its own initiative, risenmuch above barbarism, although it has been exposed to a considerablerange of environments and has had abundant time in which to bring toexpression any inherited traits it may possess. 

2. That when transplanted to a new environment--say, Haiti--and left toits own resources, the Negro race has shown the same inability to rise;it has there, indeed, lost most of what it had acquired from thesuperior civilization of the French. 

3. That when placed side by side with the white race, the Negro raceagain fails to come up to their standard, or indeed to come anywherenear it. It is often alleged that this third test is an unfair one; thatthe social heritage of slavery must be eliminated before the Negro canbe expected to show his true worth. But contrast his career in and afterslavery with that of the Mamelukes of Egypt, who were slaves, but slavesof good stock. They quickly rose to be the real rulers of the country. Again, compare the record of the Greek slaves in the Roman republic andempire or that of the Jews under Islam. Without pushing these analogiestoo far, is not one forced to conclude that the Negro lacks in hisgerm-plasm excellence of some qualities which the white races possess, and which are essential for success in competition with thecivilizations of the white races at the present day?

If so, it must be admitted not only that the Negro is _different_ fromthe white, but that he is in the large eugenically _inferior_ to thewhite. 

This conclusion is based on the relative achievements of the race; itmust be tested by the more precise methods of the anthropologicallaboratory. Satisfactory studies of the Negro should be much morenumerous, but there are a few informative ones. Physical characters arefirst to be considered. 

As a result of the careful measurement of many skulls, Karl Pearson[134]has come to the following conclusions:

"There is for the best ascertainable characters a continuousrelationship from the European skull, through prehistoric European, prehistoric Egyptian, Congo-Gaboon Negroes to Zulus and Kafirs. 

"The indication is that of a long differentiated evolution, in which theNegro lies nearer to the common stem than the European; he is nearer tothe childhood of man. "

This does not prove any mental inferiority: there is little or norelation between conformation of skull and mental qualities, and it is agreat mistake to make hasty inferences from physical to mental traits. Bean and Mall have made studies directly on the brain, but it is notpossible to draw any sure conclusions from their work. A. Hrdlickafound physical differences between the two races, but did not studytraits of any particular eugenic significance. 

On the whole, the studies of physical anthropologists offer little ofinterest for the present purpose. Studies of mental traits are more tothe point, but are unfortunately vitiated in many cases by the fact thatno distinction was made between full-blood Negroes and mulattoes, although the presence of white blood must necessarily have a markedinfluence on the traits under consideration. If the investigations arediscounted when necessary for this reason, it appears that in the moreelementary mental processes the two races are approximately equal. Whiteand "colored" children in the Washington, D. C. , schools ranked equallywell in memory; the colored children were found to be somewhat the moresensitive to heat. [135] Summing up the available evidence, G. O. Fergusonconcludes that "in the so-called lower traits there is no greatdifference between the Negro and the white. In motor capacity there isprobably no appreciable racial difference. In sense capacity, inperceptive and discriminative ability, there is likewise a practicalequality. "

This is what one would, _a priori_, probably expect. But it is on the"higher" mental functions that race progress largely depends, and theNegro must be judged eugenically mainly by his showing in these higherfunctions. One of the first studies in this line is that of M. J. Mayo, [136] who summarizes it as follows:

"The median age of white pupils at the time of entering high school inthe city of New York is 14 years 6 months: of colored pupils 15 years 1month--a difference of 7 months. The average deviation for whites is 9months; for colored 15 months. Twenty-seven per cent of the whites areas old as the median age of the colored or older. 

"Colored pupils remain in school a greater length of time than do thewhites. For the case studied [150 white and 150 colored], the averagetime spent in high school for white pupils was 3. 8 terms; for colored4. 5 terms. About 28% of the whites attain the average time of attendancefor colored. 

"Considering the entire scholastic record, the median mark of the 150white pupils is 66; of the 150 colored pupils 62; a difference of 4%. The average deviation of white pupils is 7; of colored 6. 5. Twenty-nineper cent. Of the colored pupils reach or surpass the median mark of thewhites. 

"The white pupils have a higher average standing in all subjects . . . The colored pupils are about 3/4 as efficient as the whites in thepursuit of high school studies. "

This whole investigation is probably much too favorable to the Negrorace, first because Negro high school pupils represent a more carefulselection than do the white pupils; but most of all because nodistinction was made between Negroes and mulattoes. 

B. A. Phillips, studying the public elementary schools of Philadelphia, found[137] that the percentage of retardation in the colored schoolsranged from 72. 8 to 58. 2, while the percentage of retardation in thedistricts which contained the schools ranged from 45. 1 to 33. 3. Theaverage percentage of retardation for the city as a whole was 40. 3. Eachof the colored schools had a greater percentage of retardation than anyof the white schools, even those composed almost entirely of foreigners, and in those schools attended by both white and colored pupils thepercentage of retardation on the whole varied directly with thepercentage of colored pupils in attendance. 

These facts might be interpreted in several ways. It might be that thecurriculum was not well adapted to the colored children, or that theycame from bad home environments, or that they differed in age, etc. Dr. Phillips accordingly undertook to get further light on the cause ofretardation of the colored pupils by applying Binet tests to white andcolored children of the same chronological age and home conditions, andfound "a difference in the acceleration between the two races of 31% infavor of the white boys, 25% in favor of the white girls, 28% in favorof the white pupils with boys and girls combined. "

A. C. Strong, using the Binet-Simon tests, found[138] colored schoolchildren of Columbia, S. C. , considerably less intelligent than whitechildren. 

W. H. Pyle made an extensive test[139] of 408 colored pupils inMissouri public schools and compared them with white pupils. Heconcludes: "In general the marks indicating mental ability of the Negroare about two-thirds those of the whites. . . . In the substitution, controlled association, and Ebbinghaus tests, the Negroes are less thanhalf as good as the whites. In free association and the ink-blot teststhey are nearly as good. In quickness of perception and discriminationand in reaction, the Negroes equal or excel the whites. "

"Perhaps the most important question that arises in connection with theresults of these mental tests is: How far is ability to pass themdependent on environmental conditions? Our tests show certain specificdifferences between Negroes and whites. What these differences wouldhave been had the Negroes been subject to the same environmentalinfluences as the whites, it is difficult to say. The results obtainedby separating the Negroes into two social groups would lead one to thinkthat the conditions of life under which the negroes live might accountfor the lower mentality of the Negroes. On the other hand, it may bethat the Negroes living under better social conditions are of betterstock. They may have more white blood in them. "

The most careful study yet made of the relative intelligence of Negroesand whites is that of G. O. Ferguson, Jr. , [140] on 486 white and 421colored pupils in the schools of Richmond, Fredericksburg, and NewportNews, Va. Tests were employed which required the use of the "higher"functions, and as far as possible (mainly on the basis of skin-color)the amount of white blood in the colored pupils was determined. Fourclasses were made: full-blood Negro, 3/4 Negro, 1/2 Negro (mulatto) and1/4 Negro (quadroon). It was found that "the pure Negroes scored 69. 2%as high as the whites; that the 3/4 pure Negroes scored 73. 2% as high asthe whites; that the mulattoes scored 81. 2% as high as the whites; andthat the quadroons obtained 91. 8% of the white score. " This confirms thebelief of many observers that the ability of a colored man isproportionate to the amount of white blood he has. 

Summarizing a large body of evidence, Dr. Ferguson concludes that "theintellectual performance of the general colored population isapproximately 75% as efficient as that of the whites, " but that pureNegroes have only 60% of white intellectual efficiency, and that eventhis figure is probably too high. "It seems as though the white type hasattained a higher level of development, based upon the common elementarycapacities, which the Negro has not reached to the same degree. " "All ofthe experimental work which has been done has pointed to the samegeneral conclusion. "

This is a conclusion of much definiteness and value, but it does not goas far as one might wish, for the deeper racial differences of impulseand inhibition, which are at present incapable of precise measurement, are likewise of great importance. And it is the common opinion that theNegro differs in such traits even more than in intellect proper. He issaid to be lacking in that aggressive competitiveness which has beenresponsible for so much of the achievement of the Nordic race; it isalleged that his sexual impulses are strongly developed and inhibitionslacking; that he has "an instability of character, involving a lack offoresight, an improvidence, a lack of persistence, small power ofserious initiative, a tendency to be content with immediatesatisfactions. " He appears to be more gregarious but less apt atorganization than most races. 

The significance of these differences depends largely on whether theyare germinal, or merely the results of social tradition. In favor of theview that they are in large part racial and hereditary, is the fact thatthey persist in all environments. They are found, as Professor Mecklinsays, "Only at the lower level of instinct, impulse and temperament, anddo not, therefore, admit of clear definition because they are overlaidin the case of every individual with a mental superstructure gotten fromthe social heritage which may vary widely in the case of members of thesame race. That they do persist, however, is evidenced in the case ofthe Negroes subjected to the very different types of civilization inHaiti, Santo Domingo, the United States, and Jamaica. In each of thesecases a complete break has been made with the social traditions ofAfrica and different civilizations have been substituted, and yet intemperament and character the Negro in all these countries isessentially the same. The so-called 'reversion to type' often pointedout in the Negro is in reality but the recrudescence of fundamental, unchanged race traits upon the partial breakdown of the social heritageor the Negro's failure successfully to appropriate it. "

Again, as Professor Ferguson points out, the experimental tests abovecited may be thought to give some support to the idea that the emotionalcharacteristics of the Negro are really inherent. "Strong and changingemotions, an improvident character and a tendency to immoral conduct arenot unallied, " he explains; "They are all rooted in uncontrolledimpulse. And a factor which may tend to produce all three is a deficientdevelopment of the more purely intellectual capacities. Where theimplications of the ideas are not apprehended, where thought is notlively and fertile, where meanings and consequences are not grasped, theneed for the control of impulse will not be felt. And the demonstrabledeficiency of the Negro in intellectual traits may involve the dynamicdeficiencies which common opinion claims to exist. "

There are other racial and heritable differences of much importance, which are given too little recognition--namely, the differences ofdisease resistance. Here one can speak unhesitatingly of a realinferiority in respect to the environment of North America. 

As was pointed out in the chapter on Natural Selection, the Negro hasbeen subjected to lethal selection for centuries by the Negro diseases, the diseases of tropical Africa, of which malaria and yellow fever arethe most conspicuous examples. The Negro is strongly resistant to theseand can live where the white man dies. The white man, on the other hand, has his own diseases, of which tuberculosis is an excellent example. Compared with the Negro, he is relatively resistant to phthisis and willsurvive where the Negro dies. 

When the two races are living side by side, it is obvious that each isproving a menace to the other, by acting as a disseminator ofinfection. The white man kills the Negro with tuberculosis and typhoidfever. In North America the Negro can not kill the white man withmalaria or yellow fever, to any great extent, because these diseases donot flourish here. But the Negro has brought some other diseases hereand given them to the white race; elephantiasis is one example, but themost conspicuous is hookworm, the extent and seriousness of which haveonly recently been realized. 

In the New England states the average expectation of life, at birth, is50. 6 years for native white males, 34. 1 years for Negro males. Fornative white females it is 54. 2 years and for Negro females 37. 7 years, according to the Bureau of the Census (1916). These very considerabledifferences can not be wholly explained away by the fact that the Negrois crowded into parts of the cities where the sanitation is worst. Theyindicate that the Negro is out of his environment. In tropical Africa, to which the Negro is adapted by many centuries of natural selection, his expectation of life might be much longer than that of the white man. In the United States he is much less "fit, " in the Darwinian sense. 

In rural districts of the South, according to C. W. Stiles, the annualtyphoid death rate per 100, 000 population is:

 _Whites_ _Negroes_ Males 37. 4 75. 3 Females 27. 4 56. 3

These figures again show, not alone the greater intelligence of thewhite in matters of hygiene, but probably also the greater inherentresistance of the white to a disease which has been attacking him formany centuries. Biologically, North America is a white man's country, not a Negro's country, and those who are considering the Negro problemmust remember that natural selection has not ceased acting on man. 

From the foregoing different kinds of evidence, we feel justified inconcluding that the Negro race differs greatly from the white race, mentally as well as physically, and that in many respects it may be saidto be inferior, when tested by the requirements of modern civilizationand progress, with particular reference to North America. 

We return now to the question of intermarriage. What is to be expectedfrom the union of these diverse streams of descent?

The best answer would be to study and measure the mulattoes and theirposterity, in as many ways as possible. No one has ever done this. It isthe custom to make no distinction whatever between mulatto and Negro, inthe United States, and thus the whole problem is beclouded. 

There is some evidence from life insurance and medical sources, that themulatto stands above the Negro but below the white in respect to hishealth. There is considerable evidence that he occupies the samerelation in the intellectual world; it is a matter of generalobservation that nearly all the leaders of the Negro race in the UnitedStates are not Negroes but mulattoes. 

Without going into detail, we feel perfectly safe in drawing thisconclusion: that in general the white race loses and the Negro gainsfrom miscegenation. 

This applies, of course, only to the germinal nature. Taking intoconsideration the present social conditions in America, it is doubtfulwhether either race gains. But if social conditions be eliminated forthe moment, biologists may believe that intermarriage between the whiteand Negro races represents, on the whole, an advance for the Negro; andthat it represents for the white race a distinct loss. 

If eugenics is to be thought of solely in terms of the white race, therecan be no hesitation about rendering a verdict. We must unhesitatinglycondemn miscegenation. 

But there are those who declare that it is small and mean to take such anarrow view of the evolution of the race. They would have America openits doors indiscriminately to immigration, holding it a virtue tosacrifice one's self permanently for someone else's temporary happiness;they would equally have the white race sacrifice itself for the Negro, by allowing a mingling of the two blood-streams. That, it is alleged, isthe true way to elevate the Negro. 

The question may well be considered from that point of view, eventhough the validity of such a point of view is not admitted. 

To ensure racial and social progress, nothing will take the place ofleadership, of genius. A race of nothing but mediocrities will standstill, or very nearly so; but a race of mediocrities with a good supplyof men of exceptional ability and energy at the top, will make progressin discovery, invention and organization, which is generally recognizedas progressive evolution. 

If the level of the white race be lowered, it will hurt that race and beof little help to the Negro. If the white race be kept at such a levelthat its productivity of men of talent will be at a maximum, everyonewill progress; for the Negro benefits just as the white does from everyforward step in science and art, in industry and politics. 

Remembering that the white race in America is nine times as numerous asthe black race, we conclude that it would be desirable to encourageamalgamation of the two races only in case the average of mulattoes issuperior to the average of the whites. No one can seriously maintainthat this supposition is true. Biologically, therefore, there is noreason to think that an increase in the number of mulattoes isdesirable. 

There is a curious argument in circulation, which points out thatmulattoes are almost always the offspring of Negro mothers and whitefathers, not of Negro fathers and white mothers. Therefore, it is said, production of mulattoes does not mean at all a decrease in the number ofwhite births, but merely substitutes a number of mulatto births for anequivalent number of pure Negro births. It is therefore alleged that theproduction of mulattoes is in the long run a benefit, elevating theNegro race without impairing the white race. 

But this argument assumes that most mulatto births are illegitimate, --acondition which eugenists do not sanction, because it tends todisintegrate the family. Rather than such a condition, the legitimateproduction of pure-blood Negroes is preferable, even though they beinferior in individual ability to the illegitimate mulattoes offered asa substitute. There are not at the present time enough desirable whitefathers in the country. If desirable ones are set aside to producemulattoes, it would be a great loss to the nation; while if themulattoes are the offspring of eugenically undesirable white fathers, then the product is not likely to be anything America wants. 

From whatever standpoint we take, we see nothing good to be said formiscegenation. [141] We have discussed the problem as a particular onebetween the blacks and whites but the argument will hold good whenapplied to any two races between which the differences are so markedthat one may be considered decidedly inferior to the other. 

Society, --white society, --long ago reached the instinctive conclusion, which seems to us a correct one, that it must put a ban on intermarriagebetween two such races. It has given expression to this feeling bypassing laws to prohibit miscegenation in 22 states, while six otherstates prohibit it in their constitutions. There are thus 22 stateswhich have attempted legally to prevent intermarriage of the white andblack race. While in 20 states there is no law on the subject, it isneedless to say that popular feeling about it is almost uniform, andthat the legislators of New England for instance would refuse to givetheir daughters in marriage to Negroes, even though they might the daybefore have voted down a proposed law to prohibit intermarriage on theground that it was an expression of race prejudice. 

In a majority of the states which have no legislation of this kind, bills have been introduced during the last two or three years, and havebeen defeated through the energetic interference of the NationalAssociation for the Advancement of Colored People, an organization ofwhich Oswald Garrison Villard is chairman of the Board of Directors andW. E. B. DuBois, a brilliant mulatto, is Director of Publicity andResearch. As this association represents a very large part of the moreintelligent Negro public opinion, its attitude deserves carefulconsideration. It is set forth summarily in a letter[142] which wasaddressed to legislators in various states, as follows:

"The National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peopleearnestly protests against the bill forbidding intermarriage between theraces, not because the Association advocates intermarriage, which itdoes not, but primarily because whenever such laws have been enactedthey have become a menace to the whole institution of matrimony, leadingdirectly to concubinage, bastardy, and the degradation of the Negrowoman. No man-made law can stop the union of the races. If intermarriagebe wrong, its prevention is best left to public opinion and to nature, which wreaks its own fearful punishments on those who transgress itslaws and sin against it. We oppose the proposed statute in the languageof William Lloyd Garrison in 1843, in his successful campaign for therepeal of a similar law in Massachusetts: 'Because it is not theprovince, and does not belong to the power of any legislative assembly, in a republican government, to decide on the complexional affinity ofthose who choose to be united together in wedlock; and it may asrationally decree that corpulent and lean, tall and short, strong andweak persons shall not be married to each other as that there must be anagreement in the complexion of the parties. '

"We oppose it for the physical reason that to prohibit suchintermarriage would be publicly to acknowledge that black blood is aphysical taint, something no self-respecting colored man and woman canbe asked to admit. We oppose it for the moral reason that all such lawsleave the colored girl absolutely helpless before the lust of the whiteman, without the power to compel the seducer to marry. The statistics ofintermarriage in those states where it is permitted show this happensso infrequently as to make the whole matter of legislation unnecessary. Both races are practically in complete agreement on this question, forcolored people marry colored people, and white marry whites, theexceptions being few. We earnestly urge upon you an unfavorable reporton this bill. "

Legislation on the subject of marriage is clearly inside the province ofgovernment. That such an argument as is quoted from William LloydGarrison can still be circulated in the United States and apparentlycarry weight, is sufficient cause for one to feel pessimistic over thespread of the scientific spirit in this nation. Suffice it to say thaton this point the National Association is a century behind the times. 

The following policy seems to us to be in accordance with modernscience, and yet meet all the legitimate arguments of the NationalAssociation. We will state our attitude as definitely as possible:

1. We hold that it is to the interests of the United States, for thereasons given in this chapter, to prevent further Negro-whiteamalgamation. 

2. The taboo of public opinion is not sufficient in all cases to preventintermarriage, and should be supplemented by law, particularly as theUnited States have of late years received many white immigrants fromother countries (e. G. , Italy) where the taboo is weak because theproblem has never been pressing. 

3. But to prevent intermarriage is only a small part of the solution, since most mulattoes come from extramarital miscegenation. The onlysolution of this, which is compatible with the requirements of eugenics, is not that of _laissez faire_, suggested by the National Association, but an extension of the taboo, and an extension of the laws, to prohibitall sexual intercourse between the two races. 

Four states (Louisiana, Nevada, South Dakota and Alabama) have alreadyattempted to gain this end by law. We believe it to be highly desirablethat such laws should be enacted and enforced by all states. A necessarypreliminary would be to standardize the laws all over the Union, particularly with a view to agreement on what a "Negro" legally is; forin some states the legislation applies to one who is one-sixteenth, oreven less, Negro in descent, while in other states it appears to referonly to full-blood or, at the most, half-blood individuals. 

Such legislation, and what is more important, such public opinion, leading to a cessation of Negro-white amalgamation, we believe to be inthe interests of national eugenics, and to further the welfare of bothof the races involved. Miscegenation can only lead to unhappiness underpresent social conditions and must, we believe, under _any_ socialconditions be biologically wrong. 

We favor, therefore, the support of the taboo which society has placedon these mixed marriages, as well as any legal action which canpracticably be taken to make miscegenation between white and blackimpossible. Justice requires that the Negro race be treated as kindlyand considerately as possible, with every economic and politicalconcession that is consistent with the continued welfare of the nation. Such social equality and intercourse as might lead to marriage are notcompatible with this welfare. 

CHAPTER XV

IMMIGRATION

There are now in the United States some 14, 000, 000 foreign-born persons, together with other millions of the sons and daughters of foreigners whoalthough born on American soil have as yet been little assimilated toAmericanism. This great body of aliens, representing perhaps a fifth ofthe population, is not a pool to be absorbed, but a continuous, inflowing stream, which until the outbreak of the Great War was steadilyincreasing in volume, and of which the fountain-head is so inexhaustibleas to appal the imagination. From the beginning of the century, theinflow averaged little less than a million a year, and while aboutone-fifth of this represented a temporary migration, four-fifths of itmeant a permanent addition to the population of the New World. 

The character of this stream will inevitably determine to a large extentthe future of the American nation. The direct biological results, inrace mixture, are important enough, although not easy to define. Theindirect results, which are probably of no less importance to eugenics, are so hard to follow that some students of the problem do not evenrealize their existence. 

The ancestors of all white Americans, of course, were immigrants not sovery many generations ago. But the earlier immigration was relativelyhomogeneous and stringently selected by the dangers of the voyage, thehardships of life in a new country, and the equality of opportunitywhere free competition drove the unfit to the wall. There were fewpeople of eminence in the families that came to colonize North America, but there was a high average of sturdy virtues, and a good deal ofability, particularly in the Puritan and Huguenot invasions and in apart of that of Virginia. 

In the first three-quarters of the nineteenth century, the number ofthese "patriots and founders" was greatly increased by the arrival ofimmigrants of similar racial stocks from Ireland, Germany, Scandinavia, and to a less extent from the other countries of northern and westernEurope. These arrivals added strength to the United States, particularlyas a large part of them settled on farms. 

This stream of immigration gradually dried up, but was succeeded by aflood from a new source, --southern and eastern Europe. Italians, Slavs, Poles, Magyars, East European Hebrews, Finns, Portuguese, Greeks, Roumanians and representatives of many other small nationalities beganto seek fortunes in America. The earlier immigration had been made uplargely of those who sought escape from religious or political tyrannyand came to settle permanent homes. The newer immigration was made up, on the whole, of those who frankly sought wealth. The difference in thereason for coming could not fail to mean a difference in selection ofthe immigrants, quite apart from the change in the races. 

Last of all began an immigration of Levantines, of Syrians, Armenians, and other inhabitants of Asiatic Turkey. Beyond this region lie thegreat nations of Asia, "oversaturated" with population. So far there hasbeen little more than the threat of their overflow, but the threat iscertain to become a reality within a few years unless prevented by legalrestriction. 

The eugenic results of immigration are partly indirect and partlydirect. Direct results follow if the newcomers are assimilated, --a wordwhich we shall use rather narrowly to mean that free intermarriage takesplace between them and all parts of the older population. We shalldiscuss the direct results first, the nature of which depends largely onwhether the newcomers are racially homogeneous with the populationalready in the country. 

If they are like, the old and new will blend without difficulty. Theeffects of the immigration then depend on whether the immigrants arebetter or worse in average quality than the older residents. If as goodor better, they are valuable additions; if inferior they arebiologically a detriment. 

But if the new arrivals are different, if they represent a differentsubspecies of _Homo sapiens_, the question is more serious, for itinvolves the problem of crossing races which are biologically more orless distinct. Genetics can throw some light on this problem. 

Waiving for the moment all question as to the relative quality of twodistinct races, what results are to be expected from crossing? It (1)gives an increase of vigor which diminishes in later generations and (2)produces recombination of characters. 

The first result may be disregarded, for the various races of man areprobably already much mixed, and too closely related, to give rise tomuch hybrid vigor in crosses. 

The second result will be favorable or unfavorable, depending on thecharacters which go into the cross; and it is not possible to predictthe result in human matings, because the various racial characters areso ill known. It is, therefore, not worth while here to discuss atlength genetic theory. In general it may be said that some valuablecharacters are likely to disappear, as the result of such crosses, andless desirable ones to take their place. The great bulk of thepopulation resulting from such racial crosses is likely to be more orless mongrel in nature. Finally, some individuals will appear whocombine the good characters of the two races, without the bad ones. 

The net result will therefore probably be some distinct gain, but agreater loss. There is danger that complex and valuable traits of a racewill be broken down in the process of hybridization, and that it willtake a long time to bring them together again. The old view that racialcrosses lead fatally to race degeneration is no longer tenable, but theview recently advanced, that crosses are advantageous, seems equallyhasty. W. E. Castle has cited the Pitcairn Islanders and theBoer-Hottentot mulattoes of South Africa as evidence that wide crossesare productive of no evil results. These cases may be admitted to showthat such a hybrid race may be physically healthy, but in respect ofmental traits they hardly do more than suggest the conclusion weadvanced in our chapter on the Color Line, --that such miscegenation isan advantage to the inferior race and a disadvantage to the superiorone. 

On the whole, we believe wide racial crosses should be looked upon withsuspicion by eugenists. 

The colonizers of North America mostly belonged to the Nordic race. [143]The earlier immigrants to the United States, --roughly, those who camehere before the Civil War, --belonged mostly to the same stock, andtherefore mixed with the early settlers without difficulty. Theadvantages of this immigration were offset by no impairment of racialhomogeneity. 

But the more recent immigration belongs mostly to other races, principally the Mediterranean and Alpine. Even if these immigrants weresuperior on the average to the older population, it is clear that theirassimilation would not be an unmixed blessing, for the evil ofcrossbreeding would partly offset the advantage of the addition ofvaluable new traits. If, on the other hand, the average of the newimmigration is inferior in quality, or in so far as it is inferior inquality, it is evident that it must represent biologically an almostunmixed evil; it not only brings in new undesirable traits, but injuresthe desirable ones already here. 

E. A. Ross has attempted to predict some of the changes that will takeplace in the population of the United States, as a result of theimmigration of the last half-century. [144] "It is reasonable, " hethinks, "to expect an early falling off in the frequency of good looksin the American people. " A diminution of stature, a depreciation ofmorality, an increase in gross fecundity, and a considerable lowering ofthe level of average natural ability are among other results that heconsiders probable. Not only are the races represented in the laterimmigration in many cases inferior in average ability to the earlierimmigrant races, but America does not get the best, or even arepresentative selection, [145] from the races which are now contributingto her population. "Europe retains most of her brains, but sendsmultitudes of the common and sub-common. There is little sign of anintellectual element among the Magyars, Russians, South Slavs, Italians, Greeks or Portuguese" who are now arriving. "This does not hold, however, for currents created by race discrimination or oppression. TheArmenian, Syrian, Finnish and Russo-Hebrew streams seem_representative_, and the first wave of Hebrews out of Russia in theeighties was superior. "

While the earlier immigration brought a liberal amount of intelligenceand ability, the later immigration (roughly, that of the last halfcentury) seems to have brought distinctly less. It is at presentprincipally an immigration of unskilled labor, of vigorous, ignorantpeasants. Some of this is "promoted" by agents of transportationcompanies and others who stand to gain by stirring up the population ofa country village in Russia or Hungary, excite the illiterate peasantsby stories of great wealth and freedom to be gained in the New World, provide the immigrant with a ticket to New York and start him for EllisIsland. Naturally, such immigration is predominantly male. On the whole, females make up one-third of the recent inflow, but among someraces--Greeks, Italians and Roumanians, for example--only one-fifth. 

In amount of inherent ability these immigrants are not only less highlyendowed than is desirable, but they furnish, despite weeding out, altogether too large a proportion of the "three D's"--defectives, delinquents and dependents. In the single year 1914 more than 33, 000would-be immigrants were turned back, about half of them because likelyto become public charges. The immigration law of 1907, amended in 1910, 1913 and 1917, excludes the following classes of aliens from admissioninto the United States:

 Idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded persons, epileptics, insane persons, persons who have been insane within 5 years previously; persons who have had two or more attacks of insanity at any time previously or who are affected by constitutional psychopathic inferiority or chronic alcoholism; paupers, vagrants, persons likely to become public charges; professional beggars, persons afflicted with tuberculosis or with a loathsome or contagious disease; persons who have been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude; polygamists, anarchists, contract laborers, prostitutes, persons not comprehended within any one of the foregoing excluded classes who are found to be and are certified by the examining surgeon as being mentally or physically defective, such mental or physical defect being of such a nature as to affect the ability of the alien to earn a living. 

[Illustration: EXAMINING IMMIGRANTS AT ELLIS ISLAND, NEW YORK

FIG. 39. --Surgeons of the United States Public Health Servicetest every immigrant, physically and mentally, in order to send back anywho give promise of being undesirable additions to the population. Theabove photograph shows how the examination of those whose condition hasaroused suspicion, is conducted. The boy under the measuring bar, in theforeground, and the three immediately to the left of the desk, areexamples of congenital asthenia and poor physique; two of the four werefound to be dull mentally. Photograph from U. S. Public Health Service. ]

Despite the efficiency of the U. S. Public Health Service, it is quiteimpossible for its small staff to examine thoroughly every immigrant, when three or four thousand arrive in a single day, as has frequentlyhappened at Ellis Island. Under such circumstances, the medical officermust pass the immigrants with far too cursory an inspection. It is notsurprising that many whose mental defects are not of an obvious naturemanage to slip through; particularly if, as is charged, [146] many of theundesirables are informed that the immigrant rush is greatest in Marchand April, and therefore make it a point to arrive at that time, knowingthe medical inspection will be so overtaxed that they will have a betterchance to get by. The state hospitals of the Atlantic states are rapidlyfilling up with foreign-born insane. [147] Probably few of these werepatently insane when they passed through the port of entry. Insanity, itmust be remembered, is predominantly a disease of old age, whereas theaverage alien on arrival is not old. The mental weakness appears onlyafter he has been here some years, perhaps inevitably or perhaps becausehe finds his environment in, say, lower Manhattan Island is much moretaxing to the brain than the simple surroundings of his farm overlookingthe bay of Naples. 

The amount of crime attributable to certain sections of the more recentimmigration is relatively large. "It was frequently stated to themembers of the Immigration Commission in southern Italy that crime hadgreatly diminished in many communities because most of the criminals hadgone to America. " The amount of crime among immigrants in the UnitedStates is partly due to their age and sex distribution, partly due totheir concentration in cities, partly to the bad environment from whichthey have sometimes come; partly to inherent racial characteristics, such as make crimes of violence frequent among the Southern Italians, crimes of gain proportionately more frequent among the Jews, andviolence when drunk more a characteristic of the Slavs. No restrictionof immigration can wholly eliminate the criminal tendencies, but, saysDr. Warne, [148] after balancing the two sides, "It still remains truethat because of immigration we have a greater amount of pauperism andcrime than would be the case if there were no immigration. It is also anindisputable fact that with a better regulation of immigration theUnited States would have less of these social horrors. "

To dwell too much on the undesirable character of part of the presentimmigration would be to lose perspective. Most of it consists ofvigorous, industrious, ignorant peasants, induced to come here in searchof a better living than they can get at home. But it is important toremember that if they come here and stay, they are pretty certain to beassimilated sooner or later. In cases superior to the average of theolder population, their arrival should be welcomed if not too raciallydiverse; but if, as we believe the record of their achievements shows, alarge part of the immigration is on the average inferior to the olderpopulation of the United States, such are eugenically a detriment to thefuture progress of the race. The direct biological result to be expectedfrom the assimilation of such newcomers is the swamping of the bestcharacteristics of the old American stock, and a diminution of theaverage of intelligence of the whole country. 

The interbreeding is too slow at present to be conspicuous, and henceits effects are little noticed. The foreigners tend to keep bythemselves, to form "Little Italies, " "Little Russias, " transplantedGhettoes and "foreign quarters, " where they retain their nativelanguages and customs and marry compatriots. This condition ofsegregation can not last forever; the process of amalgamation will bemore rapid with each generation, particularly because of thepreponderance of males in the newer immigration who must marry outsidetheir own race, if they are to marry at all. 

The direct results of immigration that lead to intermarriage with theolder population are fairly easy to outline. The indirect results, whichwe shall now consider, are more complex. We have dealt so far only withthe effects of an immigration that is assimilated; but some immigration(that from the Orient, for example) is not assimilated; otherimmigration remains unassimilated for a long time. What are the eugenicconsequences of an unassimilated immigration?

The presence of large numbers of immigrants who do not intermarry withthe older stock will, says T. N. Carver, [149] inevitably mean one ofthree things:

1. Geographical separation of races. 

2. Social separation of races (as the "color line" in the South and to alarge extent in the North, between Negroes and whites who yet live sideby side). 

3. Continuous racial antagonism, frequently breaking out into race war. This third possibility has been at least threatened, by the conflictbetween the white and yellow races in California, and the conflictbetween whites and Hindus in British Columbia. 

None of these alternatives is attractive. The third is undesirable inevery way and the first two are difficult to maintain. The first isperhaps impossible; the second is partly practicable, as is shown by thecase of the Negro. One of its drawbacks is not sufficiently recognized. 

In a soundly-organized society, it is necessary that the road should beopen from top to bottom and bottom to top, in order that genuine meritmay get its deserts. A valuable strain which appears at the bottom ofthe social scale must be able to make its way to the top, receivingfinancial and other rewards commensurate with its value to the state, and being able to produce a number of children proportionate to itsreward and its value. This is an ideal which is seldom approximated ingovernment, but it is the advantage of a democratic form of governmentthat it presents the open road to success, more than does an oligarchicgovernment. That this freedom of access to all rewards that the statecan give should be open to every one (and conversely that no one shouldbe kept at the top and over-rewarded if he is unworthy) is essential toeugenics; but it is quite incompatible with the existence within thestate of a number of isolated groups, some of which must inevitably andproperly be considered inferior. It is certain that, at the present timein this country, no Negro can take a place in the upper ranks ofsociety, which are and will long remain white. The fact that thissituation is inevitable makes it no less unfortunate for both Negro andwhite races; consolation can only be found in the thought that it isless of a danger than the opposite condition would be. But thiscondition of class discrimination is likely to exist, to a much lessextent it is true, in every city where there are foreign-born andnative-born populations living side by side, and where the epithets of"Sheeny, " "Dago, " "Wop, " "Kike, " "Greaser, " "Guinea, " etc. , testify tothe feeling of the older population that it is superior. 

While eugenic strength in a state is promoted by variety, too great aheterogeneity offers serious social difficulties. It is essential ifAmerica is to be strong eugenically that it slow down the flood ofimmigrants who are not easily assimilable. At present a state of affairsis being created where class distinctions are likely to be barriers tothe promotion of individual worth--and equally, of course, to thedemotion of individual worthlessness. 

Even if an immigration is not assimilated, then, it yet has an indirecteffect on eugenics. But there are other indirect effects of immigration, which are quite independent of assimilation: they inhere in the merebulk and economic character of the immigration. The arrivals of the pastfew decades have been nearly all unskilled laborers. Professor Carverbelieves that continuous immigration which enters the ranks of labor inlarger proportion and the business and professional classes in a smallerproportion than the native-born will produce the following results:

1. Distribution. It will keep competition more intense among laborersand less intense among business and professional men: it will thereforeraise the income of the employing classes and lower the wages ofunskilled labor. 

2. Production. It will give a relatively low marginal productivity to atypical immigrant and make him a relatively unimportant factor in theproduction of wealth. 

3. Organization of industry. Immigrants can only be employedeconomically at low wages and in large gangs, because of (2). 

4. Agriculture. If large numbers of immigrants should go intoagriculture, it will mean one of two things, probably the second:

(a) Continuous subdivision of farms resulting in inefficient andwasteful application of labor and smaller crops per man, althoughprobably larger crops per acre. 

(b) Development of a class of landed proprietors on the one hand and alandless agricultural proletariat on the other. 

It is true that the great mass of unskilled labor which has come to theUnited States in the last few decades has made possible the developmentof many industries that have furnished an increased number of good jobsto men of intelligence, but many who have made a close study of theimmigration problem think that despite this, unskilled labor has beencoming in altogether too large quantities. Professor Ross publishes thefollowing illustration:

"What a college man saw in a copper-mine in the Southwest gives in anutshell the logic of low wages. 

"The American miners, getting $2. 75 a day, are abruptly displacedwithout a strike by a train-load of 500 raw Italians brought in by thecompany and put to work at from $1. 50 to $2 a day. For the Americansthere is nothing to do but to 'go down the road. ' At first the Italianslive on bread and beer, never wash, wear the same filthy clothes nightand day, and are despised. After two or three years they want to livebetter, wear decent clothes, and be respected. They ask for more wages, the bosses bring in another train-load from the steerage, and the partlyAmericanized Italians follow the American miners 'down the road. ' Nowonder the estimate of government experts as to the number of ourfloating casual laborers ranges up to five millions!"

"It is claimed that the natives are not displaced" by the constantinflow of alien unskilled labor, says H. P. Fairchild, [150] but that they"are simply forced into higher occupations. Those who were formerlycommon laborers are now in positions of authority. While this argumentholds true of individuals, its fallacy when applied to groups isobvious. There are not nearly enough places of authority to receivethose who are forced out from below. The introduction of 500 Slavlaborers into a community may make a demand for a dozen or a score ofAmericans in higher positions, but hardly for 500. "

"The number of unskilled workers coming in at the present time issufficient to check decidedly the normal tendency toward an improvedstandard of living in many lines of industry, " in the opinion of J. W. Jenks, who was a member of the Immigration Commission appointed byPresident Roosevelt in 1907. He alludes to the belief that instead ofcrowding the older workers _out_, the aliens merely crowd them up, andsays that he himself formerly held that view; "but the figures collectedby the Immigration commission, from a sufficient number of industries indifferent sections of the country to give general conclusions, provebeyond a doubt that in a good many cases these incoming immigrantsactually drive out into other localities and into other unskilled tradeslarge numbers of American workingmen and workingmen of the earlierimmigration who do not get better positions but, rather, worse ones. . . . Professor Lauck, our chief superintendent of investigators in thefield, and, so far as I am aware, every single investigator in thefield, before the work ended, reached the conclusion from personalobservation that the tendency of the large percentage of immigration ofunskilled workers is clearly to lower the standard of living in a numberof industries, and the statistics of the commission support thisimpression. I therefore changed my earlier views. "

If the immigration of large quantities of unskilled labor with lowstandards of living tends in most cases to depress wages and lower thestandard of living of the corresponding class of the old Americanpopulation, the consequences would appear to be:

1. The employers of labor would profit, since they would get abundantlabor at low wages. If this increase in the wealth of employers led toan increase in their birth-rate, it would be an advantage. But itapparently does not. The birth-rate of the employing class is probablylittle restricted by financial difficulties; therefore on themimmigration probably has no immediate eugenic effect. 

2. The American skilled laborers would profit, since there is moredemand for skilled labor in industries created by unskilled immigrantlabor. Would the increasing prosperity and a higher standard of livinghere, tend to lower the relative birth-rate of the class or not?

The answer probably depends on the extent of the knowledge of birthcontrol which has been discussed elsewhere. 

3. The wages and standard of living of American unskilled laborers willfall, since they are obliged directly to compete with the newcomers. Itseems most likely that a fall in wages and standards is correlated witha fall in birth-rate. This case must be distinguished from cases wherethe wages and standards _never were high_, and where poverty iscorrelated with a high birth-rate. If this distinction is correct, thepresent immigration will tend to lower the birth-rate of Americanunskilled laborers. 

The arguments here used may appear paradoxical, and have littlestatistical support, but they seem to us sound and not in contradictionwith any known facts. If they are valid, the effect of such immigrationas the United States has been receiving is to reduce the birth-rate ofthe unskilled labor with little or no effect on the employers andmanagers of labor. 

Since both the character and the volume of immigration are at fault, remedial measures may be applied to either one or both of thesefeatures. It is very desirable that we have a much more stringentselection of immigrants than is made at the present time. But most ofthe measures which have been actually proposed and urged in recent yearshave been directed at a diminution of the volume, and at a change incharacter only by somewhat indirect and indiscriminate means. 

The Immigration Commission made a report to Congress on Dec. 5, 1910, inwhich it suggested the following possible methods of restricting thevolume of immigration:

1. The exclusion of those unable to read and write in some language. 

2. The reduction of the number of each race arriving each year to acertain percentage of the average of that race arriving during a givenperiod of years. 

3. The exclusion of unskilled laborers unaccompanied by wives orfamilies. 

4. Material increase in the amount of money required to be in thepossession of the immigrant at the port of arrival. 

5. Material increase in the head tax. 

6. Limitation of the number of immigrants arriving annually at any port. 

7. The levying of the head tax so as to make a marked discrimination infavor of men with families. 

Eugenically, it is probable that (3) and (7), which would tend to admitonly families, would be a detriment to American welfare; (1) and (2)have been the suggestions which have met with the most favor. All butone member of the commission favored (1), the literacy test, as the mostfeasible single method of restricting undesirable immigration, and itwas enacted into law by Congress, which passed it over PresidentWilson's veto, in February, 1917. 

Records for 1914 show that "illiteracy among the total number ofarrivals of each race ranged all the way from 64% for the Turkish toless than 1% for the English, the Scotch, the Welsh, the Scandinavian, and the Finnish. The Bohemian and Moravian, the German, and the Irisheach had less than 5% illiterate. Races other than the Turkish, whoseimmigration in 1914 was more than one-third illiterate, include theDalmatians, Bosnians, Herzegovinians, Russians, Ruthenians, Italians, Lithuanians, and Roumanians. "

It is frankly admitted by the proponents of this method of restrictionthat it will keep out some who ought to come in, and let in some whoought to be kept out. It is in some cases a test of opportunity ratherthan of character, but "in the belief of its advocates, it will meet thesituation as disclosed by the investigation of the ImmigrationCommission better than any other means that human ingenuity can devise. It is believed that it would exclude more of the undesirable and fewerof the desirable immigrants than any other method of restriction. "

On the other hand, it is argued that the literacy test will fail ofsuccess because those who want to come will learn to read and write, which will only delay their arrival a few months without changing theirreal character. But the effect of such attempts will separate those whosucceed from those who are too inferior to succeed, which would be anadvantage of the plan rather than a defect. 

The second method of selection enumerated (2) above, was proposed byRev. Sidney L. Gulick, particularly with a view to meeting the need ofrestriction of Asiatic immigration. [151] This immigration will bediscussed shortly, but in the meantime the details of his plan may bepresented. 

"Only so many immigrants of any people should be admitted as we canAmericanize. Let the maximum permissible annual immigration from anypeople be a definite per cent. (say five) of the sum of theAmerican-born children of that people plus those who have becomenaturalized of the same people. Let this restriction be imposed onlyupon adult males. 

"Taking the 1910 census as our basis, the 5% Restriction Proposal wouldhave fixed the maximum permissible immigration of males from North andWest Europe at 759, 000 annually, while the actual annual immigration forthe last 5 years averages but 115, 000. The permissible immigration fromSouth and East Europe would have been 189, 000 annually, while theaverage for the last five years has been 372, 000. When applied to China, the policy would have admitted 1, 106 males per year, while the numberadmitted on the average for the last 5 years has been 1, 571. Theproposal would provide for the admission of 1, 200 Japanese annually, here again resulting in the exclusion on the average of 1, 238 malesyearly during the years 1911-1915. No estimate is made here of theeffect of the exclusion of males on the arrival of women and children. "The percentage restriction is unsatisfactory to a eugenist, as notsufficiently discriminating. 

The literary restriction has been a great step forward but should bebacked by the addition of such mental tests as will make it fairlycertain to keep out the dull-minded as well as feeble-minded. Longdivision would suffice as such a test until better tests relativelyunaffected by schooling can be put into operation, since it is at thispoint in the grades that so many dull-minded drop out of the schools. 

Oriental immigration is becoming an urgent problem, and it is essentialthat its biological, as well as its economic and sociological featuresbe understood, if it is to be solved in a satisfactory and reasonablypermanent way. In the foregoing discussion, Oriental immigration hashardly been taken into account; it must now receive particularconsideration. 

What are the grounds, then, for forbidding the yellow races, or theraces of British India, to enter the United States? The considerationsurged in the past have been (1) Political: it is said that they areunable to acquire the spirit of American institutions. This is anobjection which concerns eugenics only indirectly. (2) Medical: it issaid that they introduce diseases, such as the oriental liver, lung andintestinal flukes, which are serious, against which Americans have neverbeen selected, and for which no cure is known. (3) Economic: it isargued that the Oriental's lower standard of living makes it impossiblefor the white man to compete with him. The objection is well founded, and is indirectly of concern to eugenics, as was pointed out in apreceding section of this chapter. As eugenists we feel justified inobjecting to the immigration of large bodies of unskilled Orientallabor, on the ground that they rear larger families than our stock onthe same small incomes. 

A biological objection has also been alleged, in the possibility ofinterbreeding between the yellow and white races. In the past such caseshave been very rare; it is authoritatively stated[152] that "there areon our whole Pacific coast not more than 20 instances of intermarriagebetween Americans and Japanese, and . . . One might count on the fingersof both hands the number of American-Chinese marriages between San Diegoand Seattle. " The presence of a body of non-interbreeding immigrants islikely to produce the adverse results already discussed in the earlierpart of this chapter. 

Eugenically, then, the immigration of any considerable number ofunskilled laborers from the Orient may have undesirable direct resultsand is certain to have unfavorable indirect results. It should thereforebe prevented, either by a continuation of the "gentlemen's agreement"now in force between the United States and Japan, and by similaragreements with other nations, or by some such non-invidious measure asthat proposed by Dr. Gulick. This exclusion should not of course beapplied to the intellectual classes, whose presence here would offeradvantages which would outweigh the disadvantages. 

We have a different situation in the Philippine islands, there theyellow races have been denied admission since the United States tookpossession. Previously, the Chinese had been trading there forcenturies, and had settled in considerable numbers almost from the timethe Spaniards colonized the archipelago. 

At present it is estimated that there are 100, 000 Chinese in theislands, and their situation was not put too strongly by A. E. Jenks, when he wrote:[153]

"As to the Chinese, it does not matter much what they themselves desire;but what their descendants desire will go far toward answering the wholequestion of the Filipinos' volition toward assimilation, because theyare _the_ Filipinos. To be specific: During the latter days of myresidence in the Islands in 1905 Governor-General Wright one day told methat he had recently personally received from one of the mostdistinguished Filipinos of the time, and a member of the Insular CivilCommission, the statement that 'there was not a single prominent anddominant family among the Christianized Filipinos which did not possessChinese blood. ' The voice and will of the Filipinos of to-day is thevoice and the will of these brainy, industrious, rapidly developing menwhose judgment in time the world is bound to respect. "

This statement will be confirmed by almost any American resident in theIslands. Most of the men who have risen to prominence in the Islands aremestizos, and while in political life some of the leaders are merelySpanish metis, the financial leaders almost without exception, thecaptains of industry, have Chinese blood in their veins, while thisclass has also taken an active part in the government of thearchipelago. Emilio Aguinaldo is one of the most conspicuous of theChinese mestizos. Individual examples might be multiplied without limit;it will be sufficient to mention Bautista Lim, president of the largesttobacco firm in the islands and also a physician; his brother, formerlyan insurgent general and later governor of Sampango province under theAmerican administration; the banker Lim Hap; Faustino Lechoco, cattleking of the Philippines; Fernandez brothers, proprietors of a steamshipline; Locsin and Lacson, wealthy sugar planters; Mariano Velasco, dry-goods importer; Datto Piang, the Moro warrior and chieftain; Paua, insurgent general in southern Luzon; Ricardo Gochuico, tobacco magnate. In most of these men the proportion of Chinese blood is large. 

Generalizing, we are justified in saying that the cross between Chineseand Filipinos produces progeny superior to the Filipinos. It must beremembered that it is not a very wide cross, the Malayans, who includemost of the Filipinos, being closely related to the Chinese. 

It appears that even a small infusion of Chinese blood may producelong-continued favorable results, if the case of the Ilocanos iscorrectly described. This tribe, in Northern Luzon, furnishes perhapsthe most industrious workers of any tribe in the islands; foremen andoverseers of Filipinos are quite commonly found to be Ilocanos, whilethe members of the tribe are credited with accomplishing more steadywork than any other element of the population. The current explanationof this is that they are Chinese mestizos: their coast was constantlyexposed the raids of Chinese pirates, a certain number of whom settledthere and took Ilocano women as wives. From these unions, the wholetribe in the course of time is thought to have benefited. [154]

The history of the Chinese in the Philippines fails to corroborate theidea that he never loses his racial identity. It must be borne in mindthat nearly all the Chinese in the United States are of the lowestworking class, and from the vicinity of Canton; while those in thePhilippines are of a higher class, and largely from the neighborhood ofAmoy. They have usually married Filipino women of good families, sotheir offspring had exceptional advantages, and stand high in theestimation of the community. The requirement of the Spanish governmentwas that a Chinese must embrace Christianity and become a citizen, before he could marry a Filipino. Usually he assumed his wife's name, sothe children were brought up wholly as Filipinos, and consideredthemselves such, without cherishing any particular sentiment for theFlowery Kingdom. 

The biologist who studies impartially the Filipino peoples may easilyconclude that the American government is making a mistake in excludingthe Chinese; that the infiltration of intelligent Chinese and theirintermixture with the native population would do more to raise the levelof ability of the latter than a dozen generations of that compulsoryeducation on which the government has built such high hopes. 

And this conclusion leads to the question whether much of the surpluspopulation of the Orient could not profitably be diverted to regionsoccupied by savage and barbarian people. Chinese immigrants, mostlytraders, have long been going in small numbers to many such regions andhave freely intermarried with native women. It is a matter of commonobservation to travelers that much of the small mercantile business haspassed into the hands of Chinese mestizos. As far as the first fewgenerations, at least, the cross here seems to be productive of goodresults. Whether Oriental immigration should be encouraged must dependon the decision of the respective governments, and considerations otherthan biologic will have weight. As far as eugenics is concerned it islikely that such regions would profit by a reasonable amount of Chineseor Japanese immigration which resulted in interbreeding and not in theformation of isolated race-groups, because the superior Orientals tendto raise the level of the native population into which they marry. 

The question of the regulation of immigration is, as we have insistedthroughout this chapter, a question of weighing the consequences. Adecision must be reached in each case by asking what course will do mostfor the future good both of the nation and of the whole species. To talkof the sacred duty of offering an asylum to any who choose to come, isto indulge in immoral sentimentality. Even if the problem be put on themost unselfish plane possible, to ask not what will be for thiscountry's own immediate or future benefit, but what will most benefitthe world at large, it can only be concluded that the duty of theUnited States is to make itself strong, efficient, productive andprogressive. By so doing they will be much better able to help the restof the world than by progressively weakening themselves through failureto regulate immigration. 

Further, in reaching a decision on the regulation of immigration, thereare numerous kinds of results to be considered: political, social, economic and biologic, among others. All these interact, and it is hardto say that one is more important than another; naturally we havelimited ourselves to the biologic aspect, but not without recognizingthat the other aspects exist and must be taken into account by those whoare experts in those fields. 

Looking only at the eugenic consequences, we can not doubt that aconsiderable and discriminatory selection of immigrants to this countryis necessary. Both directly and indirectly, the immigration of recentyears appears to be diminishing the eugenic strength of the nation morethan it increases it. 

The state would be in a stronger position eugenically (and in many otherways) if it would decrease the immigration of unskilled labor, andincrease the immigration of creative and directing talent. A selectivediminution of the volume of immigration would tend to have that result, because it would necessarily shut out more of the unskilled than theskilled. 

CHAPTER XVI

WAR

War always changes the composition of a nation; but this change may beeither a loss or a gain. The modification of selection by war is farmore manifold than the literature on the biological effects of war wouldlead the reader to suppose. All wars are partly eugenic and partlydysgenic; some are mainly the one, some are mainly the other. The racialeffects of war occur in at least three periods:

1. The period of preparation. 

2. The period of actual fighting. 

3. The period of readjustment after the war. 

The first division involves the effect of a standing army, whichwithdraws men during a part of the reproductive period and keeps most ofthem in a celibate career. The officers marry late if at all and show avery low birth-rate. The prolonged celibacy has in many armies led to ahigher incidence of venereal diseases which prolongs the celibacy andlowers the birthrate. [155] Without extended discussion, the followingconsiderations may be named as among those which should govern a policyof military preparedness that will safeguard, as far as possible, theeugenic interests:

1. If the army is a standing one, composed of men serving long terms ofenlistment, they should be of as advanced an age as is compatible withmilitary efficiency. If a man of 35 has not married, it is probable thathe will never marry, and therefore there is less loss to the race inenrolling him for military service, than is the case with a man of20-25. 

2. The army (except in so far as composed of inferior men) should notfoster celibacy. Short enlistments are probably the most valuable meansof avoiding this evil. 

3. Universal conscription is much better than voluntary service, sincethe latter is highly selective, the former much less so. Those inregular attendance in college should receive their military training intheir course as is now done. 

4. Officers' families should be given an additional allowance for eachchild. This would aid in increasing the birth-rate, which appears to bevery low among army and navy officers in the United States service, andprobably in that of all civilized countries. 

5. Every citizen owes service to his nation, in time of need, butfighting service should not be exacted if some one else could perform itbetter than he where he is expert in some other needed field. The recentaction of England in sending to the front as subaltern officers, whowere speedily killed, many highly trained technicians and youngscientists and medical men who would have been much more valuable athome in connection with war measures, is an example of this mistake. Carrying the idea farther, one sees that in many nations there arecertain races which are more valuable on the firing line than inindustries at the rear; and it appears that they should play the partfor which they are best fitted. From this point of view, the Ententeallies were wholly justified in employing their Asiatic and Africansubjects in war. In the United States are millions of negroes who are ofless value than white men in organized industry but almost as valuableas the whites, when properly led, at the front. It would appear to besound statesmanship to enlist as many Negroes as possible in the activeforces, in case of war, thus releasing a corresponding number of moreskilled white workers for the industrial machine on whose efficiencysuccess in modern warfare largely rests. 

The creation of the National Army in the United States, in 1917, whilein most ways admirably conducted, was open to criticism in severalrespects, from the eugenic point of view:

(a) Too many college men and men in intellectual pursuits were taken asofficers, particularly in the aviation corps. There should have beenmore men employed as officers who had demonstrated the necessaryqualifications, as foremen and others accustomed to boss gangs of men. 

(b) The burden was thrown too heavily on the old white Americans, by theexemption of aliens, who make up a large part of the population in somestates. There were communities in New England which actually could notfill their quotas, even by taking every acceptable native-born resident, so large is their alien population. The quota should have been adjustedif aliens were to be exempt. 

(c) The district boards were not as liberal as was desirable, inexempting from the first quota men needed in skilled work at home. Thespirit of the _selective_ draft was widely violated, and necessitated acomplete change of method before the second quota was called by the muchimproved questionnaire method. 

It is difficult to get such mistakes as these corrected; nevertheless anation should never lose sight of the fact that war is inevitablydamaging, and that the most successful nation is the one which wins itswars with the least possible eugenic loss. 

Leaving the period of preparedness, we consider the period of openwarfare. The reader will remember that, in an earlier chapter, wedivided natural selection into (1) lethal, that which operates throughdifferential mortality; (2) sexual, that which operates throughdifferential mating; and (3) fecundal, that which operates throughdifferential fecundity. Again, selection operates both in an inter-groupcompetition and an intra-group competition. The influence of any agencyon natural selection must be examined under each of these six heads. Inthe case of war, however, fecundal selection may be eliminated, as it islittle influenced. Still another division arises from the fact that theaction of selection is different during war upon the armed forcesthemselves and upon the population at home; and after the war, upon thenations with the various modifications that the war has left. 

We will consider lethal selection first. To measure the effect of theinter-group selection of the armed forces, one must compare therelative quality of the two races involved. The evidence for believingin substantial differences between races is based (a) upon theirrelative achievement when each is isolated, (b) upon the relative rankwhen the two are competing in one society, and (c) upon the relativenumber of original contributions to civilization each has made. Suchcomparisons are fatal to the sentimental equalitarianism that deniesrace differences. While there is, of course, a great deal ofoverlapping, there are, nevertheless, real average differences. To thinkotherwise is to discard evolution and revert to the older standpoint of"special creation. "

Comparison of the quality of the two sides is sometimes, of course, verydifficult. One may feel little hesitation in giving a decision in theclassical war of the Greeks and Persians, or the more modern case of theEnglish and Afghans, but when considering the Franco-Prussian war, orthe Russo-Japanese war, or the Boer war, or the American civil war, itis largely a matter of mere opinion, and perhaps an advantage can hardlybe conceded to either side. Those who, misunderstanding the doctrine ofevolution, adhere to the so-called "philosophy of force, " would answerwithout hesitation that the side which won was, _ipso facto_, the betterside. But such a judgment is based on numerous fallacies, and can not beindorsed in the sweeping way it is uttered. Take a concrete example:

"In 1806, Prussia was defeated at the battle of Jena. According to thephilosophy of force, this was because Prussia was 'inferior' and Francewas 'superior. ' Suppose we admit for the moment that this was the case. The selection now represents the survival of the fittest, the selectionwhich perfects the human species. But what shall we say of the battle ofLeipsic? At Leipsic, in 1813, all the values were reversed; it is nowFrance which is the 'inferior' nation. . . . Furthermore, a large number ofthe same generals and soldiers who took part in the battle of Jena alsotook part in the battle of Leipsic. Napoleon belonged, therefore, to arace which was superior to that of Blücher in 1806, but to an inferiorrace in 1813, in spite of the fact that they were the same persons andhad not changed their nationality. As soon as we bring these assertionsto the touchstone of concrete reality we see at once how untenable andeven ridiculous are direct biological comparisons. "[156]

Without going into further detail, it is readily seen that, on the worldat large, the eugenic effect of a war would be very different accordingas the sides differ much or little. Yet this difference in quality, however great, will have no significance, unless the superior orinferior side is in general more likely to lose fewer men. Where thedifference has been considerable, as between a civilized and savagenation, it has been seldom that the superior has not triumphed withfewer losses. Victory, however, is influenced much less in these laterdays by the relative military efficiency of two single nations than bytheir success in making powerful alliances. But such alignments are byno means always associated with better quality, because (a) there is anatural tendency for the weak to unite against a strong nation, (b) toside with a group which is apparently succeeding, and (c) the alliancesmay be the work of one or a few individuals who happen to be inpositions of power at the critical time. 

Modern European wars, especially the latest one, have been marked by thehigh quality of the combatants on both sides relative to the rest of theworld. As these same races fight with pertinacity, there is a highmortality rate, so that the dysgenic result of these wars isparticularly deplorable. 

As for the selection taking place _within_ each of the strugglingnations, the combatants and the non-combatants of the same age and sexmust first be compared. The difference here depends largely on how thearmy in question was raised. Where the army is a permanent, paid force, it probably does not represent a quality above the average of thenation, except physically. When it is conscripted, it is superiorphysically and probably slightly in other respects. If it is avolunteer army, its quality depends largely on whether the cause beingfought for is one that appeals merely to the spirit of adventure or onethat appeals to some moral principle. In the latter case, the qualitymay be such that the loss of a large part of the army will be peculiarlydamaging to the progress of the race. This situation is more common thanmight be supposed, for by skillful diplomacy and journalism a causewhich may be really questionable is presented to the public in a mostidealistic light. But here, again, one can not always apply sweepinggeneralizations to individual cases. It might be supposed, for instance, that in the Confederate army the best eugenic quality was represented bythe volunteers, the second best by those who stayed out until they wereconscripted, and the poorest by the deserters. Yet David Starr Jordanand Harvey Ernest Jordan, who investigated the case with care, foundthat this was hardly true and that, due to the peculiar circumstances, the deserters were probably not as a class eugenically inferior to thevolunteers. [157] Again some wars, such as that between the United Statesand Spain, probably develop a volunteer army made up largely of theadventurous, the nomadic, and those who have fewer ties; it would bedifficult to demonstrate that they are superior to those who, havingsettled positions at home, or family obligations, fail to volunteer. Thegreatest damage appears to be done in such wars as those waged by greatEuropean nations, where the whole able-bodied male population is calledout, and only those left at home who are physically or mentally unfitfor fighting--but not, it appears to be thought, unfit to perpetuate therace. 

Even within the army of one side, lethal selection is operative. Thosewho are killed are by no means a haphazard sample of the whole army. Among the victims there is a disproportionate representation of thosewith (1) dauntless bravery, (2) recklessness, (3) stupidity. Thesequalities merge into each other, yet in their extremes they are widelydifferent. However, as the nature of warfare changes with the increaseof artillery, mines, bombs, and gases, and decrease of personal combat, those who fall are more and more chance victims. 

In addition to the killed and mortally wounded, there are many deathsfrom disease or from wounds which were not necessarily fatal. Probablythe most selective of any of these three agencies is the variableresistance to disease and infection and the widely varying knowledge andappreciation of the need for hygienic living shown by the individual, as, for instance, by less reckless drinking of unsterilized water. Buthere, too, in modern warfare, this item is becoming less selective, withthe advance in discipline and in organized sanitation. 

The efficiency of selection will be affected by the percentage that eachside has sent to the front, if the combatants are either above or belowthe average of the population. A nation that sends all its able-bodiedmales forward will be affected differently from its enemy that hasneeded to call upon only one-half of its able-bodied men in order to winits cause. 

Away from the fighting lines of the contending sides, conditions thatprevail are rendered more severe in many ways than in times of peace. Poverty becomes rife, and sanitation and medical treatment are commonlysacrificed under the strain. During a war, that mitigation of the actionof natural selection which is so common now among civilized nations, issomewhat less effective than in times of peace. The scourge of typhus inSerbia is a recent and graphic illustration. 

After a war has been concluded, certain new agencies of inter-groupselection arise. The result depends largely on whether the vanquishedhave had a superior culture brought to them, as in the case of thePhilippines, or whether, on the contrary, certain diseases have beenintroduced, as to the natives of the New World by the Spanish conquerorsand explorers, or crushing tribute has been levied, or grievousoppression such as has befallen Belgium. 

Sometimes the conquerors themselves have suffered severely as the resultof excessive spoliation, which has produced vicious idleness andluxurious indulgence, with the ultimate effect of diminishing thebirth-rate. 

Within the nation there may be various results. Sometimes, by thereduction of overcrowding, natural selection will be less severe. On theother hand, the loss of that part of the population which is moreeconomically productive is a very serious loss, leading to excessivepoverty with increased severity in the action of natural selection, ofwhich some of the Southern States, during the Reconstruction period, offer a good illustration. 

Selection is also rendered more intense by the heavy burden of taxation, and in the very common depreciation of currency as is now felt inRussia. 

Sexual selection as well as lethal is affected by war in manifold ways. Considering the armed force, there is an inter-group selection, when theenemy's women are assaulted by the soldiers. While this has been animportant factor in the past, it is somewhat less common now, withbetter army discipline and higher social ideals. 

Within the group, mating at the outset of a war is greatly increased bymany hurried marriages. There is also alleged to be sometimes anincrease of illegitimacy in the neighborhood of training camps. In eachof these instances, these matings do not represent as much maturity ofjudgment as there would have been in times of peace, and hence give aless desirable sexual selection. 

In the belligerent nation at home, the number of marriageable males isof course far less than at ordinary times. It becomes important, then, to compare the quality of the non-combatants and those combatants whosurvive and return home, since their absence during the war period ofcourse decreases their reproduction as compared with the non-combatants. The marked excess of women over men, both during the war and after, necessarily intensifies the selection of women and proportionatelyreduces that of men, since relatively fewer men will remain unmated. This excess of women is found in all classes. Among superiors there are, in addition, some women who never marry because the war has so reducedthe number of suitors thought eligible. 

The five years' war of Paraguay with Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina(1864-1869) is perhaps the most glaring case on record[158] in recentyears of the destruction of the male population of a country. Wholeregiments were made up of boys of 16 or less. At the beginning of thewar the population of Paraguay had been given as 1, 337, 437. It fell to221, 709 (28, 746 men, 106, 254 women, 86, 079 children); it is even nowprobably not more than half of the estimate made at the beginning of thewar. "Here in a small area has occurred a drastic case of racial ravagewithout parallel since the time of the Thirty Years' War. " Macedonia, however, furnishes a fairly close parallel--D. S. Jordan found wholevillages there in 1913 in which not a single man remained: only womenand children. Conditions were not so very much better in parts of theSouth at the close of the Civil War, particularly in Virginia and NorthCarolina, where probably 40% of the young men of reproductive age diedwithout issue. And in a few of the Northern states, such as Vermont, Connecticut and Massachusetts, the loss was proportionately almost asgreat. These were probably as good men as any country has produced, andtheir loss, with that of their potential offspring, undoubtedly iscausing more far-reaching effects in the subsequent history of theUnited States than has ever been realized. 

In the past and still among many savage peoples, inter-group selectionhas been affected by the stealing of women from the vanquished. Theeffect of this has been very different, depending on whether these womenwould otherwise have been killed or spared, and also depending on therelative quality of their nation to that of their conquerors. 

To sum up, there are so many features of natural selection, each ofwhich must be separately weighed and the whole then balanced, that it isa matter of extensive inquiry to determine whether a certain war has apreponderance of eugenic or dysgenic results. 

When the quality of the combatants is so high, compared with the restof the world, as during the Great War, no conceivable eugenic gains fromthe war can offset the losses. It is probably well within the facts toassume that the period of this war represents a decline in inherenthuman quality, greater than in any similar length of time in theprevious history of the world. 

Unfortunately, it does not appear that war is becoming much less commonif we consider number of combatants rather than number of wars as timesgoes on, [159] and it steadily tends to be more destructive. War, then, offers one of the greatest problems which the eugenist must face, for afew months of war may undo all that eugenic reforms can gain in ageneration. 

The total abolition of war would, of course, be the ideal, but there isno possibility of this in the near future. The fighting instinct, itmust be remembered, is one of the most primitive and powerful that thehuman mechanism contains. It was evolved in great intensity, to give mansupremacy over his environment--for the great "struggle for existence"is with the environment, not with members of one's own species. Man longago conquered the environment so successfully that he has never sincehad to exert himself in physical combat in this direction; but thefighting instinct remained and could not be baulked without causinguneasiness. Spurred on by a complex set of psychological and economicstimuli, man took to fighting his own kind, to a degree that no otherspecies shows. 

Now contrary to what the militarist philosophers affirm, this particularsort of "struggle for existence" is not a necessity to the furtherprogressive evolution of the race. On the contrary it more frequentlyreverses evolution and makes the race go backward, rather than forward. 

The struggle for existence which makes the race progress is principallythat of the species with its environment, not that of some members ofthe species with others. If the latter struggle could be supplanted bythe former then racial evolution would go ahead steadily without thecontinuous reversals that warfare now gives. 

William James saw, we believe, the true solution of the problem ofmilitarism, when he wrote his famous essay on _The Moral Equivalent ofWar_. Here is man, full of fighting instinct which will not be baulked. What is he to do? Professor James suggested that the youth of the nationbe conscripted to fight the environment, thus getting the fight "out ofits system" and rendering a real service to the race by constructivereclamation work, instead of slaying each other and thus turning thehands of the evolutionary clock backward. 

When education has given everyone the evolutionary and eugenic view ofman as a species adapted to his environment, it may be possible to workout some such solution as this of James. The only immediate course ofaction open seems to be to seek, if possible, to diminish the frequencyof war by subduing nations which start wars and, by the organization ofa League to Enforce Peace; to avoid war-provoking conquests; to diminishas much as possible the disastrous effects of war when it does come, andto work for the progress of science and the diffusion of knowledge whichwill eventually make possible the greater step, effective internationalorganization. 

CHAPTER XVII

GENEALOGY AND EUGENICS

Scientific plant breeders to-day have learned that their success oftendepends on the care with which they study the genealogy of their plants. 

Live-stock breeders admit that their profession is on a sure scientificbasis only to the extent that the genealogy of the animals used isknown. 

Human genealogy is one of the oldest manifestations of man'sintellectual activity, but until recently it has been subservient tosentimental purposes, or pursued from historical or legal motives. Biology has had no place in it. 

Genealogy, however, has not altogether escaped the re-examination whichall sciences received after the Darwinian movement revolutionized modernthought. Numerous ways have been pointed out in which it could bebrought into line with the new way of looking at man and his world. Thefield of genealogy has already been invaded at many points bybiologists, seeking the furtherance of their own aims. 

It will be worth while to discuss briefly the relations between theconventional genealogy and eugenics. It may be that genealogy couldbecome an even more valuable branch of human knowledge than it now is, if it were more closely aligned with biology. In order to test thispossibility, one must inquire:

(1) What is genealogy?

(2) What does it now attempt to do?

(3) What faults, from the eugenist's standpoint, seem to exist inpresent genealogical methods?

(4) What additions should be made to the present methods?

(5) What can be expected of it, after it is revised in accordance withthe ideas of the eugenist?

The answer to the first question, "What is genealogy?" may be brief. Genealogy may be envisaged from several points. It serves history. Ithas a legal function, which is of more consequence abroad than inAmerica. It has social significance, in bolstering family pride andcreating a feeling of family solidarity--this is perhaps its chiefoffice in the United States. It has, or can have, biologicalsignificance, and this in two ways: either in relation to pure scienceor applied science. In connection with pure science, its function is tofurnish means for getting knowledge of the laws of heredity. Inapplication, its function is to furnish a knowledge of the inheritedcharacters of any given individual, in order to make it possible for theindividual to find his place in the world and, in particular, to marrywisely. It is obvious that the use of genealogy in the applied scienceof eugenics is dependent on previous research by geneticists; formarriage matings which take account of heredity can not be made unlessthe mode of inheritance of human traits has previously been discovered. 

The historical, social, legal and other aspects of genealogy do notconcern the present discussion. We shall discuss only the biologicalaspect; not only because it alone is germane to the present book, butbecause we consider it to have by far the greatest true value, acceptingthe criterion of value as that which increases the welfare of mankind. By this criterion, the historical, legal and social aspects of genealogywill be seen, with a little reflection, to be of secondary importance toits biological aspect. 

(2) Genealogy now is too often looked upon as an end in itself. It wouldbe recognized as a science of much greater value to the world if it wereconsidered not an end but a means to a far greater end than it alone cansupply. It has, indeed, been contended, even by such an authority asOttokar Lorenz, who is often called the father of modern scientificgenealogy, that a knowledge of his own ancestry will tell eachindividual exactly what he himself is. This appears to be the basis ofLorenz's valuation of genealogy. It is a step in the right direction:but

(3) The present methods of genealogy are inadequate to support such aclaim. Its methods are still based mainly on the historical, legal andsocial functions. A few of the faults of method in genealogy, which theeugenist most deplores, are:

(a) The information which is of most value is exactly that whichgenealogy ordinarily does not furnish. Dates of birth, death andmarriage of an ancestor are of interest, but of limited biologicalimportance. The facts about that ancestor which vitally concern hisliving descendant are the facts of his character, physical and mental;and these facts are given in very few genealogies. 

[Illustration: LINE OF ASCENT THAT CARRIES THE FAMILY NAME

FIG. 40. --In some pedigrees, particularly those dealing withantiquity, the only part known is the line of ascent which carries thefamily name, --what animal breeders call the tail-male. In such cases itis evident that from the point of view of a geneticist practicallynothing is known. How insignificant any single line of ascent is, bycomparison with the whole ancestry, even for a few generations, isgraphically shown by the above chart. It is assumed in this chart thatno cousin marriages took place. ]

(b) Genealogies are commonly too incomplete to be of real value. Sometimes they deal only with the direct male line of ascent--the linethat bears the family name, or what animal breeders call the tail-male. In this case, it is not too much to say that they are nearly devoid ofgenuine value. It is customary to imagine that there is some specialvirtue inherent in that line of descent which carries the family name. Some one remarks, for instance, to Mr. Jones that he seems to be fond ofthe sea. 

"Yes, " he replies, "You know the Joneses have been sailors for manygenerations. "

But the small contribution of heredity made to an individual by the lineof descent carrying his family name, in comparison with the rest of hisancestry, may be seen from Fig. 40. 

Such incomplete pedigrees are rarely published nowadays, but in studyinghistoric characters, one frequently finds nothing more than the singleline of ascent in the family name. Fortunately, American genealogiesrarely go to this extreme, unless it be in the earliest generations; butit is common enough for them to deal only with the direct ancestors ofthe individual, omitting all brothers and sisters of those ancestors. Although this simplifies the work of the genealogist immensely, itdeprives it of value to a corresponding degree. 

(c) As the purpose of genealogy in this country has been largely social, it is to be feared that in too many cases discreditable data have beentacitly omitted from the records. The anti-social individual, thefeeble-minded, the insane, the alcoholic, the "generally no-count, " hasbeen glossed over. Such a lack of candor is not in accord with thescientific spirit, and makes one uncertain, in the use of genealogies, to what extent one is really getting all the facts. There are fewfamilies of any size which have not one such member or more, not manygenerations removed. To attempt to conceal the fact is not onlyunethical but from the eugenist's point of view, at any rate, it is afalsification of records that must be regarded with great disapproval. At present it is hard to say to what extent undesirable traits occur inthe most distinguished families; and it is of great importance that thisshould be learned. 

Maurice Fishberg contends[160] that many Jewish families arecharacterized by extremes, --that in each generation they have producedmore ability and also more disability than would ordinarily be expected. This seems to be true of some of the more prominent old Americanfamilies as well. On the other hand, large families can be found, suchas the remarkable family of New England office-holders described byMerton T. Goodrich, [161] in which there is a steady production of civicworth in every generation with almost no mental defectives or grossphysical defectives. In such a family there is a high sustained level. It is such strains which eugenists wish especially to increase. 

In this connection it is again worth noting that a really great man israrely found in an ancestry devoid of ability. This was pointed out inthe first chapter, but is certain to strike the genealogist's attentionforcibly. Abraham Lincoln is often quoted as an exception; but morerecent studies of his ancestry have shown that he is not really anexception; that, as Ida M. Tarbell[162] says, "So far from his latercareer being unaccounted for in his origin and early history, it is asfully accounted for as is the case of any man. " The Lincoln family wasone of the best in America, and while Abraham's own father was aneccentric person, he was yet a man of considerable force of character, by no means the "poor white trash" which he is often represented to havebeen. The Hanks family, to which the Emancipator's mother belonged, hadalso maintained a high level of ability in every generation;furthermore, Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks, the parents of AbrahamLincoln, were first cousins. 

The more difficult cases, for the eugenist, are rather to be found insuch ancestries as those of Louis Pasteur and Michael Faraday. Pasteur[163] might perhaps be justly considered the greatest man Francehas ever produced; his father was a non-commissioned soldier who came ofa long line of tanners, while his mother's family had been gardeners forgenerations. Faraday, who is worthy to be placed close to CharlesDarwin among eminent Englishmen, was the son of a blacksmith and afarmer's daughter. Such pedigrees are striking; and yet, as FrederickAdams Woods has remarked, they ought to strengthen rather than to weakenone's belief in the force of heredity. When it is considered how rarelysuch an ancestry produces a great man, it must be fairly evident thathis greatness is due to an accidental conjunction of favorable traits, as the modern theory of genetics holds; and that greatness is not due tothe inheritance of acquired characters, on which hypothesis Pasteur andFaraday would indeed be difficult to explain. 

Cases of this sort, even though involving much less famous people, willbe found in almost every genealogy, and add greatly to the interest ofits study, as well as offering valuable data to the professionalgeneticist. 

(d) Even if the information it furnishes were more complete, humangenealogy would not justify the claims sometimes made for it as ascience, because, to use a biological phrase, "the matings are notcontrolled. " The results of a certain experiment are exhibited, but cannot be interpreted unless one knows what the results would have been, had the preceding conditions been varied in this way or in that way. These controlled experiments can be made in plant and animal breeding;they have been made by the thousand, by the hundred thousand, for manyyears. They can not be made in human society. It is, of course, notdesirable that they should be made; but the consequence is that thebiological meaning of human history, the real import of genealogy, cannot be known unless it is interpreted in the light of modern plant andanimal breeding. It is absolutely necessary that genealogy go intopartnership with genetics, the general science of heredity. If a spiritof false pride leads genealogists to hold aloof from these experiments, they will make slow progress. The interpretation of genealogy in thelight of modern research in heredity through the experimental breedingof plants and animals is full of hope; without such light, it will bediscouragingly slow work. 

Genealogists are usually proud of their pedigrees; they usually have aright to be. But their pride should not lead them to scorn the pedigreesof some of the peas, and corn, snapdragons and sugar beets, bulldogs andShorthorn cattle, with which geneticists have been working during thelast generation; for these humble pedigrees may throw more light ontheir own than a century of research in purely human material. 

The science of genealogy will not have full meaning and full value tothose who pursue it, unless they bring themselves to look on men andwomen as organisms subject to the same laws of heredity and variation asother living things. Biologists were not long ago told that it wasessential for them to learn to think like genealogists. For the purposeof eugenics, neither science is complete without the other; and webelieve that it is not invidious to say that biologists have beenquicker to realize this than have genealogists. The Golden Age ofgenealogy is yet to come. 

(4) In addition to the correction of these faulty methods, there arecertain extensions of genealogical method which could advantageously bemade without great difficulty. 

(a) More written records should be kept, and less dependence placed onoral communication. The obsolescent family Bible, with its chronicle ofbirths, deaths and marriages, is an institution of too great value inmore ways than one, to be given up. The United States have not theadvantage of much of the machinery of State registration which aidsEuropean genealogy, and while working for better registration of vitalstatistics, it should be a matter of pride with every family to keep itsown archives. 

(b) Family trees should be kept in more detail, including all brothersand sisters in every family, no matter at what age they died, andincluding as many collaterals as possible. This means more work for thegenealogist, but the results will be of much value to science. 

(c) More family traits should be marked. Those at present recorded aremostly of a social or economic nature, and are of little realsignificance after the death of their possessor. But the traits of hismind and body are likely to go on to his descendants indefinitely. These are therefore the facts of his life on which attention should befocused. 

(d) More pictorial data should be added. Photographs of the members ofthe family, at all ages, should be carefully preserved. Measurementsequally deserve attention. The door jamb is not a satisfactory place forrecording the heights of children, particularly in this day whenremovals are so frequent. Complete anthropometric measurements, such asevery member of the Young Men's Christian Association, most collegestudents, and many other people are obliged to undergo once orperiodically, should be placed on file. 

(e) Pedigrees should be traced upward from a living individual, ratherthan downward from some hero long since dead. Of course, the idealmethod would be to combine these two, or to keep duplicate pedigrees, one a table of ascendants and the other of descendants, in the samestock. 

Genealogical data of the needed kind, however, can not be reduced to amere table or a family tree. The ideal genealogy starts with a wholefraternity--the individual who is making it and all his brothers andsisters. It describes fully the fraternity to which the father belongs, giving an account of each member, of the husband or wife of that member(if married) and their children, who are of course the first cousins ofthe maker of the genealogical study. It does the same for the mother'sfraternity. Next it considers the fraternity to which the father'sfather belongs, considers their consorts and their children andgrandchildren, and then takes up the study of the fraternity of thefather's mother in the same way. The mother's parents next receiveattention; and then the earlier generations are similarly treated, asfar as the available records will allow. A pedigree study constructed onthis plan really shows what traits are running through the familiesinvolved, and is vastly more significant than a mere chain of links, even though this might run through a dozen generations. 

(5) With these changes, genealogy would become the study of heredity, rather than the study of lineage. 

It is not meant to say that the study of heredity is nothing more thanapplied genealogy. As understood nowadays, it includes mathematical andbiological territory which must always be foreign to genealogy. It mightbe said that in so far as man is concerned, heredity is theinterpretation of genealogy, and eugenics the application of heredity. Genealogy should give its students a vision of the species as a greatgroup of ever-changing, interrelated organisms, a great networkoriginating in the obscurity of the past, stretching forward into theobscurity of the future, every individual in it organically related toevery other, and all of them the heritors of the past in a very realsense. 

Genealogists do well in giving a realization of the importance of thefamily, but they err if they base this teaching altogether on thefamily's pride in some remote ancestor who, even though he bore thefamily name and was a prodigy of virtues, probably counts for verylittle in the individual's make-up to-day. To take a concrete thoughwholly imaginary illustration: what man would not feel a certainsatisfaction in being a lineal descendant of George Washington? And yet, if the Father of his Country be placed at only four removes from theliving individual, nothing is more certain than that this hypotheticalliving individual had fifteen other ancestors in George Washington'sgeneration, any one of whom may play as great or a greater part in hisancestry; and so remote are they all that, as a statistical average, itis calculated that the contribution of George Washington to the ancestryof the hypothetical living individual would be perhaps not more thanone-third of 1% of the total. The small influence of one of these remoteancestors may be seen at a glance, if a chart of all the ancestors up tothe generation of the great hero is made. Following out theillustration, a pedigree based on George Washington would look like thediagram in Fig. 41. In more remote generations, the probable biologicalinfluence of the ancestor becomes practically nil. Thus Americans whotrace their descent to some royal personage of England or the Continent, a dozen generations ago, may get a certain amount of spiritualsatisfaction out of the relationship, but they certainly can derivelittle real help, of a hereditary kind, from this ancestor. And whenone goes farther back, --as to William the Conqueror, who seems to rankwith the Mayflower immigrants as a progenitor of many descendants--theclaim of descent becomes really a joke. If 24 generations have elapsedbetween the present and the time of William the Conqueror, everyindividual living to-day must have had living in the epoch of the Normanconquest not less than sixteen million ancestors. Of course, there wasno such number of people in all England and Normandy, at that time, hence it is obvious that the theoretical number has been greatly reducedin every generation by consanguineous marriages, even though they werebetween persons so remotely related that they did not know they wererelated. C. B. Davenport, indeed, has calculated that most persons of theold American stock in the United States are related to each other notmore remotely than thirtieth cousins, and a very large proportion asclosely as fifteenth cousins. 

[Illustration: THE SMALL VALUE OF A FAMOUS, BUT REMOTE, ANCESTOR

FIG. 41. --A living individual who was a lineal descendant ofGeorge Washington might well take pride in the fact, but geneticallythat fact might be of very little significance. The above chart showsgraphically how small a part any single ancestor plays, a fewgenerations back. A general high average of ability in an ancestry ismuch more important, eugenically, than the appearance of one or twodistinguished individuals. ]

At any rate, it must be obvious that the ancestors of any person of oldAmerican stock living to-day must have included practically all theinhabitants of England and Normandy, in the eleventh century. Lookingat the pedigree from the other end, William the Conqueror must haveliving to-day at least 16, 000, 000 descendants. Most of them can nottrace back their pedigrees, but that does not alter the fact. 

Such considerations give one a vivid realization of the brotherhood ofman; but they can hardly be said to justify any great pride in descentfrom a family of crusaders for instance, except on purely sentimentalgrounds. 

Descent from a famous man or woman should not be disparaged. It is amatter of legitimate pride and congratulation. But claims for respectmade on that ground alone are, from a biological point of view, negligible, if the hero is several generations removed. What Sir FrancisGalton wrote of the peers of England may, with slight alterations, begiven general application to the descendants of famous people:

"An old peerage is a valueless title to natural gifts, except so far asit may have been furbished up by a succession of wise intermarriages. . . . I cannot think of any claim to respect, put forward in modern days, thatis so entirely an imposture as that made by a peer on the ground ofdescent, who has neither been nobly educated, nor has any eminentkinsman within three degrees. "

But, some one may protest, are we not shattering the very edifice ofwhich we are professed defenders, in thus denying the force of heredity?Not at all. We wish merely to emphasize that a man has sixteengreat-great-grandparents, instead of one, and that those in the maternallines are too often overlooked, although from a biological point of viewthey are every bit as important as those in the paternal lines. And wewish further to emphasize the point that it is the near relatives who, on the whole, represent what one is. The great family which for ageneration or two makes unwise marriages, must live on its pastreputation and see the work of the world done and the prizes carriedaway by the children of wiser matings. No family can maintain itseugenic rank merely by the power of inertia. Every marriage that amember of the family makes is a matter of vital concern to the future ofthe family: and this is one of the lessons which a broad science ofgenealogy should inculcate in every youth. 

Is it practicable to direct genealogy on this slightly different line?As to that, the genealogist must decide. These are the qualificationswhich old Professor William Chauncey Fowler laid down as essential for asuccessful genealogist:

 Love of kindred. Love of investigation. Active imagination. Sound and disciplined judgment. Conscientious regard to truth. A pleasing style as a writer. 

With such qualifications, one can go far, and it would seem that one whopossesses them has only to fix his attention upon the biological aspectof genealogy, to become convinced that his science is only part of ascience, as long as it ignores eugenics. After all, nothing more isnecessary than a slight change in the point of view; and if genealogistscan adopt this new point of view, can add to their equipment somefamiliarity with the fundamental principles of biology as they apply toman and are laid down in the science of eugenics, the value of thescience of genealogy to the world ought to increase at least five-foldwithin a generation. 

What can be expected from a genealogy with eugenic foundation?

First and foremost, it will give genetics a chance to advance with morerapidity, in its study of man. Genetics, the study of heredity, can notsuccessfully proceed by direct observation in the human species as itdoes with plants and rapidly-breeding animals, because the generationsare too long. Less than three generations are of little value forgenetic researches, and even three can rarely be observed to advantageby any one person. Therefore, second-hand information must be used. Sofar, most of this has been gained by sending field-workers--a new kindof genealogist--out among the members of a family, and having themcollect the desired information, either by study of extant records, orby word of mouth. But the written records of value have been usuallynegligible in quantity, and oral communication has therefore been themainstay. It has not been wholly satisfactory. Few people--aside fromgenealogists--can give even the names of all their great-grandparents, far less can they tell anything of importance about them. 

It is thus to genealogy that genetics is driven. Unless family recordsare available, it can accomplish little. And it can not get these familyrecords unless genealogists realize the importance of furnishing them;for as has already been pointed out, most genealogies at presentavailable are of little value to genetics, because of the inadequacy ofthe data they furnish. It is only in the case of exceptional families, such as the royal houses of Europe, that enough information is givenabout each individual to furnish an opportunity for analysis. What couldbe done if there were more such data available is brilliantlyillustrated in the investigation by Frederick Adams Woods of Boston ofthe reigning houses of Europe. His writings should be read by everygenealogist, as a source of inspiration as well as information. 

More such data must be obtained in the future. Genealogists must beginat once to keep family records in such a way that they will be of thegreatest value possible--that they will serve not only family pride, butbigger purposes. It will not take long to get together a large number offamily histories, in which the idea will be to tell as much as possible, instead of as little as possible, about every individual mentioned. 

The value of pedigrees of this kind is greater than most people realize. 

In the first place, it must be remembered that these traits, on whoseimportance in the pedigree we have been insisting, are responsible notonly for whatever the individual is, but for whatever societyis, --whatever the race is. They are not personal matters, as C. B. Davenport and H. H. Laughlin well point out; "they come to us from outof the population of the past, and, in so far as we have children, theybecome disseminated throughout the population of the future. Upon suchtraits society is built; good or bad they determine the fate of oursociety. Apart from migration, there is only one way to get sociallydesirable traits into our social life, and that is reproduction; thereis only one way to get them out, by preventing the reproduction. Allsocial welfare work is merely education of the germs of traits; it doesnot provide such germs. In the absence of the germs the traits can notdevelop. On the other hand, it is possible with difficulty, if possibleat all, by means of the strongest repressive measures merely, to preventthe development of undesirable hereditary traits. Society can treat thedelinquent individual more reasonably, more effectively, and morehumanely, if it knows the 'past performance' of his germ-plasm. "

In addition to their importance to society, a knowledge of the traits ofa pedigree has a great direct importance to the individual; one of themost valuable things to be learned from that knowledge is the answer tothe question, "What shall a boy or girl do? What career shall one layout for one's children?" A knowledge of the child's inborn nature, suchas can be had only through study of his ancestry, will guide those whohave his education in hand, and will further guide those who decide, orhelp the child decide, what work to take up in life. This helps to putthe problem of vocational guidance on a sound basis, --the basis of theindividual's inherent aptitudes. 

Not too much must be expected from vocational guidance at the presenttime, but in the case of traits that are inherited, it is a fairinference that a child is more likely to be highly endowed with a traitwhich both parents possess, than with one that only one parentpossesses. "Among the traits which have been said to occur in some suchdirect hereditary way, " H. L. Hollingworth[164] observes, "or as theresult of unexplained mutation or deviation from type, are: mathematicalaptitude, ability in drawing, [165] musical composition, [166] singing, poetic reaction, military strategy, chess playing. Pitch discriminationseems to depend on structural factors which are not susceptible ofimprovement by practice. [167] The same may be said of various forms ofprofessional athletic achievement. Color blindness seems to be aninstance of the conspicuous absence of such a unit characteristic. "

Again, the knowledge of ancestry is an essential factor in the wiseselection of a husband or wife. Insistence has been laid on this pointin an earlier chapter of this book, and it is not necessary here torepeat what was there said. But it seems certain that ancestry willsteadily play a larger part in marriage selection in the future; it isat least necessary to know that one is not marrying into a family thatcarries the taint of serious hereditary defect, even if one knowsnothing more. An intelligent study of genealogy will do much, webelieve, to bring about the intelligent selection of the man or womanwith whom one is to fall in love. 

In addition to these general considerations, it is evident thatgenealogy, properly carried out, would throw light on most of thespecific problems with which eugenics is concerned, or which fall in thefield of genetics. A few examples of these problems may be mentioned, inaddition to those which are discussed in various other chapters of thisbook. 

[Illustration: HISTORY OF 100 BABIES

FIG. 42. --The top of the diagram shows the children "startingfrom scratch. " By following down the vertical lines, one can see thattheir longevity depends largely on the size of family from which theycome. Those who had 10 or a dozen brothers and sisters are most likelyto live to extreme age. Alexander Graham Bell's data, 2964 members ofthe Hyde family in America. ]

[Illustration: ADULT MORTALITY

FIG. 43--If child mortality is eliminated, and only thoseindividuals studied who live to the age of 20 or longer, the smallfamilies are still found to be handicapped. In general it may be saidthat the larger the family, the longer a member of it will live. Largefamilies (in a normal, healthy section of the population) indicatevitality on the part of the parents. This does not, of course, hold goodin the slums, where mental and financial inefficiency are abundant. Within certain classes, however, it may be said with confidence that theweaklings in the population are most likely to be from small families. Alexander Graham Bell's data. ]

1. The supposed inferiority of first-born children has been debated atsome length during the last decade, but is not yet wholly settled. Itappears possible that the first-born may be, on the average, inferiorboth physically and mentally to the children who come directly afterhim; on the other hand, the number of first-born who attain eminence isgreater than would be expected on the basis of pure chance. More dataare needed to clear up this problem. [168]

2. The advantage to a child of being a member of a large or small familyis a question of importance. In these days of birth control, theargument is frequently heard that large families are an evil ofthemselves, the children in them being handicapped by the excessivechild-bearing of the mother. The statistics cited in support of thisclaim are drawn from the slums, where the families are marked by povertyand by physical and mental inferiority. It can easily be shown, by astudy of more favored families, that the best children come from thelarge fraternities. In fact Alexander Graham Bell found evidence, [169]in his investigation of the Hyde Family in America, that the families of10 or more children were those which showed the greatest longevity (seeFigs. 42 and 43). In this connection, longevity is of course a mark ofvitality and physical fitness. 

3. The question of the effect of child-bearing on the mother is equallyimportant, since exponents of birth control are urging that mothersshould not bear more children than they desire. A. O. Powys' carefulstudy[170] of the admirable vital statistics of New South Wales showedthat the mothers who lived longest were those who bore from five toseven children. 

4. The age at which men and women should marry has not yet beensufficiently determined, on biological grounds. Statistics so farcompiled do not indicate that the age of the father has any directinfluence on the character of the children, but the age of the motherundoubtedly exercises a strong influence on them. Thus it is now wellestablished[171] that infant mortality is lowest among the children ofyoung mothers, --say from 20 to 25 years of age, --and that delay inchild-bearing after that age penalizes the children (see Fig. 44). Thereis also some evidence that, altogether apart from the infant mortality, the children of young mothers attain a greater longevity than do thoseof older women. More facts are needed, to show how much of this effectis due to the age of the mother, how much to her experience, and howmuch to the influence of the number of children she has previouslyborne. 

5. Assortative mating, consanguineous marriage, the inheritance of atendency to disease, longevity, sex-linked heredity, sex-determination, the production of twins, and many other problems of interest to thegeneral public as well as to the biologist, are awaiting the collectionof fuller data. All such problems will be illuminated, when moregenealogies are kept on a biological basis. 

[Illustration: INFLUENCE OF MOTHER'S AGE

FIG. 44. --As measured by the percentage of infant deaths, thosechildren show the greatest vitality who were born to mothers between theages of 20 and 25. Infant mortality increases steadily as the mothergrows older. In this case the youngest mothers (those under 20 years ofage) do not make quite as good a showing as those who are a littleolder, but in other studies the youngest mothers have made excellentrecords. In general, such studies all show that the babies are penalizedif marriage is delayed beyond the age of 25, or if child-bearing isunduly delayed after marriage. Alexander Graham Bell's data. ]

Here, however, an emphatic warning against superficial investigationmust be uttered. The medical profession has been particularly hasty, many times, in reporting cases which were assumed to demonstrateheredity. The child was so and so; it was found on inquiry that thefather was also so and so: _Post hoc, ergo propter hoc_--it washeredity. Such a method of investigation is calculated to bring geneticsinto disrepute, and would hazard the credit of genealogy. As a fact, onecase counts for practically nothing as proof of hereditary influence;even half a dozen or a dozen may be of no significance. There are twoways in which genealogical data can be analyzed to deduce biologicallaws: one is based on the application of statistical and graphic methodsto the data, and needs some hundreds of cases to be of value; the otheris by pedigree-study, and needs at least three generations of pedigree, usually covering numerous collaterals, to offer important results. It isnot to be supposed that anyone with a sufficiently complete record ofhis own ancestry would necessarily be able by inspection to deduce fromit any important contribution to science. But if enough complete familyrecords are made available, the professional geneticist can be calledinto cooperation, can supplement the human record with his knowledge ofthe results achieved by carefully controlled animal and plant breeding, and between them, the genealogist and the geneticist can in most casesarrive at the truth. That such truth is of the highest importance to anyfamily, and equally to society as a whole, must be evident. 

Let the genealogist, then, bring together data on every trait he canthink of. As a guide and stimulus, he should read the opening chaptersof Herbert's Spencer's _Autobiography_, or of Karl Pearson's, _Life, Letters and Labors of Sir Francis Galton_, or C. B. Davenport'sstudy[172] of C. O. Whitman, one of the foremost American biologists. Hewill also find help in Bulletin No. 13 of the Eugenics Record Office, Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, New York. It is entitled, _How to Makea Eugenical Family Study_, and gives a list of questions which should beanswered, and points which should be noted. With some such list as this, or even with his own common-sense, the genealogist may seek to ascertainas much as possible about the significant facts in the life of hisancestors, bearing in mind that the geneticist will ask two questionsabout every trait mentioned:

1. Is this characteristic inherited?

2. If so, how?

Nor must it be forgotten that the geneticist is often as muchinterested in knowing that a given character is not inherited undercertain conditions, as that it is. 

It is highly desirable that genealogists should acquire the habit ofstating the traits of their subjects in quantitative terms. They toooften state that a certain amount is "much"; what should be told is "howmuch. " Instead of saying that an individual had fairly good health, tellexactly what diseases he had during his lifetime; instead of remarkingthat he was a good mathematician, tell some anecdote or fact that willallow judgment of the extent of his ability in this line. Did he keeprecord of his bank balance in his head instead of on paper? Was he fondof mathematical puzzles? Did he revel in statistics? Was the study ofcalculus a recreation to him? Such things probably will appear trivialto the genealogist, but to the eugenist they are sometimes important. 

Aside from biology, or as much of it as is comprised in eugenics, genealogy may also serve medicine, jurisprudence, sociology, statistics, and various other sciences as well as the ones which it now serves. Butin most cases, such service will have a eugenic aspect. The alliancebetween eugenics and genealogy is so logical that it can not be put offmuch longer. 

Genealogists may well ask what facilities there are for receiving andusing pedigrees such as we have been outlining, if they were made up. All are, of course, familiar with the repositories which the differentpatriotic societies, the National Genealogical Society, and similarorganizations maintain, as well as the collections of the Library ofCongress and other great public institutions. Anything deposited in sucha place can be found by investigators who are actively engaged ineugenic research. 

In addition to this, there are certain establishments founded for thesole purpose of analyzing genealogies from a biological or statisticalpoint of view. The first of these was the Galton Laboratory of theUniversity of London, directed by Karl Pearson. There are two such atwork in the United States. The larger is the Eugenics Record Office atCold Spring Harbor, Long Island, New York, directed by Charles B. Davenport. Blank schedules are sent to all applicants, in which thepedigree of an individual may be easily set down, with referenceparticularly to the traits of eugenic importance. When desired, theoffice will send duplicate schedules, one of which may be retained bythe applicant for his own files. The schedules filed at the EugenicsRecord Office are treated as confidential, access to them being givenonly to accredited investigators. 

The second institution of this kind is the Genealogical Record Office, founded and directed by Alexander Graham Bell at 1601 Thirty-fifthStreet N. W. , Washington D. C. This devotes itself solely to thecollection of data regarding longevity, and sends out schedules to allthose in whose families there have been individuals attaining the age of80 or over. It welcomes correspondence on the subject from all who knowof cases of long life, and endeavors to put the particulars on record, especially with reference to the ancestry and habits of the long-livedindividual. 

The Eugenics Registry at Battle Creek, Mich. , likewise receivespedigrees, which it refers to Cold Spring Harbor for analysis. 

Persons intelligently interested in their ancestry might well considerit a duty to society, and to their own posterity, to send for one of theEugenics Record Office schedules, fill it out and place it on filethere, and to do the same with the Genealogical Record Office, if theyare so fortunate as to come of a stock characterized by longevity. Thefilling out of these schedules would be likely to lead to a new view ofgenealogy; and when this point of view is once gained, the student willfind it adds immensely to his interest in his pursuit. 

Genealogists are all familiar with the charge of long standing thatgenealogy is a subject of no use, a fad of a privileged class. They donot need to be told that such a charge is untrue. But genealogy can bemade a much more useful science than it now is, and it will be at thesame time more interesting to its followers, if it is no longer lookedupon as an end in itself, nor solely as a minister to family pride. Wehope to see it regarded as a handmaid of evolution, just as are theother sciences; we hope to see it linked with the great biologicalmovement of the present day, for the betterment of mankind. 

So much for the science as a whole. What can the individual do? Nothingbetter than to broaden his outlook so that he may view his family not asan exclusive entity, centered in a name, dependent on some illustriousman or men of the past; but rather as an integral part of the greatfabric of human life, its warp and woof continuous from the dawn ofcreation and criss-crossed at each generation. When he gets this vision, he will desire to make his family tree as full as possible, to includehis collaterals, to note every trait which he can find on record, topreserve the photographs and measurements of his own contemporaries, andto take pleasure in feeling that the history of his family is acontribution to human knowledge, as well as to the pride of the family. 

If the individual genealogist does this, the science of genealogy willbecome a useful servant of the whole race, and its influence, notconfined to a few, will be felt by all, as a positive, dynamic forcehelping them to lead more worthy lives in the short span allotted tothem, and helping them to leave more worthy posterity to carry on thenames they bore and the sacred thread of immortality, of which they werefor a time the custodians. 

CHAPTER XVIII

THE EUGENIC ASPECT OF SOME SPECIFIC REFORMS

Nearly every law and custom of a country has an influence direct orremote on eugenics. The eugenic progress to be expected if laws andcustoms are gradually but steadily modified in appropriate ways, isvastly greater and more practicable than is any possible gain whichcould be made at present through schemes for the direct control of"eugenic marriages. "

In this present chapter, we try to point out some of the eugenic aspectsof certain features of American society. It must not be supposed that wehave any legislative panaceas to offer, or that the suggestions we makeare necessarily the correct ones. We are primarily concerned withstimulating people to think about the eugenic aspects of their laws andcustoms. Once the public thinks, numerous changes will be tried and theresults will show whether the changes shall be followed up ordiscontinued. 

The eugenic point of view that we have here taken is becoming ratherwidespread, although it is often not recognized as eugenic. Thinkers inall subjects that concern social progress are beginning to realize thatthe test of whether or not a measure is good is its effect. Thepragmatic school of philosophy, which has been in vogue in recent years, has reduced this attitude to a system. It is an attitude to be welcomedwherever it is found, for it only needs the addition of a knowledge ofbiology, to become eugenic. 

TAXATION

To be just, any form of taxation should repress productive industry aslittle as possible, and should be of a kind that can not easily beshifted. In addition to these qualifications, it should, if possible, contribute directly to the eugenic strength of the nation by favoring, or at least by not penalizing, useful families. A heavy tax on landvalues (in extreme, the single-tax) and a heavy tax on bachelors havesometimes been proposed as likely to be eugenic in effect. But they areopen to criticism. The tax on land values appears too likely to beindiscriminate in working: it would appear to favor inferior families asmuch as superior ones. The tax on bachelors is proposed as a means ofgetting bachelors to marry; but is this always desirable? It depends onthe quality of the bachelors. Even at present it is our belief that, onthe whole, the married men of the population are superior to theunmarried men. If the action of sexual selection is improved stillfurther by the eugenics campaign, this difference in quality will beincreased. It will then be rather an advantage that the bachelors shouldremain single, and a tax which would force them into marriage forreasons of economy, is not likely to result in any eugenic gain. But amoderate indirect tax by an exemption for a wife and each child after ageneral exemption of $2, 000 would be desirable. 

The inheritance tax seems less open to criticism. Very largeinheritances should be taxed to a much greater degree than is at presentattempted in the United States, and the tax should be placed, not on thetotal amount of the inheritance, but on the amount received by eachindividual beneficiary. This tends to prevent the unfair guarantee ofriches to individuals regardless of their own worth and efforts. But tosuggest, on the other hand, as has often been done, that inheritancesshould be confiscated by the government altogether, shows a lack ofappreciation of the value of a reasonable right to bequeath inencouraging larger families among those having a high standard ofliving. It is not desirable to penalize the kind of strains whichpossess directing talent and constructive efficiency; and they certainlywould be penalized if a man felt that no matter how much he mightincrease his fortune, he could not leave any of it to those whocontinued his stock. 

The sum exempted should not be large enough to tempt the beneficiary togive up work and settle down into a life of complacent idleness, butenough to be of decided assistance to him in bringing up a family:$50, 000 might be a good maximum. Above this, the rate should advancerapidly, and should be progressive, not proportional. A 50% tax oninheritances above $250, 000 seems to us desirable, since largeinheritances tend to interfere with the correlation of wealth and socialworth, which is so necessary from a eugenic point of view as well asfrom that of social justice. 

The Federal estate law, passed in September, 1916, is a step in theright direction. It places the exemption at $50, 000 net. The rate, however, is not rapid enough in its rise: e. G. , estates exceeding$250, 000 but less than $450, 000 are taxed only 4%, while the maximum, for estates above $5, 000, 000, is only 10%. This, moreover, is on thetotal estate, while we favor the plan that taxes not the total amountbequeathed but the amount inherited by each individual. With the everincreasing need of revenue, it is certain that Congress will make aradical increase in progressive inheritance tax on large fortunes, whichshould be retained after the war. 

Wisconsin and California have introduced an interesting innovation byproviding a further graded tax on inheritances in accordance with thedegree of consanguinity between the testator and the beneficiary. Thus asmall bequest to a son or daughter might be taxed only 1%; a largebequest to a trained nurse or a spiritualistic medium might be taxed15%. This is frank recognition of the fact that inheritance is to beparticularly justified as it tends to endow a superior family. Eugenically it may be permissible to make moderate bequests to brothers, nephews and nieces, as well as one's own children; and to endowphilanthropies; but the State might well take a large part of anyinheritance which would otherwise go to remote heirs, or to persons notrelated to the testator. 

At present there is, on the whole, a negative correlation between sizeof family and income. The big families are, in general in the part ofthe population which has the smallest income, and it is well establishedthat the number of children tends to decrease as the income increasesand as a family rises in the social scale--a fact to which we havedevoted some attention in earlier chapters. If this condition were to bepermanent, it would be somewhat difficult to suggest a eugenic form ofincome tax. We believe, however, that it is not likely to be permanentin its present extent. The spread of birth control seems likely toreduce the negative correlation and the spread of eugenic ideas maypossibly convert it into a slight positive correlation, so that thenumber of children may be more nearly proportional to the means of thefamily. Perhaps it is Utopian to expect a positive correlation in thenear future, yet a decrease in the number of children born to the classof casual laborers and unskilled workers is pretty certain to take placeas rapidly as the knowledge of methods of birth control is extended; andat present it does not seem that this extension can be stopped by any ofthe agencies that are opposing it. 

If the size of a family becomes more nearly proportional to the income, instead of being inversely proportional to it as at present, and ifincome is even roughly a measure of the value of a family to thecommunity--an assumption that can hardly be denied altogether, howevermuch one may qualify it in individual cases, --then the problem of taxingfamily incomes will be easier. The effect of income differences will be, on the whole, eugenic. It would then seem desirable to exempt fromtaxation all incomes of married people below a certain critical sum, this amount being the point at which change in income may be supposed tonot affect size of family. This means exemption of all incomes under$2, 000, an additional $2, 000 for a wife and an additional $2, 000 foreach child, and a steeply-graded advance above that amount, as verylarge incomes act to reduce the size of family by introducing amultiplicity of competing cares and interests. There is also a eugenicadvantage in heavy taxes on harmful commodities and unapprovableluxuries. 

THE "BACK TO THE FARM" MOVEMENT

One of the striking accompaniments of the development of Americancivilization, as of all other civilizations, is the growth of thecities. If (following the practice of the U. S. Census) all places with2, 500 or more population be classed as urban, it appears that 36. 1% ofthe population of the United States was urban in 1890, that thepercentage had risen to 40. 5 in 1900, and that by 1910 not less than46. 3% of the total population was urban. 

There are four components of this growth of urban population: (1) excessof births over deaths, (2) immigration from rural districts, (3)immigration from other countries, and (4) the extension of area byincorporation of suburbs. It is not to be supposed that the growth ofthe cities is wholly at the expense of the country; J. M. Gillettecalculates[173] that 29. 8% of the actual urban gain of 11, 826, 000between 1900 and 1910 was due to migration from the country, theremaining 70. 2% being accounted for by the other three causesenumerated. 

Thus it appears that the movement from country to city is ofconsiderable proportions, even though it be much less than has sometimesbeen alleged. This movement has eugenic importance because it isgenerally believed, although more statistical evidence is needed, thatfamilies tend to "run out" in a few generations under city conditions;and it is generally agreed that among those who leave the ruraldistricts to go to the cities, there are found many of the bestrepresentatives of the country families. 

If superior people are going to the large cities, and if this removalleads to a smaller reproductive contribution than they would otherwisehave made, then the growth of great cities is an important dysgenicfactor. 

This is the view taken by O. F. Cook, [174] when he writes:"Statistically speaking cities are centers of population, butbiologically or eugenically speaking they are centers of depopulation. They are like sink-holes or _siguanas_, as the Indians of Guatemala callthe places where the streams of their country drop into subterraneanchannels and disappear. It never happens that cities develop largepopulations that go out and occupy the surrounding country. The movementof population is always toward the city. The currents of humanity passinto the urban _siguanas_ and are gone. "

"If the time has really come for the consideration of practical eugenicmeasures, here is a place to begin, a subject worthy of the most carefulstudy--how to rearrange our social and economic system so that more ofthe superior members of our race will stay on the land and raisefamilies, instead of moving to the city and remaining unmarried orchildless, or allowing their children to grow up in unfavorable urbanenvironments that mean deterioration and extinction. "

"The cities represent an eliminating agency of enormous efficiency, apresent condition that sterilizes and exterminates individuals and linesof descent rapidly enough for all but the most sanguinary reformer. Allthat is needed for a practical solution of the eugenic problem is toreverse the present tendency for the better families to be drawn intothe city and facilitate the drafting of others for urban duty. . . . Themost practical eugenists of our age are the men who are solving theproblems of living in the country and thus keeping more and betterpeople under rural conditions where their families will survive. "

"To recognize the relation of eugenics to agriculture, " Mr. Cookconcludes, "does not solve the problems of our race, but it indicatesthe basis on which the problems need to be solved, and the danger ofwasting too much time and effort in attempting to salvage the derelictpopulations of the cities. However important the problems of urbansociety may be, they do not have fundamental significance from thestandpoint of eugenics, because urban populations are essentiallytransient. The city performs the function of elimination, whileagriculture represents the constructive eugenic condition which must bemaintained and improved if the development of the race is to continue. "

On the other hand, city life does select those who are adapted to it. Itis said to favor the Mediterranean race in competition with the Nordic, so that mixed city populations tend to become more brunette, the Nordicstrains dying out. How well this claim has been establishedstatistically is open to question; but there can be no doubt that theJewish race is an example of urban selection. It has withstood centuriesof city life, usually under the most severe conditions, in ghettoes, andhas survived and maintained a high average of mentality. 

Until recently it has been impossible, because of the defectiveregistration of vital statistics in the United States, to get figureswhich show the extent of the problem of urban sterilization. But Dr. Gillette has obtained evidence along several indirect lines, and isconvinced that his figures are not far from the truth. [175] They showthe difference to be very large and its eugenic significance ofcorresponding importance. 

"When it is noted, " Dr. Gillette says, "that the rural rate is almosttwice the urban rate for the nation as a whole, that in only onedivision does the latter exceed the former, and that in some divisionsthe rural rate is three times the urban rate, it can scarcely be doubtedthat the factor of urbanization is the most important cause of loweredincrease rates. Urban birth-rates are lower than rural birth-rates, andits death-rates are higher than those of the latter. "

Considering the United States in nine geographical divisions, Dr. Gillette secured the following results:

 RATE OF NET ANNUAL INCREASE _Division_ _Rural_ _Urban_ _Average_ New England 5. 0 7. 3 6. 8 Middle Atlantic 10. 7 9. 6 10. 4 East North Central 12. 4 10. 8 11. 6 West North Central 18. 1 10. 1 15. 8 South Atlantic 18. 9 6. 00 16. 0 East South Central 19. 7 7. 4 17. 8 West South Central 23. 9 10. 2 21. 6 Mountain 21. 1 10. 5 17. 6 Pacific 12. 6 6. 6 9. 8 ---- ---- ----- Average 16. 9 8. 8 13. 65

Even though fuller returns might show these calculations to beinaccurate, Dr. Gillette points out, they are all compiled on the samebasis, and therefore can be fairly compared, since any unforeseen causeof increase or decrease would affect all alike. 

It is difficult to compare the various divisions directly, because theracial composition of the population of each one is different. But thedifference in rates is marked. The West South Central states wouldalmost double their population in four decades, by natural increasealone, while New England would require 200 years to do so. 

Dr. Gillette tried, by elaborate computations, to eliminate the effectof immigration and emigration in each division, in order to find out thestanding of the old American stock. His conclusions confirm the beliefsof the most pessimistic. "Only three divisions, all Western, add totheir population by means of an actual excess of income over outgo ofnative-born Americans, " he reports. Even should this view turn out to beexaggerated, it is certain that the population of the United States isat present increasing largely because of immigration and the highfecundity of immigrant women, and that as far as its own older stock isconcerned, it has ceased to increase. 

To state that this is due largely to the fact that country people aremoving to the city is by no means to solve the problem, in terms ofeugenics. It merely shows the exact nature of the problem to be solved. This could be attacked at two points. 

1. Attempts might be made to keep the rural population on the farms, andto encourage a movement from the cities back to the country. Measures tomake rural life more attractive and remunerative and thus to keep themore energetic and capable young people on the farm, have great eugenicimportance, from this point of view. 

2. The growth of cities might be accepted as a necessary evil, anunavoidable feature of industrial civilization, and direct attemptsmight be made, through eugenic propaganda, to secure a higher birth-rateamong the superior parts of the city population. 

The second method seems in many ways the more practicable. On the otherhand, the first method is in many ways more ideal, particularly becauseit would not only cause more children to be born, but furnish thesechildren with a suitable environment after they were born, which thecity can not do. On the other hand, the city offers the betterenvironment for the especially gifted who require a specialized trainingand later the field for its use in most cases. 

In practice, the problem will undoubtedly have to be attacked byeugenists on both sides. Dr. Gillette's statistics, showing theappalling need, should prove a stimulus to eugenic effort. 

DEMOCRACY

By democracy we understand a government which is responsive to the willof a majority of the entire population, as opposed to an oligarchy wherethe sole power is in the hands of a small minority of the entirepopulation, who are able to impose their will on the rest of the nation. In discussing immigration, we have pointed out that it is of greatimportance that the road for promotion of merit should always be open, and that the road for demotion of incompetence should likewise be open. These conditions are probably favored more by a democracy than by anyother form of government, and to that extent democracy is distinctlyadvantageous to eugenics. 

Yet this eugenic effect is not without a dysgenic after-effect. The veryfact that recognition is attainable by all, means that democracy leadsto social ambition; and social ambition leads to smaller families. Thisinfluence is manifested mainly in the women, whose desire to climb thesocial ladder is increased by the ease of ascent which is due to lack ofrigid social barriers. But while ascent is possible for almost anyone, it is naturally favored by freedom from handicaps, such as a largefamily of children. In the "successful" business and professionalclasses, therefore, there is an inducement to the wife to limit thenumber of her offspring, in order that she may have more time to devoteto social "duties. " In a country like Germany, with more or lessstratified social classes, this factor in the differential birth-rateis probably less operative. The solution in America is not to create animpermeable social stratification, but to create a public sentimentwhich will honor women more for motherhood than for eminence in thelargely futile activities of polite society. 

In quite another way, too great democratization of a country isdangerous. The tendency is to ask, in regard to any measure, "What dothe people want?" while the question should be "What ought the people towant?" The _vox populi_ may and often does want something that is in thelong run quite detrimental to the welfare of the state. The ultimatetest of a state is whether it is strong enough to survive, and a measurethat all the people, or a voting majority of them (which is thesignificant thing in a democracy), want, may be such as to handicap thestate severely. 

In general, experts are better able to decide what measures will bedesirable in the long run, than are voters of the general population, most of whom know little about the real merits of many of the mostimportant projects. Yet democracies have a tendency to scorn the adviceof experts, most of the voters feeling that they are as good as any oneelse, and that their opinion is entitled to as much weight as that ofthe expert. This attitude naturally makes it difficult to secure thepassage of measures which are eugenic or otherwise beneficial incharacter, since they often run counter to popular prejudices. 

The initiative by small petitions, and the referendum as a frequentresort, are dangerous. They are of great value if so qualified as to beused only in real emergencies, as where a clique has got control of thegovernment and is running it for its self-interest, but as a regularlyand frequently functioning institution they are unlikely to result inwise statesmanship. 

The wise democracy is that which recognizes that officials may beeffectively chosen by vote, only for legislative offices; and whichrecognizes that for executive offices the choice must be definitelyselective, that is, a choice of those who by merit are best fitted tofill the positions. Appointment in executive officers is not offensivewhen, as the name indicates, it is truly the best who govern. Allmethods of choice by properly judged competition or examination with afree chance to all, are, in principle, selective yet democratic in thebest sense, that of "equality of opportunity. " When the governing feware not the best fitted for the work, a so-called aristocracy is ofcourse not an aristocracy (government by the best) at all, but merely anoligarchy. When officers chosen by vote are not well fitted then such agovernment is not "for the people. "

Good government is then an aristo-democracy. In it the final controlrests in a democratically chosen legislature working with a legislativecommission of experts, but all executive and judicial functions areperformed by those best qualified on the basis of executive or judicialability, not vote-getting or speech-making ability. All, however, areeligible for such positions provided they can show genuinequalifications. 

SOCIALISM

It is difficult to define socialism in terms that will make a discussionpracticable. The socialist movement is one thing, the socialistpolitical program is another. But though the idea of socialism has asmany different forms as an amoeba, there is always a nucleus thatremains constant, --the desire for what is conceived to be a moreequitable distribution of wealth. The laborer should get the value whichhis labor produces, it is held, subject only to subtraction of such apart as is necessary to meet the costs of maintenance; and in order thatas little as possible need be subtracted for that purpose, thesocialists agree in demanding a considerable extension of the functionsof government: collective ownership of railways, mines, the tools ofproduction. The ideal socialistic state would be so organized, alongthese lines, that the producer would get as much as possible of what heproduces, the non-producer nothing. 

This principle of socialism is invariably accompanied by numerousassociated principles, and it is on these associated principles, not onthe fundamental principle, that eugenists and socialists come intoconflict. Equalitarianism, in particular, is so great a part of currentsocialist thought that it is doubtful whether the socialist movement assuch can exist without it. And this equalitarianism is usuallyinterpreted not only to demand equality of opportunity, but is based ona belief in substantial equality of native ability, where opportunity isequal. 

Any one who has read the preceding chapters will have no doubt that sucha belief is incompatible with an understanding of the principles ofbiology. How, then, has it come to be such an integral part ofsocialism?

Apparently it is because the socialist movement is, on the whole, madeup of those who are economically unsatisfied and discontented. Some ofthe intellectual leaders of the movement are far from inferior, but theytoo often find it necessary to share the views of their following, inorder to retain this following. A group which feels itself inferior willnaturally fall into an attitude of equalitarianism, whereas a groupwhich felt itself superior to the rest of society would not be likelyto. 

Before criticising the socialistic attitude in detail, we will considersome of the criticisms which some socialists make of eugenics. 

1. It is charged that eugenics infringes on the freedom of theindividual. This charge (really that of the individualists more than ofsocialists strictly speaking) is based mainly on a misconception of whateugenics attempts to do. Coercive measures have little place in moderneugenics, despite the gibes of the comic press. We propose little or nointerference with the freedom of the normal individual to follow his owninclinations in regard to marriage or parenthood; we regard indirectmeasures and the education of public opinion as the main practicablemethods of procedure. Such coercive measures as we indorse are limitedto grossly defective individuals, to whom the doctrine of personalliberty can not be applied without stultifying it. 

It is indeed unfortunate that there are a few sincere advocates ofeugenics who adhered to the idea of a wholesale surgical campaign. A fewreformers have told the public for several years of the desirability ofsterilizing the supposed 10, 000, 000 defectives at the bottom of theAmerican population. Lately one campaigner has raised this figure to15, 000, 000. Such fantastic proposals are properly resented by socialistsand nearly every one else, but they are invariably associated in thepublic mind with the conception of eugenics, in spite of the fact that99 out of 100 eugenists would repudiate them. The authors can speak onlyfor themselves, in declaring that eugenics will not be promoted bycoercive means except in a limited class of pathological cases; but theyare confident that other geneticists, with a very few exceptions, holdthe same attitude. There is no danger that this surgical campaign willever attain formidable proportions, and the socialist, we believe, mayrest assured that the progress of eugenics is not likely to infringeunwarrantably on the principle of individual freedom, either bysterilization or by coercive mating. 

2. Eugenists are further charged with ignoring or paying too littleattention to the influence of the environment in social reform. Thischarge is sometimes well founded, but it is not an inherent defect inthe eugenics program. The eugenist only asks that both factors be takeninto account, whereas in the past the factor of heredity has been toooften ignored. In the last chapter of this book we make an effort tobalance the two sides. 

3. Again, it is alleged that eugenics proposes to substitute anaristocracy for a democracy. We do think that those who have superiorability should be given the greatest responsibilities in government. Ifaristocracy means a government by the people who are best qualified togovern, then eugenics has most to hope from an aristo-democratic system. But admission to office should always be open to anyone who shows thebest ability; and the search for such ability must be much more thoroughin the future than it has been in the past. 

4. Eugenists are charged with hindering social progress by endeavoringto keep woman in the subordinate position of a domestic animal, byopposing the movement for her emancipation, by limiting her activity tochild-bearing and refusing to recognize that she is in every way fittedto take an equal part with man in the world's work. This objection wehave answered elsewhere, particularly in our discussion of feminism. Werecognize the general equality of the two sexes, but demand adifferentiation of function which will correspond to biologicalsex-specialization. We can not yield in our belief that woman's greatestfunction is motherhood, but recognition of this should increase, notdiminish, the strength of her position in the state. 

5. Eugenists are charged with ignoring the fact of economic determinism, the fact that a man's acts are governed by economic conditions. Todebate this question would be tedious and unprofitable. While we concedethe important rôle of economic determinism, we can not help feeling thatits importance in the eyes of socialists is somewhat factitious. In thefirst place, it is obvious that there are differences in theachievements of fellow men. These socialists, having refused to acceptthe great weight of germinal differences in accounting for the maindifferences in achievement, have no alternative but to fall back on thetheory of economic determinism. Further, socialism is essentially areform movement; and if one expects to get aid for such a movement, itis essential that one represent the consequences as highly important. The doctrine of economic determinism of course furnishes ground forglowing accounts of the changes that could be made by economic reform, and therefore fits in well with the needs of the socialistpropagandists. When the failure of many nations to make any use of theirgreat resources in coal and water power is remembered; when the fact isrecalled that many of the ablest socialist leaders have been the sons ofwell-to-do intellectuals who were never pinched by poverty; it must bebelieved that the importance of economic determinism in the socialistmind is caused more by its value for his propaganda purposes than aweighing of the evidence. 

Such are, we believe, the chief grounds on which socialists criticisethe eugenics movement. All of these criticisms should be stimulating, should lead eugenists to avoid mistakes in program or procedure. Butnone of them, we believe, is a serious objection to anything which thegreat body of eugenists proposes to do. 

What is to be said on the other side? What faults does the eugenist findwith the socialist movement?

For the central principle, the more equitable distribution of wealth, nodiscussion is necessary. Most students of eugenics would probably assentto its general desirability, although there is much room for discussionas to what constitutes a really equitable division of wealth. In soundsocialist theory, it is to be distributed according to a man's value tosociety; but the determination of this value is usually made impossible, in socialist practice, by the intrusion of the metaphysical anduntenable dogma of equalitarianism. 

If one man is by nature as capable as another, and equality ofopportunity[176] can be secured for all, it must follow that one manwill be worth just as much as another; hence the equitable distributionof wealth would be an equal distribution of wealth, a proposal whichsome socialists have made. Most of the living leaders of the socialistmovement certainly recognize its fallacy, but it seems so far to havebeen found necessary to lean very far in this direction for themaintenance of socialism as a movement of class protest. 

Now this idea of the equality of human beings is, in every respect thatcan be tested, absolutely false, and any movement which depends on itwill either be wrecked or, if successful, will wreck the state which ittries to operate. It will mean the penalization of real worth and theendowment of inferiority and incompetence. Eugenists can feel nosympathy for a doctrine which is so completely at variance with thefacts of human nature. 

But if it is admitted that men differ widely, and always must differ, inability and worth, then eugenics can be in accord with the socialisticdesire for distribution of wealth according to merit, for this willmake it possible to favor and help perpetuate the valuable strains inthe community and to discourage the inferior strains. T. N. Carver sumsup the argument[177] concisely:

"Distribution according to worth, usefulness or service is the systemwhich would most facilitate the progress of human adaptation. It would, in the first place, stimulate each individual by an appeal to his ownself-interest, to make himself as useful as possible to the community. In the second place, it would leave him perfectly free to labor in theservice of the community for altruistic reasons, if there was anyaltruism in his nature. In the third place it would exercise abeneficial selective influence upon the stock or race, because theuseful members would survive and perpetuate their kind and the uselessand criminal members would be exterminated. "

In so far as socialists rid themselves of their sentimental and Utopianequalitarianism, the eugenist will join them willingly in a demand thatthe distribution of wealth be made to depend as far as feasible on thevalue of the individual to society. [178] As to the means by which thisdistribution can be made, there will of course be differences ofopinion, to discuss which would be outside the province of this volume. Fundamentally, eugenics is anti-individualistic and in so far asocialistic movement, since it seeks a social end involving some degreeof individual subordination, and this fact would be more frequentlyrecognized if the movement which claims the name of socialist did not sooften allow the wish to believe that a man's environmental change couldeliminate natural inequalities to warp its attitude. 

CHILD LABOR

It is often alleged that the abolition of child labor would be a greateugenic accomplishment; but as is the case with nearly all suchproposals, the actual results are both complex and far-reaching. 

The selective effects of child labor obviously operate directly on twogenerations: (1) the parental generation and (2) the filial generation, the children who are at work. The results of these two forms ofselection must be considered separately. 

1. On the parental generation. The children who labor mostly come frompoor families, where every child up to the age of economic productivityis an economic burden. If the children go to work at an early age, theparents can afford to have more children and probably will, since thechildren soon become to some extent an asset rather than a liability. Child labor thus leads to a higher birth-rate of this class, abolitionof child labor would lead to a lower birth-rate, since the parents couldno longer afford to have so many children. 

Karl Pearson has found reason to believe that this result can bestatistically traced in the birth-rate of English working people, --thata considerable decline in their fecundity, due to voluntary restriction, began after the passage of each of the laws which restricted child laborand made children an expense from which no return could be expected. 

If the abolition of child labor leads to the production of fewerchildren in a certain section of the population the value of the resultto society, in this phase, will depend on whether or not society wantsthat strain proportionately increased. If it is an inferior stock, thisone effect of the abolition of child labor would be eugenic. 

Comparing the families whose children work with those whose children donot, one is likely to conclude that the former are on the averageinferior to the latter. If so, child labor is in this one particularaspect dysgenic, and its abolition, leading to a lower birth-rate inthis class of the population, will be an advantage. 

2. On the filial generation. The obvious result of the abolition ofchild labor will be, as is often and graphically told, to give childrena better chance of development. If they are of superior stock, and willbe better parents for not having worked as children (a proviso whichrequires substantiation) the abolition of their labor will be of directeugenic benefit. Otherwise, its results will be at most indirect; or, possibly, dysgenic, if they are of undesirable stock, and are enabled tosurvive in greater numbers and reproduce. In necessarily passing overthe social and economic aspects of the question, we do not wish itthought that we advocate child labor for the purpose of killing off anundesirable stock prematurely. We are only concerned in pointing outthat the effects of child labor are many and various. 

The effect of its abolition within a single family further depends onwhether the children who go to work are superior to those who stay athome. If the strongest and most intelligent children are sent to workand crippled or killed prematurely, while the weaklings andfeeble-minded are kept at home, brought up on the earnings of thestrong, and enabled to reach maturity and reproduce, then this aspect ofchild labor is distinctly dysgenic. 

The desirability of prohibiting child labor is generally conceded oneuthenic grounds, and we conclude that its results will on the whole beeugenic as well, but that they are more complex than is usuallyrecognized. 

COMPULSORY EDUCATION

Whether one favors or rejects compulsory education will probably bedetermined by other arguments than those derived from eugenics;nevertheless there are eugenic aspects of the problem which deserve tobe recognized. 

One of the effects of compulsory education is similar to that whichfollows the abolition of child labor--namely, that the child is made asource of expense, not of revenue, to the parent. Not only is the childunable to work, while at school, but to send him to school involves inpractice dressing him better than would be necessary if he stayed athome. While it might fit the child to work more gainfully in lateryears, yet the years of gain are so long postponed that the parent canexpect to share in but little of it. 

These arguments would not affect the well-to-do parent, or thehigh-minded parent who was willing or able to make some sacrifice inorder that his children might get as good a start as possible. But theymay well affect the opposite type of parent, with low efficiency and lowideals. [179] This type of parent, finding that the system of compulsoryeducation made children a liability, not an immediate asset, wouldthereby be led to reduce the size of his family, just as he seems tohave done when child labor was prohibited in England and children ceasedto be a source of revenue. Compulsory education has here, then, aeugenic effect, in discouraging the reproduction of parents with theleast efficiency and altruism. 

If this belief be well founded, it is likely that any measure tending todecrease the cost of schooling for children will tend to diminish thiseffect of compulsory education. Such measures as the free distributionof text-books, the provision of free lunches at noon, or the extensionto school children of a reduced car-fare, make it easier for the selfishor inefficient parent to raise children; they cost him less andtherefore he may tend to have more of them. If such were the case, themeasures referred to, despite the euthenic considerations, must beclassified as dysgenic. 

In another and quite different way, compulsory education is of serviceto eugenics. The educational system should be a sieve, through which allthe children of the country are passed, --or more accurately, a series ofsieves, which will enable the teacher to determine just how far it isprofitable to educate each child so that he may lead a life of thegreatest possible usefulness to the state and happiness to himself. Obviously such a function would be inadequately discharged, if thesieve failed to get all the available material; and compulsory educationmakes it certain that none will be omitted. 

It is very desirable that no child escape inspection, because of theimportance of discovering every individual of exceptional ability orinability. Since the public educational system has not yet risen to theneed of this systematic mental diagnosis, private philanthropy shouldfor the present be alert to get appropriate treatment for the unusuallypromising individual. In Pittsburgh, a committee of the Civic Club isseeking youths of this type, who might be obliged to leave schoolprematurely for economic reasons, and is aiding them to appropriateopportunities. Such discriminating selection will probably become muchmore widespread and we may hope a recognized function of the schools, owing to the great public demonstration of psychometry now beingconducted at the cantonments for the mental classification of recruits. Compulsory education is necessary for this selection. 

We conclude that compulsory education, as such, is not only of serviceto eugenics through the selection it makes possible, but may serve in amore unsuspected way by cutting down the birth-rate of inferiorfamilies. 

VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE AND TRAINING

In arguments for vocational guidance and education of youth, one doesnot often hear eugenics mentioned; yet these measures, if effectivelycarried out, seem likely to be of real eugenic value. 

The need for as perfect a correlation as possible between income andeugenic worth, has been already emphasized. It is evident that if a mangets into the wrong job, a job for which he is not well fitted, he maymake a very poor showing in life, while if properly trained in somethingsuited to him, his income would have been considerably greater. It willbe a distinct advantage to have superior young people get establishedearlier, and this can be done if they are directly taught efficiency inwhat they can do best, the boys being fitted for gainful occupations, and the girls for wifehood and motherhood in addition. 

As to the details of vocational guidance, the eugenist is perhaps notentitled to give much advice; yet it seems likely that a more thoroughstudy of the inheritance of ability would be of value to the educator. It was pointed out in Chapter IV that inheritance often seems to behighly specialized, --a fact which leads to the inference that the sonmight often do best in his father's calling or vocation, especially ifhis mother comes from a family marked by similar capacities. It isdifficult to say how far the occupation of the son is, in modernconditions, determined by heredity and how far it is the result ofchance, or the need of taking the first job open, the lack of anyspecial qualifications for any particular work, or some similarenvironmental influence. Miss Perrin investigated 1, 550 pairs of fathersand sons in the English _Dictionary of National Biography_ and an equalnumber in the English _Who's Who_. "It seems clear, " she concluded, "that whether we take the present or the long period of the pastembraced by the Dictionary, the environmental influences which induce aman in this country to follow his father's occupation must have remainedvery steady. " She found the coefficient of contingency[180] betweenoccupation of father and occupation of son in _Who's Who_ to be . 75 andin the _Dictionary of National Biography_ . 76. For the inheritance ofphysical and mental characters, in general, the coefficient would beabout . 5. She thinks, "therefore, we may say that in the choice of aprofession inherited taste counts for about 2/3 and environmentalconditions for about 1/3. "

An examination of 990 seventh and eighth grade boys in the publicschools of St. Paul[181] showed that only 11% of them desired to enterthe occupation of their fathers; there was a pronounced tendency tochoose occupations of a more remunerative or intellectual and lessmanual sort than that followed by the father. That this preferencewould always determine the ultimate occupation is not to be expected, asa considerable per cent may fail to show the necessary ability. 

While inherited tastes and aptitude for some calling probably shouldcarry a good deal of weight in vocational guidance, we can not share theexaggerated view which some sociologists hold about the great waste ofability through the existence of round pegs in square holes. Thisattitude is often expressed in such words as those of E. B. Woods:"Ability receives its reward only when it is presented with theopportunities of a fairly favorable environment, _its_ peculiarlyindispensable sort of environment. Naval commanders are not likely to bedeveloped in the Transvaal, nor literary men and artists in the softcoal fields of western Pennsylvania. For ten men who succeed asinvestigators, inventors, or diplomatists, there may be and probably arein some communities fifty more who would succeed better under the samecircumstances. "

While there is some truth in this view, it exaggerates the evil byignoring the fact that good qualities frequently go together in anindividual. The man of Transvaal who is by force of circumstances keptfrom a naval career is likely to distinguish himself as a successfulcolonist, and perhaps enrich the world even more than if he had beenbrought up in a maritime state and become a naval commander. It may bethat his inherited talent fitted him to be a better naval commander thananything else; if so, it probably also fitted him to be better at manyother things, than are the majority of men. "Intrinsically good traitshave also good correlatives, " physical, mental and moral. 

F. A. Woods has brought together the best evidence of this, in hisstudies of the royal families of Europe. If the dozen best generals wereselected from the men he has studied, they would of course surpass theaverage man enormously in military skill; but, as he points out, theywould also surpass the average man to a very high degree as poets, --ordoubtless as cooks or lawyers, had they given any time to thoseoccupations. [182]

The above considerations lead to two suggestions for vocationalguidance: (i) it is desirable to ascertain and make use of the child'sinherited capacities as far as possible; but (2) it must not be supposedthat every child inherits the ability to do one thing only, and willwaste his life if he does not happen to get a chance to do that thing. It is easy to suppose that the man who makes a failure as a paperhangermight, if he had had the opportunity, have been a great electricalengineer; it is easy to cite a few cases, such as that of General U. S. Grant, which seem to lend some color to the theory, but statisticalevidence would indicate it is not the rule. If a man makes a failure asa paperhanger, it is at least possible that he would have made a failureof very many things that he might try; and if a man makes a brilliantsuccess as a paperhanger, or railway engineer, or school teacher, orchemist, he is a useful citizen who would probably have gained a fairmeasure of success in any one of several occupations that he might havetaken up but not in all. 

To sum up: vocational guidance and training are likely to be of muchservice to eugenics. They may derive direct help from heredity; andtheir exponents may also learn that a man who is really good in onething is likely to be good in many things, and that a man who fails inone thing would not necessarily achieve success if he were put in someother career. One of their greatest services will probably be to put alot of boys into skilled trades, for which they are adapted and wherethey will succeed, and thus prevent them from yielding to the desire fora more genteel clerical occupation, in which they will not do more thanearn a bare living. This will assist in bringing about the highcorrelation between merit and income which is so much to be desired. 

THE MINIMUM WAGE

Legal enactment of a minimum wage is often urged as a measure that wouldpromote social welfare and race betterment. By minimum wage is to beunderstood, according to its advocates, not the wage that will support asingle man, but one that will support a man, wife, and three or fourchildren. In the United States, the sum necessary for this purpose canhardly be estimated at less than $2. 50 a day. 

A living wage is certainly desirable for every man, but the idea ofgiving every man a wage sufficient to support a family can not beconsidered eugenic. In the first place, it interferes with theadjustment of wages to ability, on the necessity of which we have ofteninsisted. In the second place, it is not desirable that society shouldmake it possible for every man to support a wife and three children; inmany cases it is desirable that it be made impossible for him to do so. Eugenically, teaching methods of birth control to the married unskilledlaborer is a sounder way of solving his problems, than subsidizing himso he can support a large family. 

It must be frankly recognized that poverty is in many ways eugenic inits effect, and that with the spread of birth control among people belowthe poverty line, it is certain to be still more eugenic than atpresent. It represents an effective, even though a cruel, method ofkeeping down the net birth-rate of people who for one reason or anotherare not economically efficient; and the element of cruelty, involved inhigh infant mortality, will be largely mitigated by birth control. Freecompetition may be tempered to the extent of furnishing every man enoughcharity to feed him, if he requires charity for that purpose; and tofeed his family, if he already has one; but charity which will allow himto increase his family, if he is too inefficient to support it by hisown exertions, is rarely a benefit eugenically. 

The minimum wage is admittedly not an attempt to pay a man what he isworth. It is an attempt to make it possible for every man, no matterwhat his economic or social value, to support a family. Therefore, in sofar as it would encourage men of inferior quality to have or increasefamilies, it is unquestionably dysgenic. 

MOTHERS' PENSIONS

Half of the states of the Union have already adopted some form ofpension for widowed mothers, and similar measures are being urged innearly all remaining states. The earliest of these laws goes back onlyto 1911. 

In general, [183] these laws apply to mothers who are widows, or in somecases to those who have lost their means of support through imprisonmentor incapacity of the husband. The maximum age of the child on whoseaccount allowance is made varies from 14 to 16, in a few cases to 17 or18. The amount allowed for each child varies in each state, approximately between the limits of $100 and $200 a year. In most statesthe law demands that the mother be a fit person, physically, mentallyand morally to bring up her children, and that it be to their interestthat they remain with her at home instead of being placed at work orsent to some institution. In all cases considerable latitude is allowedthe administrator of the law, --a juvenile court, or board of countycommissioners, or some body with equivalent powers. 

Laws of this character have often been described as being eugenic ineffect, but examination shows little reason for such a characterization. Since the law applies for the most part to women who have lost theirhusbands, it is evident that it is not likely to affect the differentialbirth-rate which is of such concern to eugenics. On the whole, mothers'pensions must be put in the class of work which may be undertaken onhumanitarian grounds, but they are probably slightly dysgenic ratherthan eugenic, since they favor the preservation of families which are, on the whole, of inferior quality, as shown by the lack of relativeswith ability or willingness to help them. On the other hand, they arenot likely to result in the production from these families of morechildren than those already in existence. 

HOUSING

At present it is sometimes difficult, in the more fashionable quartersof large cities, to find apartments where families with children areadmitted. In other parts of the city, this difficulty appears to be muchless. Such a situation tends to discourage parenthood, on the part ofyoung couples who come of good families and desire to live in the partof the city where their friends are to be found. It is at least likelyto cause postponement of parenthood until they feel financially able totake a separate house. Here is an influence tending to lower thebirth-rate of young couples who have social aspirations, at least to theextent of desiring to live in the pleasanter and more reputable part oftheir city. Such a hindrance exists to a much less extent, if at all, for those who have no reason for wanting to live in the fashionable partof the city. This discrimination of some apartment owners againstfamilies with children would therefore appear to be dysgenic in itseffect. 

Married people who wish to live in the more attractive part of a cityshould not be penalized. The remedy is to make it illegal todiscriminate against children. It is gratifying to note that recently anumber of apartment houses have been built in New York, especially witha view to the requirements of children. The movement deserves wideencouragement. Any apartment house is an unsatisfactory place in whichto bring up children, but since under modern urban conditions it isinevitable that many children must be brought up in apartments, if theyare brought up at all, the municipality should in its own interests takesteps to ensure that conditions will be as good as possible for them. Ina few cases of model tenements, the favored poor tenants are better offthan the moderately well-to-do. It is essential that the latter be givena chance to have children and bring them up in comfortable surroundings, and the provision of suitable apartment houses would be a gain in everylarge city. 

The growing use of the automobile, which permits a family to live underpleasant surroundings in the suburbs and yet reach the city daily, alleviates the housing problem slightly. Increased facilities for rapidtransit are of the utmost importance in placing the city population (aselected class, it will be remembered) under more favorable conditionsfor bringing up their children. Zone rates should be designed to effectthis dispersal of population. 

FEMINISM

The word "feminism" might be supposed to characterize a movement whichsought to emphasize the distinction between woman's nature and that ofman to provide for women's special needs. It was so used in early dayson the continent. But at present in England and America it denotes amovement which is practically the reverse of this; which seeks tominimize the difference between the two sexes. It may be broadlydescribed as a movement which seeks to remove all discrimination basedon sex. It is a movement to secure recognition of an equality of the twosexes. The feminists variously demand that woman be recognized as theequal of man (1) biologically, (2) politically, (3) economically. 

1. Whether or not woman is to be regarded as biologically equal to mandepends on how one uses the word "equal. " If it is meant that woman isas well adapted to her own particular kind of work as is man to his, thestatement will readily be accepted. Unfortunately, feminists show atendency to go beyond this and to minimize differentiation in theirclaims of equality. An attempt is made to show that women do not differmaterially from men in the nature of their capacity of mental orphysical achievement. Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman makes the logicalapplication by demanding that little girls' hair be cut short and thatthey be prevented from playing with dolls in order that differencesfostered in this way be reduced. 

In forming a judgment on this proposition, it must be remembered thatcivilization covers not more than 10, 000 years out of man's history ofhalf a million or more. During 490, 000 out of the 500, 000 years, man wasthe hunter and warrior; while woman stayed at home of necessity to bearand rear the young, to skin the prey, to prepare the food and clothing. He must have a small knowledge of biology who could suppose that thislong history would not lead to any differentiation of the two sexes;and the biologist knows that man and woman in some respects differ inevery cell of their bodies: that, as Jacques Loeb says, "Man and womanare, physiologically, different species. "

But the biologist also knows that sex is a quantitative character. It isimpossible to draw a sharp line and say that those on one side are inevery respect men, and those on the other side in every respect women, as one might draw a line between goats and sheep. Many women have aconsiderable amount of "maleness"; numerous men have distinct femininecharacteristics, physical and mental. There is thus an ill-defined"intermediate sex, " as Edward Carpenter called it, whose size has beenkept down by sexual selection; or better stated there is so muchoverlapping that it is a question of different averages with manyindividuals of each sex beyond the average of the other sex. 

A perusal of Havelock Ellis' book, _Man and Woman_, will leave littledoubt about the fact of sex differentiation, just as it will leavelittle doubt that one sex is, in its way, quite as good as the other, and that to talk of one sex as being inferior is absurd. 

It is worth noting that the spread of feminism will reinforce the actionof sexual selection in keeping down the numbers of this "intermediatesex. " In the past, women who lacked femininity or maternal instinct haveoften married because the pressure of public opinion and economicconditions made it uncomfortable for any woman to remain unmarried. Andthey have had children because they could not help it, transmitting totheir daughters their own lack of maternal instinct. Under the newrégime a large proportion of such women do not marry, and accordinglyhave few if any children to inherit their defects. Hence the averagelevel of maternal instinct of the women of America is likely steadily torise. 

We conclude that any claim of biological equality of the two sexes mustuse the word in a figurative sense, not ignoring the differentiation ofthe two sexes, as extreme feminists are inclined to do. To thisdifferentiation we shall return later. 

2. Political equality includes the demand for the vote and for theremoval of various legal restrictions, such as have sometimes preventeda wife from disposing of her own property without the consent of herhusband or such as have made her citizenship follow that of her husband. In the United States, these legal restrictions are rapidly beingremoved, at such a rate that in some states it is now the husband whohas a right to complain of certain legal discriminations. 

Equal suffrage is also gaining steadily, but its eugenic aspect is notwholly clear. Theoretically much is to be said for it, as making use ofwoman's large social sympathies and responsibilities and interest in thefamily; but in the states where it has been tried, its effects have notbeen all that was hoped. Beneficial results are to be expected unless anobjectionably extreme feminism finds support. 

In general, the demand for political equality, in a broad sense, seemsto the eugenist to be the most praiseworthy part of the feministprogram. The abolition of those laws, which now discharge women frompositions if they marry or have children, promises to be in principle aparticularly valuable gain. 

3. Economic equality is often summed up in the catch phrase "equal payfor equal work. " If the phrase refers to jobs where women are competingon piecework with men, no one will object to it. In practice it appliesparticularly to two distinct but interlocking demands: (a) that womenshould receive the same pay as men for any given occupation--as, stenography, for example; and (b) that child-bearing should berecognized as just as much worthy of remuneration as any occupationwhich men enter, and should be paid for (by the state) on the samebasis. 

At present, there is almost universally a discrimination against womenin commerce and industry. They sometimes get no more than half as muchpay as men for similar grades of employment. But there is for this onegood reason. An employer needs experienced help, and he expects a man toremain with him and become more valuable. He is, therefore, willing topay more because of this anticipation. In hiring a woman, he knows thatshe will probably soon leave to marry. But whatever may be the origin ofthis discrimination, it is justified in the last analysis by the factthat a man is paid as the head of a family, a woman only as anindividual who ordinarily has fewer or no dependents to support. Indeed, it is largely this feature which, under the law of supply and demand, has caused women to work for low wages. 

It is evident that real economic equality between men and women must beimpossible, if the women are to leave their work for long periods oftime, in order to bear and rear children. It is normally impossible fora woman to earn her living by competitive labor, at the same time thatshe is bearing and rearing children. Either the doctrine of economicequality is largely illusory, therefore, or else it must be extended tomaking motherhood a salaried occupation just as much as mill work orstenography. 

The feminists have almost universally adopted the latter alternative. They say that the woman who is capable of earning money, and whoabandons wage-earning for motherhood, ought to receive from the state asnearly as possible what she would have received if she had not hadchildren; or else they declare that the expense of children should beborne wholly by the community. 

This proposal must be tested by asking whether it would tend tostrengthen and perpetuate the race or not. It is, in effect, a proposalto have the state pay so much a head for babies. The fundamentalquestion is whether or not the quality of the babies would be taken intoaccount. Doubtless the babies of obviously feeble-minded women would beexcluded, but would it be possible for the state to pay liberally forbabies who would grow up to be productive citizens, and to refuse to payfor babies that would doubtless grow up to be incompetents, dolts, dullards, laggards or wasters? The scheme would work, eugenically, inproportion as it is discriminatory and graded. 

But the example of legislation in France and England, and the main trendof popular thought in America, make it quite certain that at present, and for many years to come, it will be impossible to have babies valuedon the basis of quality rather than mere numbers. It is sometimespossible to get indirect measures of a eugenic nature passed, and it hasbeen found possible to secure the passage of direct measures whichprevent reproduction of those who are actually defective. But even themost optimistic eugenist must feel that, short of the remote future, anyattempt to have the state grade and pay for babies on the basis of theirquality is certain to fail to pass. 

The recent action of the municipality of Schönberg, Berlin, is typical. It is now paying baby bounties at the rate of $12. 50 a head for thefirst born, $2. 50 a head for all later born, and no questions asked. Itis to be feared that any success which the feminists may gain insecuring state aid for mothers in America will secure, as in Schönberg, in England, in France, and in Australia, merely a small uniform sum. This acts dysgenically because it is a stimulus to married people tohave large families in inverse proportion to their income, and is feltmost by those whose purpose in having children is least approvable. 

The married woman of good stock ought to bear four children. For manyreasons these ought to be spaced well apart, preferably not much lessthan three years. She must have oversight of these children until theyall reach adolescence. This means a period of about 12 + 13 = 25 yearsduring which her primary, though by no means her only, concern will bemothercraft. It is hardly possible and certainly not desirable that sheshould support herself outside of the home during this period. As statesupport would pretty certainly be indiscriminate and dangerouslydysgenic, it therefore appears that the present custom of having thefather responsible for the support of the family is not only unavoidablebut desirable. If so, it is desirable to avoid reducing the wages ofmarried men too much by the competition of single women. 

To attain this end, without working any injustice to women, it seemswise to modify their education in general in such a way as to preparewomen for the kinds of work best adapted to her capacities and needs. Women were long excluded from a higher education, and when they securedit, they not unnaturally wanted the kind of education men werereceiving, --partly in order to demonstrate that they were notintellectually inferior to men. Since this demonstration is nowcomplete, the continuation of duplicate curricula is uncalled for. Thecoeducational colleges of the west are already turning away from the oldsingle curriculum and are providing for the election of moredifferentiated courses for women. The separate women's colleges of theeast will doubtless do so eventually, since their own graduates andstudents are increasingly discontented with the present narrow andobsolete ideals. If the higher education of women, and much of theelementary education, is directed toward differentiating them from menand giving them distinct occupations (including primarily marriage andmotherhood) instead of training them so the only thing they are capableof doing is to compete with men for men's jobs, the demand of "equal payfor equal work" will be less difficult to reconcile with the interestsof the race. In this direction the feminists might find a large andprofitable field for the employment of their energies. 

There is good ground for the feminist contention that women should beliberally educated, that they should not be regarded by men as inferiorcreatures, that they should have the opportunity of self-expression in aricher, freer life than they have had in the past. All these gains canbe made without sacrificing any racial interests; and they must be somade. The unrest of intelligent women is not to be lessened or removedby educating them in the belief that they are not different from men andsetting them to work as men in the work of the world. Except where thework is peculiarly adapted to women or there is a special individualaptitude, such work will, for the reasons we have set forth, operatedysgenically and therefore bring about the decadence of the race whichpractices it. 

The true solution is rather to be sought in recognizing the naturaldifferentiation of the two sexes and in emphasizing this differentiationby education. Boys will be taught the nobility of being productive andof establishing families; girls will have similar ideals held up to thembut will be taught to reach them in a different way, through cultivationof the intellectual and emotional characters most useful to thatdivision of labor for which they are supremely adapted, as well as thosethat are common to both sexes. The home must not be made a subordinateinterest, as some feminists desire, but it must be made a much richer, deeper, more satisfying interest than it is too frequently at present. 

OLD AGE PENSIONS

Pensions for aged people form an important part of the modern program ofsocial legislation. What their merits may be in relieving poverty willnot be discussed here. But beyond the direct effect, it is important toinquire what indirect eugenic effect they would have, as compared withthe present system where the aged are most frequently supported by theirown children when they have failed through lack of thrift or for otherreasons to make provision for their old age. 

The ordinary man, dependent on his daily work for a livelihood, can noteasily support his parents and his offspring at the same time. Aid givento the one must be in some degree at the expense of the other. Theeugenic consequences will depend on what class of man is required tocontribute thus to parental support. 

It is at once obvious that superior families will rarely encounter thisproblem. The parents will, by their superior earning capacity and theexercise of thrift and foresight, have provided for the wants of theirold age. A superior man will therefore seldom be under economic pressureto limit the number of his own children because of the necessity ofsupporting his parents. In inferior families, on the other hand, theparents will have made no adequate provision for their old age. A sonwill have to assume their support, and thus reduce the number of his ownchildren, --a eugenic result. With old age pensions from the state, theeconomic pressure would be taken off these inferior families and thechildren would thus be encouraged to marry earlier and have morechildren, --a dysgenic result. 

From this point of view, the most eugenic course would perhaps be tomake the support of parents by children compulsory, in cases where anysupport was needed. Such a step would not handicap superior families, but would hold back the inferior. A contributory system of old agepensions, for which the money was provided out of the individual'searnings, and laid aside for his old age, would also be satisfactory. Asystem which led to the payment of old age pensions by the state wouldbe harmful. 

The latter system would be evil in still another way because, as is thecase with most social legislation of this type, the funds for carryingout such a scheme must naturally be furnished by the efficient membersof the community. This adds to their financial burdens and encouragesthe young men to postpone marriage longer and to have fewer childrenwhen they do marry, --a dysgenic result. 

It appears, therefore, that old age pensions paid by the state would bedysgenic in a number of ways, encouraging the increase of the inferiorpart of the population at the expense of the superior. If old agepensions are necessary, they should be contributory. 

THE SEX HYGIENE MOVEMENT

Sexual morality is thought by some to be substantially synonymous witheugenics or to be included by it. One of the authors has protestedpreviously[184] against this confusion of the meaning of the word"eugenics. " The fallacy of believing that a campaign against sexualimmorality is a campaign for eugenics will be apparent if theproposition is analyzed. 

First, does sexual immorality increase or decrease the marriage rate ofthe offenders? We conclude that it reduces the marriage rate. Althoughit is true that some individuals might by sexual experience become soawakened as to be less satisfied with a continent life, and might thusin some cases be led to marriage, yet this is more than counterbalancedby the following considerations:

1. The mere consciousness of loss of virginity has led in some sensitivepersons, especially women, to an unwillingness to marry from a sense ofunworthiness. This is not common, yet such cases are known. 

2. The loss of reputation has prevented the marriage of the desiredmates. This is not at all uncommon. 

3. Venereal infection has led to the abandonment of marriage. This isespecially common. 

4. Illicit experiences may have been so disillusioning, owing to thedisaffecting nature of the consorts, that an attitude of pessimism andmisanthropy or misogyny is built up. Such an attitude prevents marriagenot only directly, but also indirectly, since persons with such anoutlook are thereby less attractive to the opposite sex. 

5. A taste for sexual variety is built up so that the individual isunwilling to commit himself to a monogamous union. 

6. Occasionally, threat of blackmail by a jilted paramour preventsmarriage by the inability to escape these importunities. 

We consider next the relative birth-rate of the married and theincontinent unmarried. There can not be the slightest doubt that this isvastly greater in the case of the married. The unmarried have not onlyall the incentives of the married to keep down their birth-rate but alsothe obvious and powerful incentive of concealment as well. 

Passing to the relative death-rate of the illegitimate and legitimateprogeny, the actual data invariably indicate a decided advantage of thelegitimately born. The reasons are too obvious to be retailed. 

Now, then, knowing that the racial contribution of the sexually moral isgreater than that of the sexually immoral, we may compare the quality ofthe sexually moral and immoral, to get the evolutionary effect. 

For this purpose a distinction must be made between the individual whohas been chaste till the normal time of marriage and whose sexual lifeis truly monogamous, and that abnormal group who remain chaste andcelibate to an advanced age. These last are not moral in the lastanalysis, if they have valuable and needed traits and are fertile, because in the long run their failure to reproduce affects adversely thewelfare of their group. While the race suffers through the failure ofmany of these individuals to contribute progeny, probably this does nothappen, so far as males are concerned, as much as might be supposed, forsuch individuals are often innately defective in their instincts or, inthe case of disappointed lovers, have a badly proportioned emotionalequipment, since it leads them into a position so obviously opposed torace interests. 

But, to pass to the essential comparison, that between the sexuallyimmoral and the sexually moral as limited above, it is necessary firstof all to decide whether monogamy is a desirable and presumablypermanent feature of human society. 

We conclude that it is:

1. Because it is spreading at the expense of polygamy even where notfavored by legal interference. The change is most evident in China. 

2. In monogamy, sexual selection puts a premium on valuable traits ofcharacter, rather than on mere personal beauty or ability to acquirewealth; and

3. The greatest amount of happiness is produced by a monogamous system, since in a polygamous society so many men must remain unmarried and somany women are dissatisfied with having to share their mates withothers. 

Assuming this, then adaptation to the condition of monogamous societyrepresents race progress. Such a race profits if those who do not complywith its conditions make a deficient racial contribution. It followsthen that sexual immorality is eugenic in its result for the species andthat if all sexual immorality should cease, an important means of raceprogress might be lost. An illustration is the case of the Negro inAmerica, whose failure to increase more rapidly in number is largelyattributable to the widespread sterility resulting from venerealinfection. [185] Should venereal diseases be eliminated, that race mightbe expected to increase in numbers very much faster than the whites. 

It may be felt by some that this position would have an immoral effectupon youth if widely accepted. This need not be feared. On the contrary, we believe that one of the most powerful factors in ethical culture ispride due to the consciousness of being one who is fit and worthy. 

The traditional view of sexual morality has been to ignore theselectional aspect here discussed and to stress the allegeddeterioration of the germ-plasm by the direct action of the toxins ofsyphilis. The evidence relied upon to demonstrate this action seems tobe vitiated by the possibility that there was, instead, a transmittedinfection of the progeny. This "racial poison" action, since it is sohighly improbable from analogy, can not be credited until it has beendemonstrated in cases where the parents have been indubitably cured. 

Is it necessary, then, to retain sexual immorality in order to achieverace progress? No, because it is only one of many factors contributingto race progress. Society can mitigate this as well as alcoholism, disease, infant mortality--all powerful selective factors--without harm, provided increased efficiency of other selective factors is ensured, such as the segregation of defectives, more effective sexual selection, a better correlation of income and ability, and a more eugenicdistribution of family limitation. 

TRADES UNIONISM

A dysgenic feature often found in trades unionism will easily beunderstood after our discussion of the minimum wage. The union tends tostandardize wages; it tends to fix a wage in a given industry, anddemand that nearly all workers in that classification be paid that wage. It cannot be denied that some of these workers are much more capablethan others. Artificial interference with a more exact adjustment ofwages to ability therefore penalizes the better workmen and subsidizesthe worse ones. Economic pressure is thereby put on the better men tohave fewer children, and with the worse men encourages more children, than would be the case if their incomes more nearly represented theirreal worth. Payment according to the product, with prizes and bonuses somuch opposed by the unions, is more in accord with the principles ofeugenics. 

PROHIBITION

It was shown in Chapter II that the attempt to ban alcoholic beverageson the ground of direct dysgenic effect is based on dubious evidence. But the prohibition of the use of liquors, at least those containingmore than 5% alcohol, can be defended on indirect eugenic grounds, aswell as on the familiar grounds of pathology and economics which arecommonly cited. 

1. Unless it is present to such a degree as to constitute a neurotictaint, the desire to be stimulated is not of itself necessarily a badthing. This will be particularly clear if the distribution of theresponsiveness to alcoholic stimulus is recalled. Some really valuablestrains, marked by this susceptibility, may be eliminated through thedeath of some individuals from debauchery and the penalization of othersin preferential mating; this would be avoided if narcotics were notavailable. 

2. In selection for eugenic improvement, it is desirable not to have toselect for too many traits at once. If alcoholism could, throughprohibition, be eliminated from consideration, it would just so farsimplify the problem of eugenics. 

3. Drunkenness interferes with the effectiveness of means for familylimitation, so that if his alcoholism is not extreme, the drunkard'sfamily is sometimes larger than it would otherwise be. 

On the other hand, prohibition is dysgenic and intemperance is eugenicin their effect on the species in so far as alcoholism is correlatedwith other undesirable characters and brings about the elimination ofundesirable strains. But its action is not sufficiently discriminatingnor decisive; and if the strains have many serious defects, they canprobably be dealt with better in some other, more direct way. 

We conclude, then, that, on the whole, prohibition is desirable foreugenic as well as for other reasons. 

PEDAGOGICAL CELIBACY

Whether women are more efficient teachers than men, and whether singlewomen are more efficient teachers than married women, are disputedquestions which it is not proposed here to consider. Accepting thepresent fact, that most of the school teachers in the United States areunmarried women, it is proper to examine the eugenic consequences ofthis condition. 

The withdrawal of this large body of women from the career of motherhoodinto a celibate career may be desirable if these women are below theaverage of the rest of the women of the population in eugenic quality. But it would hardly be possible to find enough eugenic inferiors to fillthe ranks of teachers, without getting those who are inferior in actualability, in patent as well as latent traits. And the idea of placingeducation in the hands of such inferior persons is not to be considered. 

It is, therefore, inevitable that the teachers are, on the whole, superior persons eugenically. Their celibacy must be considered highlydetrimental to racial welfare. 

But, it may be said, there is a considerable number of women sodeficient in sex feeling or emotional equipment that they are certainnever to marry; they are, nevertheless, persons of intellectual ability. Let them be the school teachers. This solution is, however, notacceptable. Many women of the character described undoubtedly exist, butthey are better placed in some other occupation. It is whollyundesirable that children should be reared under a neuter influence, which is probably too common already in education. 

If women are to teach, then, it must be concluded that on eugenicgrounds preference should be given to married rather than singleteachers, and that the single ones should be encouraged to marry. Thisrequires (1) that considerable change be made in the education of youngwomen, so that they shall be fitted for motherhood rather thanexclusively for school teaching as is often the case, and (2) thatsocial devices be brought into play to aid them in mating--sinceundoubtedly a proportion of school teachers are single from thesegregating character of their profession, not from choice, and (3)provision for employing some women on half-time and (4) increase of thenumber of male teachers in high schools. 

It is, perhaps, unnecessary to mention a fifth change necessary: thatschool boards must be brought to see the undesirability of employingonly unmarried women, and of discharging them, no matter how efficient, if they marry or have children. The courts must be enabled to upholdwoman's right of marriage and motherhood, instead of, as in some casesat present, upholding school boards in their denial of this right. Contracts which prevent women teachers from marrying or discontinuingtheir work for marriage should be illegal, and talk about the "moralobligation" of normal school graduates to teach should bediscountenanced. 

Against the proposal to employ married school teachers, two objectionsare urged. It is said (1) that for most women school teaching is merelya temporary occupation, which they take up to pass the few years untilthey shall have married. To this it may be replied that the hope ofmarriage too often proves illusory to the young woman who enters on thepedagogical career, because of the lack of opportunities to meet men, and because the nature of her work is not such as to increase herattractiveness to men, nor her fitness for home-making. Pedagogy is toooften a sterilizing institution, which takes young women who desire tomarry and impairs their chance of marriage. 

Again it will be said (2) that married teachers would lose too muchtime from their work; that their primary interests would be in their ownhomes instead of in the school; that they could not teach school withoutneglecting their own children. These objections fall in the realm ofeducation, not eugenics, and it can only be said here that the reasonsmust be extraordinarily cogent, which will justify the enforcement ofcelibacy on so large a body of superior young women as is now engaged inschool teaching. 

The magnitude of the problem is not always realized. In 1914 theCommissioner of education reported that there were, in the UnitedStates, 169, 929 men and 537, 123 women engaged in teaching. Not less thanhalf a million women, therefore, are potentially affected by theinstitution of pedagogical celibacy. 

CHAPTER XIX

RELIGION AND EUGENICS

Man is the only animal with a religion. The conduct of the lower animalsis guided by instinct, [186] and instinct normally works for the benefitof the species. Any action which is dictated by instinct is likely toresult in the preservation of the species, even at the expense of theindividual which acts, provided there has not been a recent change inthe environment. 

But in the human species reason appears, and conduct is no longergoverned by instinct alone. A young man is impelled by instinct, forinstance, to marry. It is to the interests of the species that he marry, and instinct therefore causes him to desire to marry and to act as hedesires. A lower animal would obey the impulse of instinct without amoment's hesitation. Not so the man. Reason intervenes and asks, "Isthis really the best thing for you to do now? Would you not better waitawhile and get a start in your business? Of course marriage would beagreeable, but you must not be short-sighted. You don't want to assume ahandicap just now. " There is a corresponding reaction among the marriedin respect to bearing additional children. The interests of self areimmediate and easily seen, the interests of the species are not sopressing. In any such conflict between instinct and reason, one mustwin; and if reason wins it is in some cases for the immediate benefit ofthe individual but at the expense of the species' interests. 

Now with reason dominant over instinct in man, there is a grave dangerthat with each man consulting his own interests instead of those of thespecies, some groups and even races will become exterminated. Alongwith reason, therefore, it is necessary that some other forces shallappear to control reason and give the interests of the species a chanceto be heard along with the interests of the individual. 

One such force is religion. Without insisting that this is the only viewwhich may be taken of the origin of religion, or that this is the onlyfunction of religion, we may yet assert that one of the useful purposesserved by religion is to cause men to adopt lines of conduct that willbe for the good of the race, although it may sacrifice the immediategood of the individual. [187] Thus if a young Mohammedan be put in thesituation just described, he may decide that it is to his materialinterest to postpone marriage. His religion then obtrudes itself, withquotations from the Prophet to the effect that Hell is peopled withbachelors. The young man is thereupon moved to marry, even if it doescause some inconvenience to his business plans. Religion, reinforcinginstinct, has triumphed over reason and gained a victory for the largerinterests of the species, when they conflict with the immediateinterests of the individual. 

From this point of view we may, paraphrasing Matthew Arnold, definereligion as _motivated ethics_. Ethics is a knowledge of right conduct, religion is an agency to produce right conduct. And its working is morelike that of instinct than it is like that of reason. The irreligiousman, testing a proposition by reason alone, may decide that it is to theinterests of all concerned that he should not utter blasphemy. Theorthodox Christian never considers the pros and cons of the question; hehas the Ten Commandments and the teachings of his youth in his mind, andhe refrains from blasphemy in almost the instinctive way that herefrains from putting his hand on a hot stove. 

This chapter proposes primarily to consider how eugenics can be linkedwith religion, and specifically the Christian religion; but the problemis not a simple one, because Christianity is made of diverse elements. Not only has it undergone some change during the last 1900 years, but itwas founded upon Judaism, which itself involved diverse elements. Weshall undertake to show that eugenics fits in well with Christianity;but it must fit in with different elements in different ways. 

We can distinguish four phases of religion:

1. Charm and taboo, or reward and punishment in the present life. Thebeliever in these processes thinks that certain acts possess particularefficacies beyond those evident to his observation and reason; and thatpeculiar malignities are to be expected as the consequence of certainother acts. Perhaps no one in the memory of the tribe has ever testedone of these acts to find whether the expected result would appear; itis held as a matter of religious belief that the result would appear, and the act is therefore avoided. 

2. Reward and punishment in a future life after death. Whereas the firstsystem was supposed to bring immediate reward and punishment as theresult of certain acts, this second system postpones the result to anafter-life. There is in nature a system of reward and punishment whicheveryone must have observed because it is part of the universal sequenceof cause and effect; but these two phases of religion carry the ideastill farther; they postulate rewards and punishments of a supernaturalcharacter, over and above those which naturally occur. It is importantto note that in neither of these systems is God essentially involved. They are in reality independent of the idea of God, since that is called"luck" in some cases which in others is called the favor or wrath ofGod. And again in some cases, one may be damned by a human curse, although in others this curse of damnation is reserved for divine power. 

3. Theistic religion. In essence this consists of the satisfactionderived from doing that which pleases God, or "getting into harmony withthe underlying plan of the universe, " as some put it. It is idealisticand somewhat mystic. It should be distinguished from the idea of doingor believing certain things to insure salvation, which is notessentially theistic but belongs under (2). The true theist desires toconform to the will of God, wholly apart from whether he will berewarded or punished for so doing. 

4. Humanistic religion. This is a willingness to make the end of ethicsthe totality of happiness of all men, or some large group of men, ratherthan to judge conduct solely by its effects on some one individual. Atits highest, it is a sort of loyalty to the species. 

It must be noted that most cults include more than one of theseelements--usually all of them at various stages. As a race rises inintelligence, it tends to progress from the first two toward the lasttwo, but usually keeping parts of the earlier attitude, more or lessclearly expressed. And individual adherents of a religion usually havedifferent ideas of its scope; thus the religious ideas of manyChristians embrace all four of the above elements; others who equallyconsider themselves Christians may be influenced by little more than (4)alone, or (3) alone, or even (2) alone. 

There is no reason to believe that any one of these types of religion isthe only one adapted to promoting sound ethics in all individuals, northat a similar culture can bring about uniformity in the near future, since the religion of a race corresponds to some extent to the inherentnature of the mind of its individuals. Up to a certain point, each typeof religion has a distinct appeal to a certain temperament or type ofmind. With increasing intelligence, it is probable that a religion tendsto emphasize the interests of all rather than the benefits to be derivedby one; such has been clearly the case in the history of the Christianreligion. The diverse elements of retribution, damnation, "communionwith God" and social service still exist, but in America the last-namedone is yearly being more emphasized. Emphasis upon it is the markedcharacteristic of Jesus' teaching. 

With this rough sketch of religious ideas in mind, the part religion canplay at the present day in advancing the eugenic interests of the raceor species may be considered. Each religion can serve eugenics just aswell as it can serve any other field of ethics, and by the very samedevices. We shall run over our four types again and note what appealseugenics can make to each one. 

1. Reward and punishment in this life. Here the value of children, emotionally and economically, to their parents in their later life canbe shown, and the dissatisfaction that is felt by the childless. Theemotions may be reached (as they have been reached in past centuries) bythe painting of Madonnas, the singing of lullabies, by the care of thebaby sister, by the laurel wreath of the victorious son, by the greatchoruses of white-robed girls, by the happiness of the bride, and by thesentiment of the home. Here are some of the noblest subjects for thearts, which in the past have unconsciously served eugenics well. In aless emotional way, a deep desire for that "terrestrial immortality"involved in posterity should be fostered. The doctrine of the continuityof germ-plasm might play a large part in religion. It should at least bebrought home to everyone at some point in his education. Man should havea much stronger feeling of identity with his forebears and his progeny. Is it not a loss to Christians that they have so much less of thisfeeling than the Chinese?

It may be urged in opposition that such conceptions are dangerouslystatic and have thereby harmed China. But that can be avoided byshifting the balance a little from progenitors to posterity. If peopleshould live more in their children than they now do, they would be notonly anxious to give them a sound heredity, but all the more eager toimprove the conditions of their children's environment by modifyingtheir own. 

It may be objected that this sort of propaganda is indiscriminate, --thatit may further the reproduction of the inferior just as much as thesuperior. We think not. Such steps appeal more to the superior type ofmind and will be little heeded by the inferior. They will be ultimately, if not directly, discriminative. 

In so far as the foregoing appeals to reason alone it is not religion. The appeal to reason must either be emotionalized or colored with thesupernatural to be religion. 

2. Reward and punishment in a future life. Here the belief in theabsolute, verbal inspiration of sacred writings and the doctrine ofsalvation by faith alone are rapidly passing, and it is therefore theeasier to bring eugenics into this type of religion. Even wheresalvation by faith is still held as an article of creed, it isaccompanied by the concession that he who truly believes will manifesthis belief by works. Altruism can be found in the sacred writings ofprobably all religions, and the modern tendency is to make much of suchpassages, in which it is easy for the eugenist to find a warrant. Whatis needed here, then, is to impress upon the leaders in this field thateugenic conduct is a "good work" and as such they may properly includeit along with other modern virtues, such as honest voting and abstinencefrom graft as a key to heaven. Dysgenic conduct should equally be taughtto be an obstacle to salvation. 

3. Theism. The man who is most influenced by the desire to be at onewith God naturally wants to act in accordance with God's plan. But Godbeing omnibeneficent, he necessarily believes that God's plan is thatwhich is for the best interests of His children--unless he is one ofthose happily rare individuals who still believe that the end of man isto glorify God by voice, not by means of human betterment. 

This type of religion (and the other types in different degrees) is agreat motive power. It both creates energy in its adherents, and directsthat energy into definite outlets. It need only be made convincinglyevident that eugenics is truly a work of human betterment, --really thegreatest work of human betterment, and a partnership with God--to haveit taken up by this type of religion with all the enthusiasm which itbrings to its work. 

4. The task of enlisting the humanist appears to be even simpler. It ismerely necessary to show him that eugenics increases the totality ofhappiness of the human species. Since the keynote of his devotion isloyalty, we might make this plea: "Can we not make every superior man orwoman ashamed to accept existence as a gift from his or her ancestors, only to extinguish this torch instead of handing it on?"

Eugenics is in some ways akin to the movement for the conservation ofnatural resources. In pioneer days a race uses up its resources withouthesitation. They seem inexhaustible. Some day it is recognized that theyare not inexhaustible, and then such members of the race as are guidedby good ethics begin to consider the interests of the future. 

No system of ethics is worth the name which does not make provision forthe future. It is right here that the ethics of present-day America istoo often found wanting. As this fault is corrected, eugenics will bemore clearly seen as an integral part of ethics. 

Provision for the future of the individual leads, in a very low state ofcivilization, to the accumulation of wealth. Even the ants and squirrelshave so much ethics! Higher in the evolutionary scale comes provisionfor the future of children; their interests lead to the foundation ofthe family and, at a much later date, a man looks not only to hisimmediate children but to future generations of heirs, when he entailshis estates and tries to establish a notable family line. Provision forthe future is the essence of his actions. But so far only the individualor those related closely to him have been taken into consideration. Witha growth of altruism, man begins to recognize that he must makeprovision for the future of the race; that he should apply to allsuperior families the same anxiety which he feels that his childrenshall not tarnish the family name by foolish marriages; that they shallgrow up strong and intelligent. This feeling interpreted by science iseugenics, an important element of which is religion: for religion morethan any other influence leads one to look ahead, and to realize thatimmediate benefits are not the greatest values that man can secure inlife, --that there is something beyond and superior to eating, drinkingand being merry. 

If the criterion of ethical action is the provision it makes for thefuture, then the ethics of the eugenist must rank high, for he not onlylooks far to the future, but takes direct and effective steps tosafeguard the future. 

Theoretically, then, there is a place for eugenics in every type ofreligion. In practice, it will probably make an impression only on thedynamic religions, --those that are actually accomplishing something. Buddhism, for example, is perhaps too contemplative to do anything. ButChristianity, above any other, would seem to be the natural ally of theeugenist. Christianity itself is undergoing a rapid change in ideals atpresent, and it seems impossible that this evolution should leave itsadherents as ignorant of and indifferent to eugenics as they have beenin the past--even during the last generation. 

Followers of other religions, as this chapter has attempted to show, canalso make eugenics a part of their respective religions. If they do not, then it bodes ill for the future of their religion and of their race. 

It is not difficult to get people to see the value of eugenics, --to givean intellectual adhesion to it. But as eugenics sometimes calls forseeming sacrifices, it is much more difficult to get people to _act_eugenically. We have at numerous points in this book emphasized thenecessity of making the eugenic appeal emotional, though it is basedfundamentally on sound reasoning from facts of biology. 

The great value of religion in this connection is that it provides adriving power, [188] a source of action, which the intellect alone canrarely furnish. Reason itself is usually an inhibitor of action. It isthe emotions that impel one to do things. The utilization of theemotions in affecting conduct is by no means always a part of religion, yet it is the essence of religion. Without abandoning the appeal toreason, eugenists must make every effort to enlist potent emotionalforces on their side. There is none so strong and available as religion, and the eugenist may turn to it with confidence of finding an effectiveally, if he can once gain its sanction. 

The task, as this chapter was intended to show, is a complex one, yet wesee no insuperable obstacles to it. Eugenics may not become a part ofthe Christian religion, as a whole, until scientific education is muchmore widespread than at present, but it is not too soon to make a start, by identifying the interests of the two wherever such identification isjustified and profitable. 

We have endeavored to point out that as a race rises, and instinctbecomes less important in guiding the conduct of its members, religionhas often put a restraint on reason, guiding the individual in raciallyprofitable paths. What is to happen when religion gives way? Unbridledselfishness too often takes the reins, and the interests of the speciesare disregarded. Religion, therefore, appears to be a necessity for theperpetuation of any race. It is essential to racial welfare that thenational religion should be of such a character as to appeal to theemotions effectively and yet conciliate the reason. We believe that thereligion of the future is likely to acquire this character, inproportion as it adheres to eugenics. There is no room in the civilizedworld now for a dysgenic religion. Science will progress. The idea ofevolution will be more firmly grasped. Religion itself evolves, and anyreligion which does not embrace eugenics will embrace death. 

CHAPTER XX

EUGENICS AND EUTHENICS

Emphasis has been given, in several of the foregoing chapters, to thedesirability of inheriting a good constitution and a high degree ofvigor and disease-resistance. It has been asserted that no measures ofhygiene and sanitation can take the place of such inheritance. It is nowdesirable to ascertain the limits within which good inheritance iseffective, and this may be conveniently done by a study of the lives ofa group of people who inherited exceptionally strong physicalconstitutions. 

The people referred to are taken from a collection of histories of longlife made by the Genealogical Record Office of Washington. [189] Onehundred individuals were picked out at random, each of whom had died atthe age of 90 or more, and with the record of each individual wereplaced those of all his brothers and sisters. Any family was rejected inwhich there was a record of wholly accidental death (e. G. , families ofwhich a member had been killed in the Civil War). The 100 families, ormore correctly fraternities or sibships, were classified by the numberof children per fraternity, as follows:

 Number of Total number Number of children per of children fraternities fraternity in group

 1 2 2 11 3 33 8 4 32 17 5 85 13 6 78 14 7 98 9 8 72 11 9 99 10 10 100 3 11 33 2 12 24 1 13 13 --- --- 100 669

The average at death of these 669 persons was 64. 7 years. The childmortality (first 4 years of life) was 7. 5% of the total mortality, 69families showing no deaths of that kind. The group is as a whole, therefore, long-lived. 

The problem was to measure the resemblance between brothers and sistersin respect of longevity, --to find whether knowledge of the age at whichone died would justify a prediction as to the age at death of theothers, --or technically, it was to measure the fraternal correlation oflongevity. A zero coefficient here would show that there is noassociation; that from the age at which one dies, nothing whatever canbe predicted as to the age at which the others will die. Since it isknown that heredity is a large factor in longevity, such a finding wouldmean that all deaths were due to some accident which made theinheritance of no account. 

In an ordinary population it has been found that the age at death ofbrothers and sisters furnishes a coefficient of correlation of the orderof . 3, which shows that heredity does determine the age at which oneshall die to considerable extent, but not absolutely. [190]

The index of correlation[191] between the lengths of life within thefraternity in these 100 selected families, furnished a coefficientof-. 0163±. 0672, practically zero. In other words, if the age is known atwhich a member of one of these families died, whether it be one month or100 years, nothing whatever can be predicted about the age at which hisbrothers and sisters died. 

Remembering that longevity is in general inherited, and that it is foundin the families of all the people of this study (since one in eachfraternity lived to be 90 or over) how is one to interpret this zerocoefficient? Evidently it means that although these people had inheriteda high degree of longevity, their deaths were brought about by causeswhich prevented the heredity from getting full expression. As far ashereditary potentialities are concerned, it can be said that all theirdeaths were due to accident, using that word in a broad sense to includeall non-selective deaths by disease. If they had all been able to getthe full benefit of their heredity, it would appear that each of thesepersons might have lived to 90 or more, as did the one in each familywho was recorded by the Genealogical Record Office. Genetically, theseother deaths may be spoken of as premature. 

In an ordinary population, the age of death is determined to the extentof probably 50% by heredity. In this selected long-lived population, heredity appears not to be responsible in any measurable degreewhatsoever for the differences in age at death. 

The result may be expressed in another, and perhaps more striking, way. Of the 669 individuals studied, a hundred--namely, one child in eachfamily--lived beyond 90; and there were a few others who did. But some550 of the group, though they had inherited the potentiality of reachingthe average age of 90, actually died somewhere around 60; they failed byat least one-third to live up to the promise of their inheritance. If wewere to generalize from this single case, we would have to say thatfive-sixths of the population does not make the most of its physicalinheritance. 

This is certainly a fact that discourages fatalistic optimism. The manwho tells himself that, because of his magnificent inheritedconstitution, he can safely take any risk, is pretty sure to take toomany risks and meet with a non-selective--i. E. , genetically, apremature--death, when he might in the nature of things have livedalmost a generation longer. 

It should be remarked that most of the members of this group seem tohave lived in a hard environment. They appear to belong predominantly tothe lower strata of society; many of them are immigrants and only a veryfew of them, to judge by a cursory inspection of the records, possessedmore than moderate means. This necessitated a frugal and industriouslife which in many ways was doubtless favorable to longevity but whichmay often have led to overexposure, overwork, lack of proper medicaltreatment, or other causes of a non-selective death. We would not pushthe conclusion too far, but we can not doubt that this investigationshows the folly of ignoring the environment, --shows that the bestinherited constitution must have a fair chance. And what has here beenfound for a physical character, would probably hold good in even greaterdegree for a mental character. All that man inherits is the capacity todevelop along a certain line under the influence of properstimuli, --food and exercise. The object of eugenics is to see that theinherent capacity is there. Given that, the educational system is nextneeded to furnish the stimuli. The consistent eugenist is therefore anardent euthenist. He not only works for a better human stock but, because he does not want to see his efforts wasted, he always works toprovide the best possible environment for this better stock. 

In so far, then, as euthenics is actually providing man with morefavorable surroundings, --not with ostensibly more favorable surroundingswhich, in reality, are unfavorable--there can be no antagonism betweenit and eugenics. Eugenics is, in fact, a prerequisite of euthenics, forit is only the capable and altruistic man who can contribute to socialprogress; and such a man can only be produced through eugenics. 

Eugenic fatalism, a blind faith in the omnipotence of heredityregardless of the surroundings in which it is placed, has been shown bythe study of long-lived families to be unjustified. It was found thateven those who inherited exceptional longevity usually did not live aslong as their inheritance gave them the right to expect. If they had hadmore euthenics, they should have lived longer. 

But this illustration certainly gives no ground for a belief thateuthenics is sufficient to prolong one's life _beyond_ the inheritedlimit. A study of these long-lived families from another point of viewwill reveal that heredity is the primary factor and that goodenvironment, euthenics, is the secondary one. 

For this purpose we augment the 100 families of the preceding section bythe addition of 240 more families like them, and we examine each familyhistory to find how many of the children died before completing thefourth year of life. The data are summarized in the following table:

CHILD MORTALITY IN FAMILIES OF LONG-LIVED STOCK, GENEALOGICAL RECORDOFFICE DATA

 Size of No. Of families No. Of families Total no. Family investigated showing deaths of deaths under 5 years

 1 child 6 0 0 2 children 6 0 0 3 " 38 4 5 4 " 40 6 7 5 " 38 4 4 6 " 44 12 13 7 " 34 8 11 8 " 46 13 18 9 " 31 14 20 10 " 27 14 14 11 " 13 6 9 12 " 13 9 16 13 " 1 0 0 14 " 2 0 0 17 " 1 1 2 --- --- --- 340 91 119

The addition of the new families (which were not subjected to anydifferent selection than the first 100) has brought down the childmortality rate. For the first 100, it was found to be 7. 5%. If in theabove table the number of child deaths, 119, be divided by the totalnumber of children represented, 2, 259, the child mortality rate for thispopulation is found to be 5. 27%, or 53 per thousand. 

The smallness of this figure may be seen by comparison with thestatistics of the registration area, U. S. Census of 1880, when the childmortality (0-4 years) was 400 per thousand, as calculated by AlexanderGraham Bell. A mortality of 53 for the first four years of life issmaller than any district known in the United States, even to-day, canshow for the _first_ year of life _alone_. If any city could bring thedeaths of babies during their first twelve months down to 53 per 1, 000, it would think it had achieved the impossible; but here is a populationin which 53 per 1, 000 covers the deaths, not only of the fatal first 12months, but of the following three years in addition. 

Now this population with an unprecedentedly low rate of child mortalityis not one which had had the benefit of any Baby Saving Campaign, noreven the knowledge of modern science. Its mothers were mostly poor, manyof them ignorant; they lived frequently under conditions of hardship;they were peasants and pioneers. Their babies grew up without doctors, without pasteurized milk, without ice, without many sanitaryprecautions, usually on rough food. But they had one advantage which noamount of applied science can give after birth--namely, good heredity. They had inherited exceptionally good constitutions. 

It is not by accident that inherited longevity in a family is associatedwith low mortality of its children. The connection between the two factswas first discovered by Mary Beeton and Karl Pearson in their pioneerwork on the inheritance of duration of life. They found that high infantmortality was associated with early death of parents, while theoffspring of long-lived parents showed few deaths in childhood. Thecorrelation of the two facts was quite regular, as will be evident froma glance at the following tables prepared by A. Ploetz:

LENGTH OF LIFE OF MOTHERS AND CHILD-MORTALITY OF THEIR DAUGHTERS. ENGLISH QUAKER FAMILIES, DATA OF BEETON AND PEARSON, ARRANGED BYPLOETZ

 Year of life in which mothers died At all 0-38 39-53 54-68 69-83 84 up ages

 No. Of daughters 234 304 305 666 247 1846

 No. Of them who died in first 5 years 122 114 118 131 26 511

 Per cent. Of daughters who died 52. 1 37. 5 29. 9 19. 7 10. 5 27. 7

LENGTH OF LIFE OF FATHERS AND CHILD-MORTALITY OF THEIRDAUGHTERS

 Year of life in which fathers died At 0-38 39-53 54-68 69-83 84 up all ages

 No. Of daughters 105 284 585 797 236 2009

 No. Of them who died in first 5 years 51 98 156 177 40 522

 Per cent. Of daughters who died 48. 6 34. 5 26. 7 22. 2 17. 0 26. 0

To save space, we do not show the relation between parent and son; it issimilar to that of parent and daughter which is shown in the precedingtables. In making comparison with the 340 families from the GenealogicalRecord Office, above studied, it must be noted that Dr. Ploetz' tablesinclude one year longer in the period of child mortality, being computedfor the first five years of life instead of the first four. Hispercentages would therefore be somewhat lower if computed on the basisused in the American work. 

These various data demonstrate the existence of a considerablecorrelation between short life (_brachybioty_, Karl Pearson calls it) inparent and short life in offspring. Not only is the tendency to livelong inherited, but the tendency _not_ to live long is likewiseinherited. 

But perhaps the reader may think they show nothing of the sort. He mayfancy that the early death of a parent left the child without sufficientcare, and that neglect, poverty, or some other factor of euthenicsbrought about the child's death. Perhaps it lacked a mother's lovingattention, or perhaps the father's death removed the wage-earner of thefamily and the child thenceforth lacked the necessities of life. 

Dr. Ploetz has pointed out[192] that this objection is not valid, because the influence of the parent's death is seen to hold good even tothe point where the child was too old to require any assistance. If thefacts applied only to cases of early death, the supposed objection mightbe weighty, but the correlation exists from one end of the age-scale tothe other. It is not credible that a child is going to be deprived ofany necessary maternal care when its mother dies at the age of 69; thechild herself was probably married long before the death of the mother. Nor is it credible that the death of the father takes bread from thechild's mouth, leaving it to starve to death in the absence of a pensionfor widowed mothers, if the father died at 83, when the "child" herselfwas getting to be an old woman. The early death of a parent mayoccasionally bring about the child's death for a reason whollyunconnected with heredity, but the facts just pointed out show that suchcases are exceptional. The steady association of the child death-rateand parent death-rate _at all ages_ demonstrates that heredity is acommon cause. 

But the reader may suspect another fallacy. The cause of thisassociation is really environmental, he may think, and the same povertyor squalor which causes the child to die early may cause the parent todie early. They may both be of healthy, long-lived stock, but forced tolive in a pestiferous slum which cuts both of them off prematurely andthereby creates a spurious correlation in the statistics. 

We can dispose of this objection most effectively by bringing in newevidence. It will probably be admitted that in the royal families ofEurope, the environment is as good as knowledge and wealth can make it. No child dies for lack of plenty of food and the best medical care, evenif his father or mother died young. And the members of this caste arenot exposed to any such unsanitary conditions, or such economic pressureas could possibly cause both parent and child to die prematurely. If theassociation between longevity of parent and child mortality holds forthe royal families of Europe and their princely relatives, it can hardlybe regarded as anything but the effect of heredity, --of the inheritanceof a certain type of constitution. 

Dr. Ploetz studied the deaths of 3, 210 children in European royalty, from this viewpoint. The following table shows the relation betweenfather and child:

LENGTH OF LIFE OF FATHERS AND CHILD-MORTALITY OF THEIR CHILDREN INROYAL AND PRINCELY FAMILIES, PLOETZ' DATA

 At Year of life in which fathers died Years all ages 16-25 26-35 36-45 46-55 56-65 66-75 76-85 86 up

 No. Of children. 23 90 367 545 725 983 444 33 3210

 No. Who died in first 5 years 12 29 115 171 200 254 105 1 887

 Per cent. Who died 52. 2 32. 2 31. 3 31. 4 27. 6 25. 8 23. 6 3. 0 27. 6

Allowing for the smallness of some of the groups, it is evident thatthe amount of correlation is about the same here as among the EnglishQuakers of the Beeton-Pearson investigation, whose mortality was shownin the two preceding tables. In the healthiest group from the royalfamilies--the cases in which the father lived to old age--the amount ofchild mortality is about the same as that of the Hyde family in America, which Alexander Graham Bell has studied--namely, somewhere around 250per 1, 000. One may infer that the royal families are rather below par insoundness of constitution. [193]

All these studies agree perfectly in showing that the amount of childmortality is determined primarily by the physical constitution of theparents, as measured by their longevity. In the light of these facts, the nature of the extraordinarily low child mortality shown in the 340families from the Genealogical Record Office, with which we began thestudy of this point, can hardly be misunderstood. These families havethe best inherited constitution possible and the other studies citedwould make us certain of finding a low child mortality among them, evenif we had not directly investigated the facts. 

If the interpretation which we have given is correct, the conclusion isinevitable that child mortality is primarily a problem of eugenics, andthat all other factors are secondary. There is found to be no warrantfor the statement so often repeated in one form or another, that "thefundamental cause of the excessive rate of infant mortality inindustrial communities is poverty, inadequate incomes, and low standardsof living. "[194] Royalty and its princely relatives are notcharacterized by a low standard of living, and yet the child mortalityamong them is very high--somewhere around 400 per 1, 000, in cases wherea parent died young. If poverty is responsible in the one case, it mustbe in the other--which is absurd. Or else the logical absurdity isinvolved of inventing one cause to explain an effect to-day and a whollydifferent cause to explain the same effect to-morrow. This isunjustifiable in any case, and it is particularly so when the singlecause that explains both cases is so evident. If weak heredity causeshigh mortality in the royal families, why, similarly, can not weakheredity cause high infant mortality in the industrial communities? Webelieve it does account for much of it, and that the inadequate incomeand low standard of living are largely the consequences of inferiorheredity, mental as well as physical. The parents in the GenealogicalRecord Office files had, many of them, inadequate incomes and lowstandards of living under frontier conditions, but their children grewup while those of the royal families were dying in spite of everyattention that wealth could command and science could furnish. 

If the infant mortality problem is to be solved on the basis ofknowledge and reason, it must be recognized that sanitation and hygienecan not take the place of eugenics any more than eugenics can dispensewith sanitation and hygiene. It must be recognized that the death-ratein childhood is largely selective, and that the most effective way tocut it down is to endow the children with better constitutions. This cannot be done solely by any euthenic campaign; it can not be done byswatting the fly, abolishing the midwife, sterilizing the milk, nor byany of the other panaceas sometimes proposed. 

But, it may be objected, this discussion ignores the actual facts. Statistics show that infant mortality campaigns _have_ consistentlyproduced reductions in the death-rate. The figures for New York, whichcould be matched in dozens of other cities, show that the number ofdeaths per 1, 000 births, in the first year of life, has steadilydeclined since a determined campaign to "Save the Babies" was started:

 1902 181 1903 152 1904 162 1905 159 1906 153 1907 144 1908 128 1909 129 1910 125 1911 112 1912 105 1913 102 1914 95

To one who can not see beyond the immediate consequences of an action, such figures as the above indeed give quite a different idea of theeffects of an infant mortality campaign, than that which we have justtried to create. And it is a great misfortune that euthenics so oftenfails to look beyond the immediate effect, fails to see what may happennext year, or 10 years from now, or in the next generation. 

We admit that it is possible to keep a lot of children alive who wouldotherwise have died in the first few months of life. It is being done, as the New York figures, and pages of others that could be cited, prove. The ultimate result is twofold:

1. Some of those who are doomed by heredity to a selective death, butare kept alive through the first year, die in the second or third orfourth year. They must die sooner or later; they have not inheritedsufficient resistance to survive more than a limited time. If they areby a great effort carried through the first year, it is only to die inthe next. This is a statement which we have nowhere observed in thepropaganda of the infant mortality movement; and it is perhaps adisconcerting one. It can only be proved by refined statistical methods, but several independent determinations by the English biometriciansleave no doubt as to the fact. This work of Karl Pearson, E. C. Snow, andEthel M. Elderton, was cited in our chapter on natural selection; thereader will recall how they showed that nature is weeding out theweaklings, and in proportion to the stringency with which she weeds themout at the start, there are fewer weaklings left to die in succeedingyears. 

To put the facts in the form of a truism, part of the children born inany district in a given year are doomed by heredity to an early death;and if they die in one year they will not be alive to die in thesucceeding year, and vice versa. Of course there are in addition infantdeaths which are not selective and which if prevented would leave theinfant with as good a chance as any to live. 

In the light of these researches, we are forced to conclude thatbaby-saving campaigns accomplish less than is thought; that the supposedgain is to some extent temporary and illusory. 

2. There is still another consequence. If the gain is by great exertionsmade more than temporary; if the baby who would otherwise have died inthe first months is brought to adult life and reproduction, it means inmany cases the dissemination of another strain of weak heredity, whichnatural selection would have cut off ruthlessly in the interests of racebetterment. In so far, then, as the infant mortality movement is notfutile it is, from a strict biological viewpoint, often detrimental tothe future of the race. 

Do we then discourage all attempts to save the babies? Do we leave themall to natural selection? Do we adopt the "better dead" gospel?

Unqualifiedly, no! The sacrifice of the finer human feelings, whichwould accompany any such course, would be a greater loss to the racethan is the eugenic loss from the perpetuation of weak strains ofheredity. The abolition of altruistic and humanitarian sentiment for thepurpose of race betterment would ultimately defeat its own end by makingrace betterment impossible. 

But race betterment will also be impossible unless a clear distinctionis made between measures that really mean race betterment of afundamental and permanent nature, and measures which do not. 

We have chosen the Infant Mortality Movement for analysis in thischapter because it is an excellent example of the kind of socialbetterment which is taken for granted, by most of its proponents, to bea fundamental piece of race betterment; but which, as a fact, oftenmeans race impairment. No matter how abundant and urgent are the reasonsfor continuing to reduce infant mortality wherever possible, it isdangerous to close the eyes to the fact that the gain from it is of akind that must be paid for in other ways; that to carry on the movementwithout adding eugenics to it will be a short-sighted policy, whichincreases the present happiness of the world at the cost of diminishingthe happiness of posterity through the perpetuation of inferior strains. 

While some euthenic measures are eugenically evils, even if necessaryones, it must not be inferred that all euthenic measures are dysgenic. Many of them, such as the economic and social changes we have suggestedin earlier chapters, are an important part of eugenics. Every euthenicmeasure should be scrutinized from the evolutionary standpoint; if it iseugenic as well as euthenic, it should be whole-heartedly favored; if itis dysgenic but euthenic it should be condemned or adopted, according towhether or not the gain in all ways from its operation will exceed thedamage. 

In general, euthenics, when not accompanied by some form of selection(i. E. , eugenics) ultimately defeats its own end. If it is accompaniedby rational selection, it can usually be indorsed. Eugenics, on theother hand, is likewise inadequate unless accompanied by constantimprovement in the surroundings; and its advocates must demand euthenicsas an accompaniment of selection, in order that the opportunity forgetting a fair selection may be as free as possible. If the euthenistlikewise takes pains not to ignore the existence of the racial factor, then the two schools are standing on the same ground, and it is merely amatter of taste or opportunity, whether one emphasizes one side or theother. Each of the two factions, sometimes thought to be opposing, willbe seen to be getting the same end result, namely, human progress. 

Not only are the two schools working for the same end, but each mustdepend in still another way upon the other, in order to make headway. The eugenist can not see his measures put into effect except throughchanges in law and custom--i. E. , euthenic changes. He must and doesappeal to euthenics to secure action. The social reformer, on the otherhand, can not see any improvements made in civilization except throughthe discoveries and inventions of some citizens who are inherentlysuperior in ability. He in turn must depend on eugenics for everyadvance that is made. 

It may make the situation clearer to state it in the customary terms ofbiological philosophy. Selection does not necessarily result inprogressive evolution. It merely brings about the adaptation of aspecies or a group to a given environment. The tapeworm is the stockexample. In human evolution, the nature of this environment willdetermine whether adaptation to it means progress or retrogression, whether it leaves a race happier and more productive, or the reverse. All racial progress, or eugenics, therefore, depends on the creation ofa good environment, and the fitting of the race to that environment. Every improvement in the environment should bring about a correspondingbiological adaptation. The two factors in evolution must go side byside, if the race is to progress in what the human mind considers thedirection of advancement. In this sense, euthenics and eugenics bear thesame relation to human progress as a man's two legs do to hislocomotion. 

Social workers in purely euthenic fields have frequently failed toremember this process of adaptation, in their efforts to change theenvironment. Eugenists, in centering their attention on adaptation, havesometimes paid too little attention to the kind of environment to whichthe race was being adapted. The present book holds that the secondfactor is just as important as the first, for racial progress; that oneleg is just as important as the other, to a pedestrian. Its onlyconflict with euthenics appertains to such euthenic measures as impairthe adaptability of the race to the better environment they are tryingto make. 

Some supposedly euthenic measures opposed by eugenics are not trulyeuthenic, as for instance the limitation of a superior family in orderthat all may get a college education. For these spurious euthenicmeasures, something truly euthenic should be substituted. 

Measures which show a real conflict may be typified by the infantmortality movement. There can be no doubt but that sanitation andhygiene, prenatal care and intelligent treatment of mothers and babies, are truly euthenic and desirable. At the same time, as has been shown, these euthenic measures result in the survival of inferior children, whodirectly or through their posterity will be a drag on the race. Euthenicmeasures of this type should be accompanied by counterbalancing measuresof a more eugenic character. 

Barring these two types, euthenics forms a necessary concomitant of theeugenic program; and, as we have tried to emphasize, eugenics islikewise necessary to the complete success of every euthenic program. How foolish, then, is antagonism between the two forces! Both areworking toward the same end of human betterment, and neither can succeedwithout the other. When either attempts to eliminate the other from itswork, it ceases to advance toward its goal. In which camp one works islargely a matter of taste. If on a road there is a gradient to beleveled, it will be brought down most quickly by two parties of workmen, one cutting away at the top, the other filling in the bottom. For thetwo parties to indulge in mutual scorn and recrimination would be nomore absurd than for eugenics and euthenics to be put in opposition toeach other. The only reason they have been in opposition is because someof the workers did not clearly understand the nature of their work. Withthe dissemination of a knowledge of biology, this ground of antagonismwill disappear. 

APPENDIX A

OVARIAN TRANSPLANTATION

In 1890, W. Heape published an account of some experiments with rabbits. Taking the fertilized egg of an angora rabbit (i. E. , a long-haired, white one) from the oviduct of its mother previous to its attachment tothe wall of the uterus, he transferred it to the uterus of a Belgianhare, a rabbit which is short-haired and gray. The egg developednormally in the new body and produced an animal with all thecharacteristics, as far as could be seen, of the real mother, ratherthan the foster-mother. Its coat was long and white, and there was notthe slightest trace of influence of the short, gray-haired doe in whosebody it had grown. 

Here was a case in which environment certainly failed to show anymodifying influence. But it was objected that the transplanted egg wasalready full-grown and fertilized when the transfer was made, and thattherefore no modification need be expected. If the egg were transferredat an earlier stage, it was thought, the result might be different. 

W. E. Castle and J. C. Phillips therefore undertook an experiment towhich this objection should not be possible. [195]

"A female albino guinea-pig just attaining sexual maturity was by anoperation deprived of its ovaries, and instead of the removed ovariesthere were introduced into her body the ovaries of a young black femaleguinea-pig, not yet sexually mature, aged about three weeks. The graftedanimal was now mated with a male albino guinea-pig. From numerousexperiments with albino guinea-pigs it may be stated emphatically thatnormal albinos mated together, without exception, produce only albinoyoung, and the presumption is strong, therefore, that had this femalenot been operated on she would have done the same. She produced, however, by the albino male three litters of young, which togetherconsisted of six individuals, all black. The first litter of young wasproduced about six months after the operation, the last about one year. The transplanted ovarian tissue must have remained in its newenvironment therefore from four to ten months before the eggs attainedfull growth and were discharged; ample time, it would seem, for theinfluence of a foreign body upon the inheritance to show itself weresuch influence possible. "

While such experiments must not be stretched too far, in application tothe human species, they certainly offer striking evidence of the factthat the characters of any individual are mainly due to something in thegerm-plasm, and that this germ-plasm is to a surprising degreeindependent of any outside influence, even such an intimate influence asthat of the body of the mother in which it reaches maturity. 

APPENDIX B

"DYNAMIC EVOLUTION"

As C. L. Redfield has secured considerable publicity for his attempt tobolster up the Lamarckian theory, it deserves a few words of comment. His contention is that "the energy in animals, known as intelligence andphysical strength, is identical with the energy known in mechanics, andis governed by the same laws. " He therefore concludes that (1) an animalstores up energy in its body, in some undescribed and mystical way, and(2) that in some equally undescribed and mystical way it transmits thisstored-up energy to its offspring. It follows that he thinks superioroffspring are produced by parents of advanced age, because the latterhave had more time to do work and store up energy for transmission. Inhis own words:

 "Educating the grandfather helps to make the grandson a superior person. . . . We are, in our inheritance, exactly what our ancestors made us by the work they performed before reproducing. Whether our descendants are to be better or worse than we are will depend upon the amount and kind of work we do before we produce them. "

The question of the influence of parental age on the characters of theoffspring is one of great importance, for the solution of which thenecessary facts have not yet been gathered together. The data compiledby Mr. Redfield are of value, but his interpretation of them can not beaccepted for the following reasons. 

1. In the light of modern psychology, it is absurd to lump all sorts ofmental ability under one head, and to suppose that the father's exerciseof reasoning power, for example, will store up "energy" to be manifestedin the offspring in the shape of executive or artistic ability. Mentalabilities are much subdivided and are inherited separately. Mr. Redfield's idea of the process is much too crude. 

Moreover, Mr. Redfield's whole conception of the increase ofintelligence with increase of age in a parent shows a disregard of thefacts of psychology. As E. A. Doll has pointed out, [196] in criticisingMr. Redfield's recent and extreme claim that feeble-mindedness is theproduct of early marriage, it is incorrect to speak of 20-, 30-, or40-year standards of intelligence; for recent researches in measurementof mental development indicate that the heritable standard ofintelligence of adults increases very little beyond the age ofapproximately 16 years. A person 40 years old has an additional_experience_ of a quarter of a century, and so has a larger mentalcontent, but his intelligence is still nearly at the 16-year level. Mental activity is the effect, not the cause, of mental growth ordevelopment. Education merely turns inherent mental powers to goodaccount; it makes very little change in those powers themselves. Tosuppose that a father can, by study, raise his innate level ofintelligence and transmit it at the new level to his son, is a naïveidea which finds no warrant in the known facts of mental development. 

2. In his entire conception of the storing-up and transmission ofenergy, Mr. Redfield has fallen victim to a confusion of ideas due tothe use of the same word to mean two different things. He thinks ofenergy as an engineer; he declares the body-cell is a storage battery;he believes that the athlete by performing work stores up energy in hisbody (in some mysterious and unascertainable way) just as the clockstores up energy when it is wound. The incorrectness of supposing thatthe so-called energy of a man is of that nature, is remarkable. If, hearing Bismarck called a man of iron, one should analyze his remains tofind out how much more iron he contained than ordinary men, it would bea performance exactly comparable to Mr. Redfield's, when he thinks of aman's "energy" as something stored up by work. 

As a fact, a man contains less energy, after the performance of work, than he did at the start. All of his "energy" comes from the metabolismof food that he has previously eaten. His potential energy is the foodstored up in his body, particularly the glycogen in the liver andmuscles. [197]

Why, then, can one man run faster than another? Mr. Redfield thinks itis because the sprinter has, by previous work, stored up energy in hisbody, which carries him over the course more rapidly than the sluggardwho has not been subjected to systematic training. But the differencesin men's ability are not due to the amount of energy they have storedup. It is due rather to differences in their structure (using this wordin a very broad sense), which produce differences in the efficiencywith which they can use the stored-up energy (i. E. , food) in theirbodies. A fat Shorthorn bull contains much more stored-up energy thandoes a race horse, but the latter has the better structure--coördinationof muscles with nervous system, in particular--and there is never anydoubt about how a race between the two will end. The difference betweenthe results achieved by a highly educated thinker and a low-grade moronare similarly differences in structural efficiency: the moron may eatmuch more, and thereby have more potential energy, than the scholar; butthe machine, the brain, can not utilize it. 

The effects of training are not to store up energy in the body, for ithas been proved that work decreases rather than increases the amount ofenergy in the body. How is it, then, that training increases a man'sefficiency? It is obviously by improving his "structure, " and probablythe most important part of this improvement is in bringing about betterrelations between the muscles and the nerves. To pursue the analogywhich Mr. Redfield so often misuses, the effect of training on the humanmachine is merely to oil the bearings and straighten out bent parts, tomake it a more efficient transformer of the energy that is supplied toit. 

The foundation stone of Mr. Redfield's hypothesis is his idea that theanimal by working stores up energy. This idea is the exact reverse ofthe truth. While the facts which Mr. Redfield has gathered deserve muchstudy, his idea of "Dynamic Evolution" need not be takenseriously. [198]

APPENDIX C

THE "MELTING POT"

America as the "Melting Pot" of peoples is a picture often drawn bywriters who do not trouble themselves as to the precision of theirfigures of speech. It has been supposed by many that all the racialstocks in the United States were tending toward a uniform type. Therehas never been any real evidence on which to base such a view, and thestudy completed in 1917 by Dr. Ales Hrdlicka, curator of thedivision of physical anthropology of the U. S. National Museum, furnishesevidence against it. He examined 400 individuals of the Old WhiteAmerican stock, that is, persons all of whose ancestors had been in theUnited States as far as the fourth ascending generation. He found littleor no evidence that hereditary traits had been altered. Even thedescendants of the Pilgrim Fathers, the Virginia cavaliers, thePennsylvania Dutch and the Huguenots, while possibly not as much unlikeas their ancestors were, are in no sense a blend. 

The "Melting Pot, " it must be concluded, is a figure of speech; and asfar as physical anthropology is concerned, it will not be anything morein this country, at least for many centuries. 

Announcing the results of study of the first 100 males and 100 femalesof his series, [199] Dr. Hrdlicka said, "The most striking result ofthe examinations is the great range of variation among Old Americans innearly all the important measurements. The range of variation is suchthat in some of the most significant determinations it equals not onlythe variation of any one group, but the combined variations of all thegroups that enter into the composition of the Americans. " This factwould be interpreted by the geneticist as an evidence of hybridity. Itis clear that, at the very beginning, a number of diverse, although notwidely differing, stocks must have made up the colonial population; andintermarriage and the influence of the environment have not welded thesestocks into one blend, but have merely produced a mosaic-like mixture. This is good evidence of the permanence of inherited traits, althoughit must be qualified by the statement that it does not apply equally toall features of the body, the face, hands and feet having been foundless variable, for instance, than stature and form of head. 

[Illustration: THE "MEAN MAN" OF THE OLD WHITE AMERICAN STOCK

FIG. 45. --Anthropologists have an ideal "mean man, " whose everyfeature measures the arithmetic mean or average of that feature in allthe individuals of his race. The above diagram drawn to scale from Dr. Hrdli[vc]ka's measurements represents the mean man of Colonial ancestry. The outline of the face is almost oblong; the head is high andwell-developed, particularly in the regions which are popularly supposedto denote superior intelligence. In general, it is a highly specializedtype, denoting an advanced evolution. ]

The stature of both American men and women is high, higher than theaverage of any European nation except the Scotch. The individualvariation is, however, enormous, amounting to 16. 4% of the average inmales and nearly 16% in females. For males, 174 cm. Is the averageheight, for females 162. The arm spread in males is greater than theirstature, in females it is less. 

The average weight of the males is 154 lbs. [typo: missing comma?] of thefemales 130. Taking into consideration the tall stature, these weightsare about equal to those among Europeans. 

The general proportions of the body must be classed as medium, but greatfluctuations are shown. 

The face is, in general, high and oval; in females it occasionally givesthe impression of narrowness. The forehead is well developed in bothsexes. The nose is prevalently long and of medium breadth, itsproportions being practically identical with those of the modernEnglish. The ears are longer than those of any modern immigrants exceptthe English. The mouth shows medium breadth in both sexes, and itsaverages exactly equal those obtained for modern French. 

One of the most interesting results is that there were obtained amongthese first 200 individuals studied no pronounced blonds, although theancestry is North European, where blondness is more or lessprevalent. [200] The exact distribution is:

 Male Female

 Light-brown 12% 16% Medium-brown to dark 77 68 Very dark 11 6 Golden-red and red 0 10

Dr. Hrdlicka's classification of the eye is as follows:

 Male Female Gray 2% 4% Greenish 7 10 Blues 54 50 Browns 37 36

The head among Old Americans is in many cases notable for its gooddevelopment, particularly in males. Among 12 groups of maleimmigrants[201] measured at Ellis Island under Dr. Hrdlicka'sdirection in recent years, not one group quite equals in this respectthe Americans, the nearest approach being noted in the Irish, Bohemians, English, Poles, and North Italians. The type of head, however, differsamong the Americans very widely, as is the case with most civilizedraces at the present day. 

Head form is most conveniently expressed by means of the cephalic index, that is, the ratio of breadth to length. Anthropologists generally speakof any one with an index of 75 (or where the breadth is 75% of thelength) and below this as dolichocephalic, or long-headed; from 75 to 80is the class of the mesocephalic, intermediates; while above 80 is thatof the subbrachycephalic and brachycephalic, or round-headed. For themost part, the Old Americans fall into the intermediate class, theaverage index of males being 78. 3 and that of females 79. 5. 

Barring a few French Huguenots, the Old Americans considered here aremostly of British ancestry, and their head form corresponds ratherclosely to that of the English of the present day. In England, as iswell known, the round-headed type of Central and Eastern Europe, theAlpine or Celto-Slav type, has few representatives. The population iscomposed principally of long-headed peoples, deriving from the two greatEuropean stocks, the Nordic and the Mediterranean. To the latter thefrequency of dark hair and brown eyes is probably due, both in Englandand America. 

While the average of the Old Americans corresponds closely to theaverage of the English, there is a great deal of variation in bothcountries. Unfortunately, it is impossible to compare the presentAmericans with their ancestors, because measurements of the latter arelacking. But to assume that the early colonists did not differ greatlyfrom the modern English is probably justifiable. A comparison of modernAmericans (of the old white stock) with modern English should give basisfor an opinion as to whether the English stock underwent any markedmodifications, on coming to a new environment. 

It has already been noted that the average cephalic index is practicallythe same; the only possibility of a change then lies in the amount ofvariability. Is the American stock more or less variable? Can a"melting pot" influence be seen, tending to produce homogeneity, or haschange of environment rather produced greater variability, as issometimes said to be the case?

The amount of variability is most conveniently measured by a coefficientknown as the standard deviation ([Greek: s]), which is small when therange of variation is small, but large when diversity of material isgreat. The following comparisons of the point at issue may be made. [202]

 Avg. [Greek: s]

 100 American men 78. 3 3. 1 1011 Cambridge graduates (English males) 79. 85 2. 95

For the men, little difference is discernible. The Old Americans areslightly more long-headed than the English, but the amount of variationin this trait is nearly the same on the two sides of the ocean. 

The average of the American women is 79. 5 with [Greek: s] = 2. 6. Nosuitable series of English women has been found for comparison. (203) Itwill be noted that the American women are slightly more round-headedthan the men; this is found regularly to be the case, when comparisonsof the head form of the two sexes are made in any race. 

In addition to establishing norms or standards for anthropologicalcomparison, the main object of Dr. Hrdlicka's study was to determinewhether the descendants of the early American settlers, living in a newenvironment and more or less constantly intermarrying, were beingamalgamated into a distinct sub-type of the white race. It has beenfound that such amalgamation has not taken place to any importantdegree. The persistence in heredity of certain features, which run downeven through six or eight generations, is one of the remarkable resultsbrought out by the study. 

If the process could continue for a few hundred years more, Dr. Hrdlicka thinks, it might reach a point where one could speak of themembers of old American families as of a distinct stock. But so far thispoint has not been reached; the Americans are almost as diverse andvariable, it appears, as were their first ancestors in this country. 

APPENDIX D

THE ESSENCE OF MENDELISM

It is half a century since the Austrian monk, Gregor Mendel, publishedin a provincial journal the results of his now famous breedingexperiments with garden peas. They lay unnoticed until 1900, when threeother breeders whose work had led them to similar conclusions, almostsimultaneously discovered the work of Mendel and gave it to the world. 

Breeding along the lines marked out by Mendel at once became the mostpopular method of attack, among those who were studying heredity. Itbecame an extremely complicated subject, which can not be graspedwithout extended study, but its fundamentals can be briefly summarized. 

Inherited differences in individuals, it will be admitted, are due todifferences in their germ-plasms. It is convenient to think of thesedifferences in germ-plasms (that is, differences in heredity) as beingdue to the presence in the germ-plasm of certain hypothetical units, which are usually referred to as factors. The factor, nowadays, is theultimate unit of Mendelian research. Each of these factors is consideredto be nearly or quite constant, --that is, it undergoes little, or nochange from generation to generation. It is ordinarily resistant to"contamination" by other factors with which it may come in contact inthe cell. The first fundamental principle of Mendelism, then, is theexistence of relatively constant units, the Mendelian factors, as thebasis for transmission of all the traits that go to make up an animal orplant. 

Experimental breeding gives reason to believe that each factor has oneor more alternatives, which may take its place in the mechanism ofheredity, thereby changing the visible character of the individual plantor animal in which it occurs. To put the matter a little differently, one germ-cell differs from another in having alternatives present inplace of some of the factors of the latter. A given germ-cell can neverhave more than one of the possible alternatives of each factor. Thesealternatives of a factor are called its allelomorphs. 

Now a mature germ-cell has a single system of these factors: but whentwo germ-cells unite, there result from that union two kinds ofcells--namely, immature germ-cells and body-cells; and both these kindsof cells contain a double system of factors, because of course they havereceived a single entire system from each parent. This is the second ofthe fundamental principles of Mendelism: that the factors are single inthe mature germ-cell, but in duplicate in the body-cell (and also in theimmature germ-cell). 

In every cell with a double system of factors, there are necessarilypresent two representatives from each set of allelomorphs, but these mayor may not be alike--or in technical language the individual may behomozygous, or heterozygous, as regards the given set of alternativefactors. Looking at it from another angle, there is a single visiblecharacter in the plant or animal, but it is produced by a double factor, in the germ-plasm. 

When the immature germ-cell, with its double system of factors, matures, it throws out half the factors, retaining only a single system: and theallelomorphic factors which then segregate into different cells are, ashas been said above, ordinarily uninfluenced by their stay together. 

But the allelomorphic factors are not the only ones which are segregatedinto different germ-cells, at the maturation of the cell; for thefactors which are not alternative are likewise distributed, more or lessindependently of each other, so that it is largely a matter of chancewhether factors which enter a cross in the same germ-cell, segregateinto the same germ-cell or different ones, in the next generation. Thisis the next fundamental principle of Mendelism, usually comprehendedunder the term "segregation, " although, as has been pointed out, it isreally a double process, the segregation of alternative factors being adifferent thing from the segregation of non-alternative factors. 

From this fact of segregation, it follows that as many kinds ofgerm-cells can be formed by an individual, as there are possiblecombinations of factors, on taking one alternative from each pair ofallelomorphs present. In practice, this means that the possible numberof different germ-cells is almost infinitely great, as would perhaps besuspected by anyone who has tried to find two living things that arejust alike. 

[Illustration: THE CARRIERS OF HEREDITY

FIG. 46. --Many different lines of study have made it seemprobable that much, although not all, of the heredity of an animal orplant is carried in the nucleus of the germ-cell and that in thisnucleus it is further located in little rods or threads which can beeasily stained so as to become visible, and which have the name ofchromosomes. In the above illustration four different views of thenucleus of the germ-cell of an earthworm are shown, with the chromosomesin different stages; in section 19 each chromosome is doubled up like ahairpin. Study of the fruit-fly Drosophila has made it seem probable notonly that the hypothetical factors of heredity are located in thechromosomes, but that each factor has a perfectly definite location inits chromosome; and T. H. Morgan and his associates have worked out aningenious method of measuring the distance from either end, at which thefactor lies. Photomicrograph after Foot and Strobell. ]

Such is the essence of Mendelism; and the reader is probably ready toadmit that it is not a simple matter, even when reduced to thesimplest terms. To sum up, the principal features at the base of thehypothetical structure are these:

1. There exist relatively constant units in the germ-plasm. 

2. There are two very distinct relationships which these units may showto each other. Two (or more) unit factors may be alternatives in themechanism of inheritance, indicating that one is a variation (or loss)of the other; or they may be independent of each other in the mechanismof inheritance. 

3. The mature germ-cell contains a single system of independent factors(one representative from each set of alternates). 

The immature germ-cells, and body-cells, have double systems ofindependent factors (two from each set of alternatives). 

4. The double system arises simply from the union of two single systems(i. E. , two germ-cells), without union or even contamination of thefactors involved. 

In the formation of a single system (mature germ-cells) from a double(immature germ-cells), pairs of alternates separate, passing intodifferent germ-cells. Factors not alternates may or may notseparate--the distribution is largely a matter of chance. 

Such are the fundamental principles of Mendelism; but on them was earlygrafted a theoretical structure due mainly to the German zoölogist, August Weismann. To understand his part in the story, we must advert tothat much mooted and too often misunderstood problem furnished by thechromosomes. (See Fig. 46. ) These little rods of easily stainedmaterial, which are found in every cell of the body, were picked out byProfessor Weismann as the probable carriers of heredity. With remarkableacuteness, he predicted their behavior at cell-division, the intricatenature of which is usually the despair of every beginner in biology. When Mendelian breeding, in the early years of this century, showedtemporary pairing and subsequent separation of units in thegerm-cell, it was soon realized that the observed facts of breedingfitted to a nicety the observed facts (predicted by Weismann) ofchromosome-behavior; for at each cell-division the chromosomes, too, pair and separate again. The observed behavior of transmitted charactersin animals and plants followed, in so many cases, the observed behaviorof the chromosomes, that many students found it almost impossible tobelieve that there was no connection between the two, and Dr. Weismann'sprediction, that the chromosomes are the carriers of heredity, came tobe looked on as a fact, by many biologists. 

But when so much of Professor Weismann's system was accepted, otherparts of it went along, including a hypothetical system of "determiners"in the chromosome, which were believed to determine the development ofcharacters in the organism. Every trait of an animal or plant, it wassupposed, must be represented in the germ-plasm by its own determiner;one trait, one determiner. Did a notch in the ear run through apedigree? Then it must be due to a determiner for a notch in the ear inthe germ-plasm. Was mathematical ability hereditary? Then there must bea determiner, the expression of which was mathematical ability. 

For a while, this hypothesis was of service in the development ofgenetics; some students even began to forget that it was a hypothesis, and to talk as if it were a fact. But the exhaustive tests ofexperimental breeding of plants and animals have long caused most of theadvanced students of genetics to drop this simple hypothesis. 

In its place stands the factorial hypothesis, evolved by workers inAmerica, England, and France at about the same time. As explained inChapter V, this hypothesis carries the assumption that every visiblecharacter is due to the effects of not one but many factors in thegerm-cell. 

In addition to these fundamentals, there are numerous extensions andcorollaries, some of them of a highly speculative nature. The reader whois interested in pursuing the subject farther must turn to one of thetext-books on Mendelism. 

In plant-breeding a good deal of progress has been made in the exactstudy of Mendelian heredity; in animal breeding, somewhat less; in humanheredity, very little. The reason is obvious: that experiments can notbe made in man, and students must depend on the results of such matingsas they can find; that only a very few offspring result from eachmating; and that generations are so long that no one observer can havemore than a few under his eyes. These difficulties make Mendelianresearch in man a very slow and uncertain matter. 

Altogether, it is probable that something like a hundred characters inman have been pointed out as inherited in Mendelian fashion. A largepart of these are pathological conditions or rare abnormalities. 

But the present writers can not accept most of these cases. It has beenpointed out in Chapter V that there are good reasons for doubting thatfeeble-mindedness is inherited in a simple Mendelian fashion, althoughit is widely accepted as such. We can not help feeling that in mostcases heredity in man is being made to appear much simpler than itreally is; and that particularly in mental characters, analysis oftraits has by no means reached the bottom. 

If we were asked to make out a list of characters, as to the Mendelianinheritance of which there could be little doubt, we would hardly beable to go farther than the following:

The sex-linked characters (one kind of color-blindness, hemophilia, onekind of night-blindness, atrophy of the optic nerve, and a few otherrare abnormalities). 

Albinism. This appears to be a recessive, but probably involves multipleallelomorphs in man, as in other animals. 

Brachydactyly, apparently a dominant. This is so much cited intext-books on Mendelism that the student might think it is a commoncharacter. As a fact, it is extremely rare, being found in only a fewfamilies. The similar trait of orthodactyly or symphalangism, whichlikewise appears to be a good Mendelian dominant, seems to exist in onlyone family. Traits like these, which are easily defined and occur veryrarely, make up a large part of the cases of probably Mendelianheredity. They are little more than curiosities, their rarity andabnormal nature depriving them of evolutionary significance other thanto demonstrate that Mendelian heredity does operate in man. 

White blaze in the hair or, as it might better be called to show itsresemblance to the trait found in other mammals, piebaldism. A ratherrare dominant. [204]

Huntington's Chorea, which usually appears to be a good dominant, although the last investigators (Muncey and Davenport) found someunconformable cases. 

A few abnormalities, such as a premature graying of the hair (one familycited by K. Pearson) are well enough attested to be admitted. Manyothers, such as baldness, are probably Mendelian but not yetsufficiently supported by evidence. 

None of these characters, it will be observed, is of much significanceeugenically. If the exact manner of inheritance of some of the moreimportant mental and physical traits were known, it would be of value. But it is not a prerequisite for eugenic action. Enough is known for aworking program. 

To sum up: the features in the modern view of heredity, which the readermust keep in mind, are the following:

1. That the various characters which make up the physical constitutionof any individual plant or animal are due to the action (concurrentlywith the environment, of course) of what are called, for convenience, factors, separable hypothetical units in the germ-plasm, capable ofindependent transmission. 

2. That each visible character is due to the coöperative action of anindefinitely large number of factors; conversely, that each of thesefactors affects an indefinitely large number of characters. 

APPENDIX E

USEFUL WORKS OF REFERENCE

The most complete bibliography is that published by the State Board ofCharities of the State of New York (_Eugenics and Social WelfareBulletin_ No. III, pp. 130, Albany, 1913). 

An interesting historical review of eugenics, with critical comments onthe literature and a bibliography of 100 titles, was published by A. E. Hamilton in the _Pedagogical Seminary_, Vol. XXI, pp. 28-61, March, 1914. 

Much of the important literature of eugenics has been mentioned infootnotes. For convenience, a few of the books which are likely to bemost useful to the student are here listed:

GENETICS AND EUGENICS, by W. E. Castle. Harvard UniversityPress, Cambridge, 1916. 

HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF MEN, by Edwin G. Conklin. Princeton University Press, 1915. 

HEREDITY IN RELATION TO EUGENICS, by C. B. Davenport, HenryHolt and Co. , New York, 1911. 

ESSAYS IN EUGENICS, by Francis Galton. Eugenics EducationSociety, London, 1909. 

BEING WELL-BORN, by Michael F. Guyer. Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill Co. , 1916. 

THE SOCIAL DIRECTION OF HUMAN EVOLUTION, by W. E. Kellicott. New York, 1911. 

THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF SOCIETY, by Carl Kelsey. New York, D. Appleton & Co. , 1916. 

EUGENICS, by Edward Schuster. Collins' Clear Type Press, Londonand Glasgow, 1913. 

HEREDITY, by J. Arthur Thompson. Edinburgh, 1908. 

GENETICS, by Herbert E. Walter. The Macmillan Co. , New York, 1913. 

AN INTRODUCTION TO EUGENICS, by W. C. D. Whetham and C. D. Whetham. Macmillan and Co. , London, 1912. 

HEREDITY AND SOCIETY, by W. C. D. Whetham and C. D. Whetham. Longmans, Green & Co. , London, 1912. 

THE FAMILY AND THE NATION, by W. C. D. Whetham and C. D. Whetham. Longmans, Green & Co. , London, 1909. 

The publications of the Galton Laboratory of National Eugenics, University of London, directed by Karl Pearson, and of the EugenicsRecord Office, Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, N. Y. , directed by C. B. Davenport, furnish a constantly increasing amount of original materialon heredity. 

The principal periodicals are the _Journal of Heredity_ (organ of theAmerican Genetic Association), 511 Eleventh St. , N. W. , Washington, D. C. (monthly); and the _Eugenics Review_ (organ of the Eugenics EducationSociety), Kingsway House, Kingsway, W. C. , London (quarterly). Theseperiodicals are sent free to members of the respective societies. Membership in the American organization is $2 a year, in the English 1guinea a year, associate membership 5 shillings a year. 

APPENDIX F

GLOSSARY

ACQUIRED CHARACTER, a modification of a germinal trait aftercell fusion. It is difficult to draw a line between characters that areacquired and those that are inborn. The idea involved is as follows: ina standard environment, a given factor in the germ-plasm will developinto a trait which varies not very widely about a certain mean. The meanof this trait is taken as representing the germinal trait in its typicalcondition. But if the environment be not standard, if it be considerablychanged, the trait will develop a variation far from the mean of thattrait in the species. Thus an American, whose skin in the standardenvironment of the United States would be blonde, may under theenvironment of Cuba develop into a brunette. Such a wide variation fromthe mean thus caused is called an acquired character; it is usuallyimpressed on the organism after the germinal trait has reached a full, typical development. 

ALLELOMORPH (one another form), one of a pair of factors whichare alternative to each other in Mendelian inheritance. Instead of asingle pair, there may be a group of "multiple allelomorphs, " eachmember being alternative to every other member of the group. 

ALLELOMORPHISM, a relation between two or more factors, suchthat two which are present in one zygote do not both enter into the samegamete, but are separated into sister gametes. 

BIOMETRY (life measure), the study of biology by statisticalmethods. 

BRACHYDACTYLY (short-finger), a condition in which the bones, particularly of the fingers and toes, fail to grow to their normallength. In well-marked cases one of these is a reduction from threephalanges or joints to two. 

CHARACTER (a contraction of "characteristic"), a term which isused, often rather vaguely, to designate any function, feature, or organof the body or mind. 

CHROMOSOME (color body, so called from its affinity for certainstains), a body of peculiar protoplasm, in the nucleus of the cell. Eachspecies has its own characteristic number; the cells of the human bodycontain 24 chromosomes each. 

CONGENITAL (with birth), present at birth. The term fails todistinguish between traits which are actually inherited, andmodifications acquired during prenatal life. In the interest of clearthinking its use should be avoided so far as possible. 

CORRELATION (together relation), a relation between twovariables in a certain population, such that for every variation of one, there is a corresponding variation of the other. Mathematically, twocorrelated variables are thus mutually dependent. But a correlation ismerely a statistical description of a particular case, and in some otherpopulation the same two variables might be correlated in a differentway, other influences being at work on them. 

CYTOLOGY (cell word), the study of the cell, the constituentunit of organisms. 

DETERMINER (completely end), an element or condition in agerm-cell, supposed to be essential to the development of a particularquality, feature, or manner of reaction of the organism which arisesfrom that germ-cell. The word is gradually falling into disuse, and"factor" taking its place. 

DOMINANCE (mastery), in Mendelian hybrids the capacity of acharacter which is derived from only one of two generating gametes todevelop to an extent nearly or quite equal to that exhibited by anindividual which has derived the same character from both of thegenerating gametes. In the absence of dominance the given character ofthe hybrid usually presents a "blend" or intermediate condition betweenthe two parents. 

DYSGENIC (bad origin), tending to impair the racial qualitiesof future generations; the opposite of eugenic. 

ENDOGAMY (within mating), a custom of some primitive peoples, in compliance with which a man must choose his wife from his own group(clan, gens, tribe, etc. ). 

EUGENIC (good origin), tending to improve the racial qualitiesof future generations, either physical or mental. 

EUTHENIC (good thriving), tending to produce beneficialacquired characters or better conditions for people to live in, but nottending (except incidentally and indirectly) to produce people who canhand on the improvement by heredity. 

EVOLUTION (unroll), ORGANIC, the progressive change ofliving forms, usually associated with the development of complex fromsimple forms. 

EXOGAMY (out mating), a custom of primitive peoples whichrequires a man to choose a wife from some other group (clan, gens, tribe, etc. ) than his own. 

FACTOR (maker), a name given to the hypothetical _something_, the independently inheritable element in the germ-cell, whose presenceis necessary to the development of a certain inherited character orcharacters or contributes with other factors to the development of acharacter. "Gene" and "determiner" are sometimes used as synonyms offactor. 

FEEBLE-MINDEDNESS, a condition in which mental development isretarded or incomplete. It is a relative term, since an individual whowould be feeble-minded in one society might be normal or even bright inanother. The customary criterion is the inability of the individual, because of mental defect existing from an early age, to compete on equalterms with his normal fellows, or to manage himself or his affairs withordinary prudence. American students usually distinguish three grades ofmental defect: Idiots are those who are unable to take care ofthemselves, even to the extent of guarding against common physicaldangers or satisfying physical needs. Their mentality does not progressbeyond that of a normal two-year-old child. Imbeciles can care forthemselves after a fashion, but are unable to earn their living. Theirmental ages range from three to seven years, inclusive. Morons, whocorrespond to the common acceptation of the term feeble-minded, "canunder proper direction become more or less self-supporting but they areas a rule incapable of undertaking affairs which demand judgment orinvolve unrestricted competition with normal individuals. Theirintelligence ranges with that of normal children from seven to twelveyears of age. " There is necessarily a considerable borderline, but anyadult whose intelligence is beyond that of the normal twelve-year-oldchild is usually considered to be not feeble-minded. 

GAMETE (mate), a mature germ-cell; in animals an ovum orspermatozoön. 

GENETICS (origins), for a long time meant the study ofevolution by experimental breeding and was often synonomous withMendelism. It is gradually returning to its broader, original meaning ofthe study of variation and heredity, that is, the origin of theindividual's traits. This broader meaning is preferable. 

GERMINAL (sprig), due to something present in the germ-cell. Atrait is germinal when its basis is inherited, --as eye color, --and whenit develops with nothing more than the standard environment; remainingrelatively constant from one generation to another, except as influencedby reproduction. 

GERM-PLASM (sprig form), mature germ-cells and the livingmaterial from which they are produced. 

HÆMOPHILIA (blood love), an inability of the blood to clot. Itthus becomes impossible to stop the flow of blood from a cut, and onewho has inherited hæmophilia usually dies sooner or later fromhæmorrhage. 

HEREDITY (heirship), is usually considered from the outside, when it may properly be defined as organic resemblance based on descent, or the correlation between relatives. But a better definition, based onthe results of genetics, looks at it as a mechanism, not as an externalappearance. From this point of view, heredity may be said to be "thepersistence of certain cell-constituents (in the germ-cells) through anunending number of cell-divisions. "

HETEROZYGOTE (different yolk), a zygotic individual whichcontains both members of an allelomorphic pair. 

HOMOZYGOTE (same yolk), an individual which contains only onemember of an allelomorphic pair, but contains that in duplicate, havingreceived it from both parents. A homozygous individual, having beenformed by the union of like gametes, in turn regularly produces gametesof only one kind with respect to any given factor, thus giving rise tooffspring which are, in this regard, like the parents; in other words, homozygotes regularly "breed true. " An individual may be a homozygotewith respect to one factor and a heterozygote with respect to another. 

HORMONES (chain), the secretions of various internal glands, which are carried in the blood and have an important specific influenceon the growth and functioning of various parts of the body. Their exactnature is not yet understood. 

INBORN usually means germinal, as applied to a trait, and it isso used in this book. Strictly speaking, however, any trait whichappears in a child at birth might be called inborn, and some writers, particularly medical men, thus refer to traits acquired in prenatallife. Because of this ambiguity the word should be carefully definedwhen used, or avoided. 

INHERENT (in stick), as used in this book, is synonymous withgerminal. 

INDUCTION (in lead), a change brought about in the germ-plasmwith the effect of temporarily modifying the characters of anindividual produced from that germ-plasm; but not of changing in adefinite and permanent way any such germ-plasm and therefore anyindividual inherited traits. 

INNATE (inborn), synonymous with inborn. 

LATENT (lie hidden), a term applied to traits or characterswhose factors exist in the germ-plasm of an individual, but which arenot visible in his body. 

LAW, in natural science means a concise and comprehensivedescription of an observed uniform sequence of events. It is thus quitedifferent from the law of jurists, who mean a rule laid down for theguidance of an intelligent being, by an intelligent being having powerover him. 

MENDELISM, a collection of laws of heredity (see Appendix D)so-called after the discoverer of the first of them to become known;also the analytical study of heredity with a view to learning theconstitution of the germ-cells of animals and plants. 

MENDELIZE, to follow Mendel's laws of inheritance. 

MORES (customs), the approved customs or unwritten laws of apeople; the conventions of society; popular usage or folk-ways which arereputable. 

MUTATION (change), has now two accepted meanings: (1) aprofound change in the germ-plasm of an organism such as will producenumerous changes in its progeny; and (2) a discontinuous heritablechange in a Mendelian factor. It is used in the first sense by De Vriesand other "mutationists" and in the second sense by Morgan and otherMendelists; confusion has arisen from failure to note the difference inusage. 

NORMAL CURVE, the curve of distribution of variations ofsomething whose variations are due to a multiplicity of causes actingnearly equally in both directions. It is characterized by having moreindividuals of a mediocre degree and progressively fewer above and belowthis mode. 

NUCLEUS (little nut), a central, highly-organized part of everyliving cell, which seems to play a directive rôle in cell-developmentand contains, among other things, the chromosomes. 

PATENT (lie open), a term applied to traits which aremanifestly represented in the body as well as the germ-plasm of anindividual. The converse of "latent. "

PROBABILITY CURVE, the same as normal curve. Also called aGaussian curve. 

PROTOPLASM (first form), "the physical basis of life"; achemical compound or probably an emulsion of numerous compounds. Itcontains proteins which differ slightly in many species of organism. Itcontains carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur, and various salts, but is so complex as to defy exhaustive analysis. 

PSYCHIATRY (soul healing), the study of diseases of the mind. 

RECESSIVE (draw back), the converse of dominant; applied to oneof a pair of contrasted Mendelian characters which can not appear in thepresence of the other. 

REGRESSION (back go), the average variation of one variable fora unit variation of a correlated variable. 

SEGREGATION (aside flock), (1) as used in eugenics means thepolicy of isolating feeble-minded and other anti-social individuals fromthe normal population into institutions, colonies, etc. , where the twosexes are kept apart. (2) The term is also used technically in genetics, to refer to the discontinuity of the variation of characteristicsresulting from the independent distribution of factors before or at thetime of formation of the gametes. 

SELECTION (apart pick), the choice (for perpetuation byreproduction) from a mixed population, of the individuals possessing incommon a certain character or a certain degree of some character. Twokinds of selection may be distinguished: (1) natural selection, in whichchoice is made automatically by the failure to reproduce (through deathor some other cause) of the individuals who are not "fit" to pass thetests of the environment (vitality, disease resistance, speed, successin mating, or what not); and (2) artificial selection, in which thechoice is made consciously by man, as a livestock breeder. 

SEX-LIMITED, a term applied to traits which differ in the twosexes, because influenced by the hormones of the reproductive glands. Example, the beard. 

SEX-LINKED, a term applied to traits which are connected withsex _accidentally_ and not physiologically in development. The currentexplanation is that such traits happen to be in the same chromosome asthe determiner of maleness or femaleness, as the case may be. Color-blindness is the classical example in man. 

SEXUAL SELECTION, the conscious or unconscious preference byindividuals of one sex, or by that sex as a whole, for individuals ofthe other sex who possess some particular attribute or attributes in adegree above or below the average of their sex. If the deviation of thechosen character is in the same direction (plus or minus) as in thechooser, the mating is called assortative; if in one directionindependent of the characteristic of the chooser, it is calledpreferential. 

SOMA (body), the body as distinguished from the germ-plasm. From this point of view every individual consists of only twoparts, --germ-plasm and soma or somatoplasm. 

TRAIT, a term used by geneticists as a synonym of "character. "

UNIT-CHARACTER, in Mendelian heredity a character oralternative difference of any kind, which is apparently not capable ofsubdivision in heredity, but is inherited as a whole, and which iscapable of becoming associated in new combinations with othercharacters. The term is now going out of use, as it makes for clearerthinking about heredity to fix the attention on the factors of thegerm-cells instead of on the characters of the adult. 

VARIATION, a deviation in the size, shape, or other feature ofa character or trait, from the mean or average of that character in thespecies. 

VESTIGIAL (footstep), a term applied to a character which atsome time in the evolutionary history of the species possessedimportance, or functioned fully, but which has now lost its importanceor its original use, so that it remains a mere souvenir of the past, ina degenerated condition. Example, the muscles which move a man's ears. 

ZYGOTE (yolk), the fertilized egg-cell; the united cell formedby the union of the ovum and spermatozoön after fertilization. 

ZYMOTIC, caused by a microörganism, --a term applied todiseases. Example, tuberculosis. 

INDEX

 A

 Abderholden, E. , 422

 Acquired character, 437

 Administrative aspects, 194

 Adult mortality, 345

 Afghans, 321

 Africa, 290, 291

 Agriculture, 307

 Aguinaldo, E. , 314

 Aims of eugenics, 152

 Alabama, 187, 202, 296

 Alaska, 187

 Albinism, 433

 Alcohol, 44, 48, 49, 130

 Alcoholism, 213, 302

 Aleurone, 104

 Allelomorphism, 437

 Allelomorphs, 108, 427, 437

 Alpine Type, 427

 America, 432

 American Breeders Assn. , 154, 194

 American Breeders Magazine, 154

 American Prison Assn. , 182

 American Genetic Assn. , 154, 277

 American stock, 258, 424

 Americans, 427, 428

 American-Chinese Marriages, 313

 Amherst College, 255, 266

 Amoy, 315

 Ancestral Inheritance Law, 112

 Anglian, 426

 Anglo-Saxon, 426

 Anthropological Soc. Of Denmark, 155

 Apartment houses, 377

 Appearance, 219, 221

 Appropriate opportunity, 366

 Arabs, 230, 280

 Argentina, 326

 Aristocracy, 362

 Aristodemocracy, 362

 Aristotle, 32

 Arizona, 187

 Arkansas, 241

 Armenians, 299, 302, 427

 Army, American, 83

 Arnold, M. , 394

 Arsenic, 63

 Art, 96

 Asiatic immigration, 311

 Asiatic Turkey, 299

 Assortative mating, 126, 211

 Athenians, 133

 Atrophy of optic nerve, 433

 Atwater, W. O. , 422

 Austria, 137, 155

 Australian, 129

 Australian marriages, 222

 Automobile, effect of 377

 B

 Baby saving campaign, 408

 Bachelors, tax on, 353

 Back to the farm movement, 355

 Backward children, 188

 Bahama Islands, 203

 Baker, O. E. , 6

 Baltzly, A. , 327

 Banker, H. J. , 267, 245

 Banns, 197

 Barrington, A. , 13

 Batz, 207

 Baur, E. , 104

 Bean and Mall, 285

 Beans, Fig. 13. 

 Beeton, M. , 144, 404, 408, 411

 Beggars, 302

 Belgium, 138, 155, 324

 Bell, A. G. , 144, 183, 226, 345, 347, 350, 402, 407, 411

 Bentham, J. , 165

 Berlin, 140

 Bermuda, 205

 Bertholet, E. , 57

 Bertillon, J. , 140

 Besant, A. , 269

 Better babies movement, 155

 Bezzola, D. , 56

 Billings, W. C. , 313

 Binet tests, 287

 Biometric method, 31

 Biometry, 437

 Birth control, 269

 Bisexual societies, 234

 Bismarck, von, O. E. L. , 422

 Blakeslee, A. F. , Figs. 2, 3, 13, 14

 Blascoe, F. , 282

 Bleeders, 38

 Blind, 156

 Blindness, 32

 Blücher, von G. L. , 321

 Blumer, J. C. , 244

 Boas, F. , 41, 282, 283

 Boer War, 321

 Boer-Hottentot mulattoes, 300

 Body-plasm, 27

 Bohemians, 311, 427

 Boston, Mass. , 261, 182

 Boveri, T. , 27

 Brachybioty, 409

 Brachycephalic heads, 427

 Brachydactyly, 433, 437, Fig. 17

 Bradlaugh, C. , 269

 Brazil, 325

 Breton race, 273

 Bridges, C. B. , 101

 Brigham Young College, 219

 British, 427

 British Columbia, 305

 British Indian immigration, 312

 Bruce, H. A. , 23

 Bryn Mawr College, 240, 263

 Burris, W. P. , 97

 C

 Cæsar, J. , 179, 207

 Caffeine, 45

 California, 172, 192

 California University, 100

 Cambridge graduates, 428

 Cambridge, Mass. , 261

 Cape Cod, 206

 Carnegie Institution of Washington, 154

 Carnegie, Margaret Morrison, School, 278

 Carpenter, E. , 379

 Carver, T. N. , 305, 367

 Castle, C. S. , 243

 Castle, W. E. , 87, 100, 105, 108, 300, 419, 435, Fig. 20

 Catlin, G. , 130

 Cattell, J. McK. , 20, 21, 268, 269

 Cavour, C. B. , 19

 Celibacy, 173

 Celtic, 41

 Celto-Slav Type, 427

 Central Europe, 427

 Ceylon, 129

 Character, 219, 221, 437

 Charm and taboo, 395

 Chastity, 251, 386

 Chicago, Ill. , 182, 261

 Chicks, 47

 Child bearing, Effect of, 346

 Child Labor, 368

 Childless wives, 268

 Child mortality, 403, 407

 Children surviving per capita, 267

 China, 20, 137, 274

 Chinese, 315, 397, Fig. 5

 Chinese immigration, 321

 Chorea, Huntingdon's, 109, 433

 Christianity, 171, 394

 Chromosomes, 87, 431, 437

 Church acquaintances, 234

 Civic Club (Pittsburgh, Penn. ), 371

 Civil War, 268, 301, 321, 326, 402

 Cleopatra, 207

 Climate, 42

 Cobb, M. V. , 96

 Co-education, 267, 383

 Coefficient of correlation, 212

 Coercive means, 184

 Cold Spring Harbor, 100

 Coldness, 251

 Cole, L. J. , 45, 51, 63, Fig. 7

 Collateral inheritance, 404

 College women, 241

 Collins, G. N. , 104

 Colonial ancestry, 426

 Colony plan, 188

 Color line, 280

 Color-blindness, 109, 433

 Columbus, C. , 132

 Columbia, District of, 187

 Columbus, Ohio, 261

 Columbia University, 10, 41, 100, 278

 Combemale, 44

 Compulsory education, 369

 Confederate Army, 323

 Congenital, 438

 Conklin, E. G. , 435

 Connecticut, 76, 128, 192, 261, 326

 Connecticut Agricultural College, 82, Fig. 14

 Consanguinity, 207

 Conscription, 319

 Continuity of germ-plasm, 29

 Controlled association tests, 288

 Cook, O. F. , 356

 Corn, Fig. 2

 Cornell Medical College, 45

 Correlation, 13, 212, 438

 Cost of clothing, 274

 Cost of domestic labor, 275

 Cost of food, 274

 Cost of medical attention, 275

 Courtis, S. A. , 77

 Cousins, 202

 Criminals, 158, 182, 192

 Croatians, 427

 Crum, Frederick S. , 259

 Cushing, H. , 102

 Cynical attitude, 249

 Cytology, 438

 D

 Danes, 426

 Dalmatians, 311

 Dance acquaintances, 234

 Dark family, 168

 Darwin, C. , 20, 21, 25, 68, 69, 117, 134, 147, 151, 174, 208, 214, 334

 Darwinism, 214

 Davenport, C. B. , 66, 154, 159, 182, 202, 205, 208, 246, 338, 341, 342, 348, 349, 433, 435

 Davies, Maria Thompson, 235

 Deaf, 157

 Deafness, 32, 154

 Declaration of Independence, 75

 Declining birth rate, 237, 256, 268, 400

 Defective germ-plasm, 194

 Defectives, 302

 Definition of eugenics, 147, 152

 Degenerate persons, 193

 Delaware, 187

 Delayed marriage, 217

 Delinquents, 302

 Demme, R. , 56

 Democracy, 360

 Denmark, 137

 Dependents, 302

 Desirability of Restrictive Eugenics, 167

 Destitute classes, 214

 Determiners, 432, 438

 Differences among men, 75

 Diffloth, P. , 222

 Diseases, 38

 Disease resistance, 402

 Disposition, 219, 221

 Distribution, 307

 District of Columbia, 187

 Divorce, 201

 Dolichocephalic heads, 427

 Doll, E. A. , 421

 Dominance, 438

 Dominant, 433

 Dress, 219, 221

 Drinkwater, 342

 Drosophila, 101

 Drug fiends, 193

 Drunkenness, 389

 Dublin, L. I. , 400

 Dubois, P. , 23, 24

 DuBois, W. E. B. , 295

 Duncan, J. M. , 247

 Duncan, F. N. , 102, Fig. 17

 Dugdale, R. L. , 159

 Durant scholarship, 262

 Dyer family, 206

 Dynamic evolution, 421

 Dynamic of manhood, 223

 Dysgenic, definition of, 438

 Dysgenic types, 176

 E

 Earle, E. L. , 94

 Early marriages, 247

 Eastern Europe, 427

 East, E. M. , 104

 East north central states, 358

 East south central states, 358

 Ebbinghaus tests, 288

 Economic determinism, 365

 Economic equality of sexes, 380

 Economic status, 250

 Economic standing of parents, 370

 Edinburgh, 57

 Education, 219, 221

 Education, compulsory, 368

 Education and race suicide, 253

 Edwards, J. , 161

 Egypt, 206

 Egyptian, 285, Fig. 6

 Elderton, E. M. , 10, 55, 57, 60, 122, 153, 413

 Elderton, W. P. , 124

 Elevation of standards, 277

 Ellis, H. , 96, 224, 379

 Ellis Island, 302, 303, 427

 Emancipation of women, 364

 Emerson, R. A. , 104

 Endogamy, 222, 438

 England, 15, 16, 121, 122, 138, 237, 381, 427, 432

 English, 259, 311, 321, 426, 427, 428

 Epilepsy, 58, 79

 Epileptics, 193, 302

 Eskimo, 49, 127

 Estabrook, A. H. , 143, 159, 168

 Equalitarianism, 362

 Equality, 229

 Equality of opportunity, 366

 Equal pay for equal work, 380

 Essence of Mendelism, 429

 Eugenic aspect of specific reforms, 352

 Eugenic laws, 191

 Eugenic marriages, 352

 Eugenics and euthenics, 438

 Eugenics Education Society, 153

 Eugenics movement, 147

 Eugenics registry, 350

 Eugenics Record Office, 153, 194, 202, 348, 349, 436

 Eugenics Review, 436

 Eugenics and social welfare, Bulletin, 435

 Euthenics, 155, 415, 416, 417, 438

 Euthenics, eugenics and, 402

 Eye, 59

 Evolution, 438

 Exogamy, 22, 438

 F

 Facial attractiveness, 215

 Fairchild, H. P. , 308

 Family alignment, 229

 Faraday, M. , 334

 Farrabee, W. C. , 132

 Fecundal selection, 137

 Feebly inhibited, 182

 Feeble minded, 157, 172, 302

 Feeble-mindedness, 71, 176

 Féré, C. S. , 44

 Fernandez brothers, 314

 Ferguson, G. O. , Jr. , 287, 288

 Fertility, relative, 247

 Filipinos, 315

 Financial aspect, 173

 Financial success, 219

 Finger prints, Fig. 25

 Finger tip, Figs. 21, 22

 Finns, 299, 302, 311

 Fishberg, M. , 126

 Florida, 187

 Foot, Egyptian, Fig. 6

 Foreign-born, 238

 Formal social functions, 236

 Foster, M. , 29

 France, 138, 155, 206, 237

 Franco-Prussian war, 321

 Franklin, B. , 230

 Frederick the Great, 19

 Fredericksburg, Va. , 288

 Freiburg, University, of, 125

 French-Canadians, 259

 French revolution, 18

 Freud, S. , 213

 G

 Gallichan, W. , 252

 Galton, Eugenics Laboratory, 153, 349

 Galton, F. , V, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 89, 90, 95, 99, 110, 111, 112, 113, 147, 148, 151, 152, 162, 222, 228, 230, 247, 342, 435

 Galton Laboratory of National Eugenics, 269, 436

 Galton-Pearson law, 113, 114

 Gamete, 439

 Garibaldi, G. , 19

 Garrison, W. L. , 295, 296

 Genealogical Record Office, 402, 405, 407, 409, 411, 412

 Genealogy and eugenics, 329, 439

 Genesis, 64

 Genetics, 340, 439

 Genius, hereditary, 151

 George, F. O. , 234

 Georgia, 187

 Geographical distribution, 261

 German, 35, 259, 280, 311

 German society for race hygiene, 163

 Germany, 20, 137, 155, 299, 360

 Germinal, 439

 Germ-plasm, 25, 429, 440

 Ghetto, 305

 Gifted families, 213

 Gillette, J. M. , 356, 358, 359

 Gilman, C. P. , 378

 Gilmore, C. F. , 136, 216, 227

 Gini, C. , 344, 346

 Giotto, 342

 Gochuico, Ricardo, 315

 Goddard, H. H. , 71, 105, 108, 160, 176, 188

 Gonorrhea, 63

 Goodrich, M. T. , 333

 Goring, C. , 124, 214

 Grant, Madison, 301, 420

 Grant, U. S. , 374

 Great Britain, 130, 232

 Great race, 426

 Great war, ix, 298, 327

 Greek idea of eugenics, 150

 Greek slaves, 284

 Greeks, 299, 302, 321, 427

 Greenwood lake, 233

 Growth of eugenics, 147

 Gruber von, and Rubin, 204

 Guatemala Indians, 356

 Guinea pigs, 45, 419

 Gulick, J. T. , 134

 Gulick, L. H. , 223

 Gulick, S. L. , 311, 313

 Gustavus Adolphus, 19

 Guyer, M. F. , 194, 435

 H

 Habitual criminal, 194

 Hair, white blaze in, 433

 Haiti, 284, 289

 Hall, G. S. , 225

 Hall of Fame, 17, 19

 Hamilton, A. E. , 278, 433, 435

 Hankins, F. H. , 237

 Hanks Family, 333

 Hap, L. , 314

 Hapaa, 131

 Harrison, Mrs. E. H. , 154

 Harris, J. A. , 100, 211, 404

 Hart, H. H. , 186

 Hartford, Conn. , 261

 Harvard University, 87, 245, 246, 266

 Health, 219, 221

 Heape, W. , 419

 Hebrews, 41, 302

 Hebrews, East European, 299

 Hebrews, Russian, 302

 Heller, L. L. 64

 Helsingfors, 54

 Hemophilia, 38, 40, 433

 Hereditary genius, 16, 151

 Hereditary, 440

 Heredity, laws of, 99

 Heredity, talent and genius, 151

 Heron, D. , 14, 15, 140, 153

 Herzegovinians, 311

 Heterozygote, 440

 Heterozygous, 427, 433

 Hewes, A. , 240

 Hibbs, H. H. , Jr. , 411

 Hickory Family, 168

 Higher education, 276

 Hill folk, 168

 Hill, J. A. , 268

 Hindus, 305

 Hitchcock, C. H. , 333

 Hodge, 44

 Hoffman, F. L. , 128, 259

 Holland, 137, 143, 155

 Hollingworth, H. L. , 342

 Home acquaintances, 234

 Homo sapiens, 300

 Homozygote, 440

 Homozygous, 427

 Hooker, J. , 68

 Hopetown, 203

 Hormones, 440

 Horsley, V. , 55

 Housekeeping, 219, 221

 Housing, 376

 Howard, A. , 104

 Howard, G. , 104

 Howard University, 388

 Hrdlicka, A. , 285, 424, 426, 427, 428

 Huguenots, 424, 427

 Humanistic religion, 396

 Humanitarian aspect, 171

 Hungary, 155, 302

 Hunter, W. , 69

 Huntington, E. , 42

 Huntington's Chorea, 180

 Huxley, J. L. , 3

 Hyde Family, 346, 411

 I

 Idiots, 188, 302

 Illegitimacy, 325

 Illegitimate children, 208, 386

 Illinois, 172, 208

 Illinois, University of, 244

 Ilocano, 315

 Imbeciles, 188

 Immigration, 298

 Immigration Commission, 304, 310

 Immortality, 29

 Improvement of sexual selection, 211

 Inborn, definition of, 440

 Inborn characters, 32

 Income Tax, 353

 Increasing the marriage rate of the superior, 237

 Indiana, 172, 179, 208

 Indian, American, 49, 130

 Individualism, 253

 Induction, 440

 Infant mortality, 121, 413

 Infant mortality movement, 414

 Infusorian, 26

 Inherent, 440

 Inheritance of mental capacities, 84

 Inheritance Tax, 353

 Innate, 441

 Inkowa Camp, 233

 Inquiries into human faculty, 5, 152

 Insane, 15, 302

 Insanity, 178

 Institut Solvay, 155

 Intelligence, 106

 Intermarriage, 206

 International Eugenics Congress, 155

 International Eugenics Society, 155

 Iowa, 208

 Isabella, Queen of Spain, 19

 Ishmael Family, 168

 Islam, 284

 Italian, 41, 259, 299, 302, 308, 311

 Italians, Southern, 304

 Italy, 19, 137

 Ireland, 299

 Irish, 41, 259, 311, 427

 J

 Jacob, 64

 Jamaica, 289

 James, W. , 51, 327

 Japan, 137

 Japanese, 127

 Japanese immigration, 312

 Jefferson, T. , 75

 Jefferson Reformatory, 191

 Jena, Battle of, 321

 Jenks, A. E. , 295, 314

 Jenks, J. W. , 308

 Jennings, H. S. , 105

 Jesus, 396

 Jews, 52, 133, 284, 304

 Jewish eugenics, 394

 Jewish race, 358

 Johnson, E. H. , 282

 Johnson, R. H. , vi, 117

 Johnstone, E. R. , 188

 Jones, E. , 213

 Jordan, D. S. , 323, 326

 Jordan, H. E. , 323

 Journal of Heredity, 154, 436

 Judaism, 394

 Juke family, 143, 159, 168, 169

 K

 Kafirs, 285

 Kaiser of Germany, 204

 Kallikak Family, 160

 Kansas, 172, 194, 208

 Kansas City, Mo. , 261

 Kansas State Agrigultural College, 244

 Kechuka Camp, 435

 Kellogg, V. , 215, 321, 318

 Kelsey, C. , 435

 Kentucky, 172

 Keys, F. M. , Fig. 1

 Key, W. E. , 168

 Knopf, S. A. , 127

 Kornhauser, A. W. , 370

 Kuczynski, R. R. , 260

 L

 Laban, 64

 Laitinen, T. , 54, 55

 Lamarck, J. B. , 37

 Lamarckian, 35

 Lamarckian Theory, 421

 Lamarckism, 37

 Late marriages, 218

 Latent, 441

 Lauck, W. J. , 308

 Laughlin, H. H. , 341

 Law, 441

 Laws, eugenic, 196

 Laws of heredity, 99

 Lead, 57, 63, Fig. 7

 League to enforce peace, 328

 Lechoco, F. , 314

 Legal aspects, 194

 Legislative aspects, 194

 Leipzig, 321

 Lethal chamber, 184

 Lethal selection, 145

 Levantines, 299

 Lewin, G. R. L. , 62

 Lim, B. , 314

 Lincoln, A. , 20, 333

 Lincoln, T. , 333

 Lithuanians, 311

 Living wage, 375

 Loeb, J. , 379

 Lombroso, C. , 179, 182

 London, 140, 141

 Longevity, 403

 Longfellow, H. E. , 153

 Lorenz, O. , 330

 Loscin and Lascin, 314

 Louisiana, 187, 296

 Lunatics, 193

 Lutz, F. E. , Fig. 16

 Luzon, 315

 Lynn, Mass. , 261

 M

 Macedonia, 326

 MacNicholl, T. A. , 55, 56

 Madonnas, 397

 Magyars, 299, 302, 427

 Maine, 172

 Maine, University of, 47

 Mairet, 44

 Maize, 104

 Malaria, 63

 Malayans, 315

 Mall, Bean &, 285

 Malone, Widow, 204

 Malthus, 117, 134, 145, 151

 Mamelukes, 284

 Management, 221

 Manchester, 57

 Mann, Mrs. Horace, 153

 Marks, school, 216

 Marriage laws, 196

 Marriage rate, 237

 Marshall, Gov. Thomas R. , 191

 Martha's Vineyard, 154

 Maryland, 206

 Massachusetts, 123, 241, 255, 259, 260, 261, 295, 326

 Mass. Agricultural College, 255

 Mass. State Prison, 182

 Maternal impression, 64

 Maternity, 221

 Mayo, M. J. , 286

 Mean American man, 425

 Mechanism of inheritance, 431

 Mecklin, J. M. , 280, 281, 283

 Medical colleges, 246

 Mediterranean, 49, 52

 Mediterranean race, 280, 357

 Melting pot, 424, 428

 Mendel, G. , 427

 Mendelian units, 105

 Mendelism, 430, 441

 Mendelism, essence of, 427

 Mendelssohn, F. B. , 96

 Mental capacities, inheritance of, 84

 Mental measurements, 75

 Mesocephalic heads, 427

 Mestizos, 314

 Methodist clergymen, 270

 Methods of restriction, 184

 Metis, Spanish, 314

 Meyerbeer, G. , 96

 Mice, 45

 Michigan, 172, 194

 Middle Atlantic states, 358

 Middletown, Conn. , 192

 Military celibacy, 320

 Miller, K. , 388

 Mill, J. S. , 165, 174

 Milton, J. , 21

 Minimum wage, 374

 Minnesota, 172, 202

 Miscegenation, 209, 291

 Missouri, 208, 288

 Modesty, 251

 Modification of the germ-plasm, 25

 Mohammed, 179

 Money, 229

 Monogamy, 222, 387

 Moody, L. , 153

 Moral equivalent of war, 27

 Moral perverts, 193

 Moravians, 311

 Mores, 222, 441

 Morgan, A. , 233

 Morgan, T. H. , 4, 100, 101

 Mormon Church, 273

 Moron, 188

 Mothers' pensions, 375, 376

 Mother's age, influence of, 347

 Motivated ethics, 394

 Mountain states, 358

 Mount Holyoke College, 240, 263

 Movement, eugenic, 147

 Mozambique, 129

 Mulatto, 288

 Muller, H. J. , 101, Fig. 19

 Multiple factors, 104

 Muncey, E. B. , 433

 Murphey, H. D. , 242

 Music, 96

 Mutation, 441

 Mutilations, 38

 Myopia, 13, 59

 McDonald, A. , 286

 N

 Nam Family, 143, 168

 Naples, 303

 Napoleon, 18, 179, 321

 Nashville, Tenn. , 261

 Nasmyth, G. , 322

 National army, 319

 National association for the advancement of colored people, 294, 295

 National committee for mental hygiene, 172

 Native whites, 238

 Natural inheritance, 152

 Natural selection, 148

 Nature, 1

 Nearing, S. , 261

 Nebraska, 208

 Negroes, 238, 280

 Negro women, 387

 Nevada, 187, 192, 296

 New England, 260, 265, 274, 291, 358, 426

 New Hampshire, 208

 New Haven, Conn. , 261

 New Jersey, 179, 193, 202

 New Mexico, 187

 Newport News, Va. , 288

 Newsholme A. , 140, 141

 New York, 11, 77, 172, 182, 186, 193, 233, 282, 286

 New world, 324

 Nice, 45, 47

 Nicolin, 45

 Night-blindness, 109, 433

 Nilsson-Ehle, H. , 104

 Nobility, 118

 Nordic, 426

 Nordic race, 280, 301, 357

 Normal curve, 441

 Normal school girls, 262

 Norman conquest, 338

 Normandy, 338

 North Carolina, 326

 North Dakota, 193

 North European, 426

 North Italians, 427

 Northern United States, 326

 Norway, 137

 Norwich, Conn. , 192

 Novikov, J. , 322

 Nucleus, 441

 Nurture, 1

 O

 Oberlin college, 244

 Occupation, diseases of, 62

 Odin, A. , 258

 Ohio, 172

 Ohio State University, 244

 Oklahoma, 202, 208

 Oliver, T. , 62

 Oregon, 208

 Organization of industry, 307

 Oriental immigration, 313

 Origin of eugenics, 147

 Orthodactyly, 101, 102, 384, 433

 Ovarian transplantation, 419

 Ovize, 44

 P

 Pacific, 358

 Paget parish, Bermuda, 205

 Paine, J. H. , Figs. 16, 21

 Paraguay, 325

 Parents of great men, 423

 Paris, 140, 155

 Parker, G. , 233

 Parole, 209

 Partial segregation, 250

 Past performance, 342

 Passing of the great race, 426

 Pasteur, L. , 333, 334

 Patent, definition of, 441

 Paternity, 219

 Paul, C. , 63

 Paupers, 157, 302

 Pearl, R. , 47, 48, 99, 423

 Pearson, K. , 10, 12, 55, 56, 57, 60, 85, 93, 99, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 124, 125, 126, 127, 134, 143, 144, 153, 212, 215, 224, 227, 231, 232, 344, 348, 349, 368, 404, 408, 409, 411, 413, 428, 433

 Pedagogical celibacy, 390

 Peerage, 232

 Pennsylvania, 167, 187, 202, 208

 Pennsylvania Dutch, 424

 Pennsylvania, feeble-minded citizens of, 168

 Pennsylvania, University of, 132

 Penrose, C. A. , 203

 Perrin, 372

 Percy, H. , Fig. 19

 Perry, S. J. , 124

 Persians, 321

 Perversion, 248

 Pessimism, 247

 Peters, I. L. , 226

 Phi Beta Kappa, 241, 262

 Philanthropy, 33

 Philippine islands, 313

 Philippines, 324

 Phillips, B. A. , 287

 Phillips, J. C. , 245, 267, 419

 Phthisis, 126

 Physical care of the infant, 278

 Physical culture, 219

 Physico-chemical effects, 38

 Piang, Datto, 314

 Piebaldism, 103, 433, Fig. 20

 Pike, F. H. , 3

 Pikipitanges, 132

 Pilgrim fathers, 424

 Piney folk, 168

 Pitcairn islanders, 300

 Pittsburgh, 138

 Pittsburgh, University of, 234

 Pituitary gland, 103

 Plato, 150

 Ploetz, A. , 118, 119, 408, 409, 410

 Plymouth, England, 118

 Poisons, racial, 48, 61, 63, Fig. 7

 Poles, 259, 299, 427

 Polygamy, 387

 Polynesians, 127, 129

 Pope, E. G. , 124

 Popenoe, C. H. , 78

 Popenoe, P. , vi, 244, 245, 270, 402, 423

 Population, Malthusian, 151

 Portland, Ore. , 261

 Portuguese, 299, 302

 Possible improvement of the human breed, etc. , 152

 Poulton, E. B. , 43

 Powys, A. O. , 272, 346

 Pragmatic school, 352

 Preferential mating, 214

 Pre-natal care, 70

 Pre-natal culture, 70

 Pre-natal influence, 64

 Pre-natal life, 155

 Princeton college, 249

 Probability curve, 78, 80, 441

 Proctor fellowship, 249

 Production, 307

 Professional classes, 232

 Professor's families, 228

 Progressive changes, 39

 Prohibited degrees of marriage, 222

 Prohibition, 389

 Propaganda, eugenic, 195

 Prophylaxis, 252

 Prostitution, 251

 Protestant Christianity, 274

 Protoplasm, 442

 Prussia, 121, 321

 Pseudo-celibacy, 248

 Psychiatry, 442

 Psychopathic inferiority, 302

 Ptolemies, 206

 Public charities association, 168

 Punishment, 192

 Punitive purpose, 192

 Puritan, 298

 Pyle, W. H. , 287

 Q

 Quadruplets, Fig. I

 Quaker families, 118, 144

 Quakers, English, 411

 R

 Rabaud, E. , 73

 Rabbits, 45

 Race betterment conference, first, 1

 Race suicide, 257

 Racial poisons, 48, 61, 63, 338, Fig. 7

 Radot, R. V. , 333

 Rapists, 193

 Recessive, 433, 442

 Reconstruction period, 325

 Redfield, C. L. , 40, 421, 422, 423

 Refraction, 59

 Regression, 112, 442

 Reid, G. A. , 50, 125, 129

 Religion and eugenics, 393

 Remote ancestors, 338

 Research fellowship, 153

 Reserve, 251

 Restriction, methods of, 184

 Restrictive eugenics, 175, 184

 Retrogression, 42

 Revolutionary war, 426

 Reward and punishment, 395

 Rhode Island, 261

 Rice, J. M. , 95

 Richmond, Va. , 288

 Riis, J. , 1

 Roman catholic church, 273

 Roman republic, 284

 Rome custodial asylum, 186

 Roosevelt, T. , 308

 Ross, E. A. , X, 301

 Roumanians, 299, 311, 427

 Round-headed type, 427

 Rousseau, J. J. , 75

 Royal families, 17, 20, 118, 410

 Rubin, von Gruber and, 204

 Ruskin, 342

 Russell Sage Foundation, 186

 Russia, 137, 302, 325

 Russian Jews, 427

 Russians, 259, 302, 311, 427

 Russo-Hebrew, 302

 Russo-Japanese war, 321

 Ruthenians, 311

 S

 Sacerdotal celibacy, 222

 St. Louis, 154

 St. Paul, public schools of, 372

 Salpingectomy, 185

 San Domingo, 289

 Save the babies propaganda, 273, 412

 Saxon, 426

 Scandinavia, 299

 Scandinavian, 311

 Schönberg, Berlin, 382

 School acquaintance, 234

 Schuster, E. , 93, 153, 435

 Scope of eugenics, 152

 Scotch, 259, 311

 Scotland, 237

 Scrub, 229

 Seashore, C. E. , 343

 Segregation, 88, 185, 430, 442

 Selection, 442

 Selection, natural, 148

 Selective conscription, 320

 Self-repression, 251

 Sewall, S. E. , 153

 Sex determination, 347

 Sex equality, 379

 Sex ethics, 252

 Sex histories, 252

 Sex hygiene movement, 385

 Sex hygienists, 154

 Sex-limited, 442

 Sex-linked, 442

 Sex-linked characters, 433

 Sexual perverts, 193

 Sexual selection, 136, 215, 262, 325, 442

 Sexual variety, 247

 Shepherd's purse, 104

 Shinn, M. W. , 243

 Short-fingerness, 102

 Shorthorn cattle, 423

 Short-sightedness, 12

 Shull, G. H. , 104

 Sibs, 202

 Sidis, B. , 86

 Simpson, Q. V. , Fig. 20

 Single tax, 353

 Sing Sing, 182

 Sixty family, 168

 Slavs, 299, 304

 Smith's island, 206

 Smith, M. R. , 241, 265

 Snow, E. C. , 121, 413

 Social status, 229

 Socialism, 362

 Solvay Institut, 155

 Soma, 443

 Somerset parish, Bermuda, 205

 South Atlantic, 358

 South Carolina, 187

 South Dakota, 208, 296

 South Italians, 427

 South Slavs, 302

 Southern United States, 291, 325

 Southwestern state normal school, 217

 Spain, 19, 137

 Spanish, 324

 Spanish conquest, 131

 Spanish wells, 203

 Spartans, 171

 Spencer, H. , 33, 34, 35, 41, 136, 165, 348

 Spermatozoa, 45

 Spirochæte, 62

 Sprague, R. J. , 240, 253, 255, 262

 Standards of education, 275

 Stanford University, 245

 Starch, D. , 21

 State Board of Charities of New York, 435

 Station for Experimental Evolution, 100

 Sterilization, 185

 Stetson, G. R. , 286

 Stevenson, R. L. , 131, 301

 Stiles, C. W. , 291

 Stockard, C. R. , 44, 45, 47

 Strong, A. C. , 287

 Stuart line, 19

 Sturge, M. D. , 55

 Sturtevant, A. H. , 101

 Subordination of women, 362

 Substitution tests, 288

 Superficial characteristics, 227

 Superior, marriage rate of, 237

 Superiority of eldest, 344

 Sweden, 138, 155

 Swedes, 259

 Switzerland, 56, 138, 155

 Symphalangism, 433, Fig. 17

 Syphilis, 63

 Syphilitics, 193

 Syracuse University, 245

 Syrians, 299, 302

 T

 Taboo, 222, 297

 Tail-male line, 331

 Talent, hereditary, 151

 Tarbell, I. M. , 333

 Tasmania, 131, 132

 Taxation, 352

 Taylor, J. H. , Figs. 22, 25

 Telegony, 73

 Ten commandments, 394

 Tennessee, 187

 Terman, L. M. , 106

 Teutonic, 426

 Teutonic nations, 52

 Texas, 202

 Theism, 398

 Theistic religion, 395

 Theognis of Megara, 150

 Therapeutic, 192

 Thirty Years' war, 326

 Thompson, J. A. , 29, 34, 435

 Thorndike, E. L. , 10, 11, 21, 76, 79, 90, 91, 373

 Threadworn, 7

 Tobacco, 45, 63

 Todde, C. , 45

 Trades unionism, 388

 Training school of Vineland, N. J. , 188

 Trait, 443

 Transmissibility, 38

 Tropical fevers, 133

 Tropics, 35

 Truro, 206

 Tuberculosis, 57, 124, 199, 302

 Turkey, 137

 Turkish, 311

 Turner, J. M. W. , 68, 342

 Turpitude, moral, 194

 Twins, 90, Figs. 24, 25

 U

 Unfitness, 121

 Unit-character, 443

 United States, 16, 24, 137, 155, 289, 291, 407

 U. S. Public health service, 303

 University of London, 153

 University of Pittsburgh, 216

 Unlike, marriage of, 212

 Uruguay, 325

 Use and disuse, 38

 Useful works of reference, 435

 Utah, 187, 208

 Uterine infection, 38

 V

 Vagrants, 302

 Variation, 443

 Variate difference correlation, 121

 Vasectomy, 184

 Vassar College, 240

 Vedder, E. B. , 387

 Veblen, T. , 228

 Venereal diseases, 248, 251

 Venereal infection, 386

 Vermont, 326

 Vestigial, 443

 Victor Emmanuel, 19

 Villard, O. G. , 294

 Vineland, N. J. , 71

 Vineyard, Martha's, 154

 Virginia, 326

 Vision, 59

 Vocational guidance, 371

 Vocational training, 371

 Voisin, 206

 Volta bureau, 154

 W

 Wales, 122, 138

 Wallin, J. E. W. , 188

 Walter, H. E. , 435

 War, 318

 Warne, F. J. , 304

 Washington, 192, 208

 Washington, D. C. , 154, 233, 261, 286

 Washington, G. , 337

 Washington Seminary, 242

 Weakness, matings involving, 200

 Webb, S. , 269

 Wedgewood, E. , 208

 Weismann, A. , 25, 26, 44, 431

 Weldon, W. F. R. , 99, 118

 Wellesley College, 235, 239, 242, 262, 263

 Wellesley scholarships, 262

 Welsh, 259, 311

 West, B. , 342

 West, J. , 132

 West north central states, 358

 West south central states, 358

 West Virginia, 187

 Westergaard, H. , 57

 Wheat, 104

 Whetham, W. C. D. , 435, 436

 White slavery, 193

 Whitman, C. O. , 348

 Who's Who, 246

 Willcox, W. F. , 269

 Williams, W. , 303

 William the Conqueror, 338

 William of Occam, 93

 William of Orange, 19

 William the Silent, 19

 Wilson, J. A. , 13

 Wilson, W. , 310

 Wisconsin, 172, 194

 Wisconsin, University of, 45, 63, 244

 Woman suffrage, 380

 Woman's colleges, 383

 Woods, A. W. , 334

 Woods, E. B. , 372, 373

 Woods, F. A. , 3, 17, 18, 19, 89, 144, 260, 327, 341, 373

 Wright, L. E. , 314

 Wright, S. , vi. , 433

 Y

 Yale College, 245, 265, 266

 Yerkes, R. M. , 87, 88

 Young Men's Christian Association, 155, 235, 336

 Young Peoples Society of Christian Endeavor, 234

 Young Women's Christian Association, 235

 Yule, G. U. , 144

 Z

 Zero Family, 168

 Zygote, 26, 443

 Zymotic, 443

 Zulus, 284

 * * * * *

FOOTNOTES

[1] See Woods, Frederick Adams, "Laws of Diminishing EnvironmentalInfluences, " _Popular Science Monthly_, April, 1910, pp. 313-336;Huxley, J. S. , _The Individual in the Animal Kingdom_, Cambridge and NewYork, 1912. Pike, F. H. , and Scott, E. L. , "The Significance of CertainInternal Conditions of the Organism in Organic Evolution, " _AmericanNaturalist_, Vol. XLIX, pp. 321-359, June, 1915. 

[2] There is one line of experiment which is simple and striking enoughto deserve mention--namely, ovarian transplantation. A description ofthis is given in Appendix A. 

[3] Galton, Francis, _Inquiries into Human Faculty_, 1907 edition, pp. 153-173. This volume of Galton's, which was first published in 1883, hasbeen reissued in Everyman's Library, and should be read by alleugenists. 

[4] What is said here refers to positive correlations, which are theonly kind involved in this problem. Correlations may also be negative, lying between 0 and -1; for instance, if we measured the correlationbetween a man's lack of appetite and the time that had elapsed since hislast meal, we would have to express it by a negative fraction, the minussign showing that the greater his satiety, the less would be the timesince his repast. The best introduction to correlations is Elderton's_Primer of Statistics_ (London, 1912). 

[5] Dr. Thorndike's careful measurements showed that it is impossible todraw a hard and fast line between identical twins and ordinary twins. There is no question as to the existence of the two kinds, but theordinary twins may happen to be so nearly alike as to resemble identicaltwins. Accordingly, mere appearance is not a safe criterion of theidentity of twins. His researches were published in the _Archives ofPhilosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods_, No. 1, New York, 1905. 

[6] _A First Study of the Inheritance of Vision and the RelativeInfluence of Heredity and Environment on Sight. _ By Amy Barrington andKarl Pearson. Eugenics Laboratory (London), Memoir Series V. 

[7] Dr. James Alexander Wilson, assistant surgeon of the OpthalmicInstitute, Glasgow, published an analysis of 1, 500 cases of myopia inthe _British Medical Journal_, p. 395, August 29, 1914. His methods arenot above criticism, and too much importance should not be attached tohis results, which show that in 58% of the cases heredity can becredited with the myopia of the patient. In 12% of the cases it was dueto inflammation of the cornea (keratitis) while in the remaining 30% nohereditary influence could be proved, but various reasons made him feelcertain that in many cases it existed. The distribution of myopia bytrades and professions among his patients is suggestive: 65% of thecases among school children showed myopic heredity; 63% among housewivesand domestic servants; 68% among shop and factory works; 60% amongclerks and typists; 60% among laborers and miners. If environment reallyplayed an active part, one would not expect to find this similarity inpercentages between laborers and clerks, between housewives andschoolteachers, etc. 

[8] _The Influence of Unfavourable Home Environment and DefectivePhysique on the Intelligence of School Children. _ By David Heron. Eugenics Laboratory (London), Memoir Series No. VIII. 

[9] _Hereditary Genius; an Inquiry into its Laws and Consequences. _London, 1869. 

[10] Woods, Frederick Adams, "Heredity and the Hall of Fame, " _PopularScience Monthly_, May, 1913. 

[11] Woods, Frederick Adams, _Mental and Moral Heredity in Royalty_, NewYork, 1906. See also "Sovereigns and the Supposed Influence ofOpportunity, " _Science_, n. S. , XXXIX, No. 1016, pp. 902-905, June 19, 1914, where Dr. Woods answers some criticisms of his work. 

[12] _Educational Psychology_, Vol. III, p. 306. Starch's results arealso quoted from Thorndike. 

[13] Jean Baptiste Lamarck, a French naturalist, born in 1744, was oneof the pioneers in the philosophical study of evolution. The theory(published in 1809) for which he is best known is as follows: "Changesin the animal's surroundings are responded to by changes in its habits. ""Any particular habit involves the regular use of some organs and thedisuse of others. Those organs which are used will be developed andstrengthened, those not used diminished and weakened, and the changes soproduced will be transmitted to the offspring, and thus progressivedevelopment of particular organs will go on from generation togeneration. " His classical example is the neck of the giraffe, which hesupposes to be long because, for generation after generation, theanimals stretched their necks in order to get the highest leaves fromthe trees. 

[14] Boas, F. , _Changes in Body Form of Descendants of Immigrants_, 1911. 

[15] _Civilization and Climate. _ By Ellsworth Huntington, YaleUniversity Press, 1916. 

[16] _American Naturalist_, L. , pp. 65-89, 144-178, Feb. And Mar. , 1916. 

[17] _Proc. Am. Philos. Soc. _ LV, pp. 243-259, 1916. 

[18] Dr. Reid is the author who has most effectively called attention tothis relation between alcohol and natural selection. Those interestedwill find a full treatment in his books, _The Present Evolution of Man_, _The Laws of Heredity_, and _The Principles of Heredity_. 

[19] _Principles of Psychology_, ii, p. 543. 

[20] Leon J. Cole points out that this may be due in considerable partto less voluntary restriction of offspring on the part of those who areoften under the influence of alcohol. 

[21] For a review of the statistical problems involved, see KarlPearson. An attempt to correct some of the misstatements made by SirVictor Horsley, F. R. S. , F. R. C. S. , and Mary D. Sturge, M. D. , intheir criticisms of the Galton Laboratory Memoir: _First Study of theInfluence of Parental Alcoholism_, etc. ; and Professor Pearson's variouspopular lectures, also _A Second Study of the Influence of ParentalAlcoholism on the Physique and Intelligence of Offspring_. By KarlPearson and Ethel M. Elderton. Eugenics Laboratory Memoir Series XIII. 

[22] _A First Study of the Influence of Parental Alcoholism on thePhysique and Intelligence of Offspring. _ By Ethel M. Elderton and KarlPearson. Eugenics Laboratory Memoir Series X. Harald Westergaard, whoreëxamined the Elderton-Pearson data, concludes that considerableimportance is to be attached to the selective action of alcohol, theweaklings in the alcoholic families having been weeded out early inlife. 

[23] Prohibition would have some _indirect_ eugenic effects, which willbe discussed in Chapter XVIII. 

[24] Chapter XXX, verses 31-43. A knowledge of the pedigree of Laban'scattle would undoubtedly explain where the stripes came from. It isinteresting to note how this idea persists: a correspondent has recentlysent an account of seven striped lambs born after their mothers had seena striped skunk. The actual explanation is doubtless that suggested byHeller in the _Journal of Heredity_, VI, 480 (October, 1915), that astripe is part of the ancestral coat pattern of the sheep, and appearsfrom time to time because of reversion. 

[25] Such a skin affection, known as icthyosis, xerosis or xeroderma, isusually due to heredity. Davenport says it "is especially apt to befound in families in which consanguineous marriages occur and this fact, together with the pedigrees [which he studied], suggests that it is dueto the absence of some factor that controls the process of cornificationof the skin. On this hypothesis a normal person who belongs to anaffected family may marry into a normal family with impunity, but cousinmarriages are to be avoided. " See Davenport, C. B. , _Heredity inRelation to Eugenics_, p. 134. New York, 1911. 

[26] Its eugenics is to be effected through the mental exertion ofmothers. And we have lately been in correspondence with a westernattorney who is endeavoring to form an association of persons who willagree to be the parents of "willed" children. By this means, he hascalculated (and sends a chart to prove it) that it will require onlyfour generations to produce the Superman. 

[27] _Life and Letters of Charles Darwin_, Vol. I, p. 302, New York, 1897. The letter is dated 1844. 

[28] Goddard, H. H. , _Feeble-mindedness_, p. 359. New York, theMacmillan Company, 1914. 

[29] For a review of the evidence consult an article on "Telegony" byDr. Etienne Rabaud in the _Journal of Heredity_, Vol. V, No. 9, pp. 389-400; September, 1914. 

[30] It will be recalled that the coefficient of correlation measuresthe resemblance between two variables on a scale between 0 and-1 or +1. If the correlation is zero, there is no constant relation; if it isunity, any change in one must result in a determinate change in theother; if it is 0. 5, it means that when one of the variables deviatesfrom the mean of its class by a given amount, the other variable willdeviate from the mean of its class by 50% of that amount (each deviationbeing measured in terms of the variability of its own class, in orderthat they may be properly comparable. )

[31] Sidis, Boris, M. A. , Ph. D. , M. D. , "Neurosis and Eugenics, " _MedicalReview of_ _Reviews_, Vol. XXI, No. 10, pp. 587-594, New York, October, 1915. A psychologist who writes of "some miraculous germ-plasm(chromatin) with wonderful dominant 'units' (Chromosomes)" is hardly acompetent critic of the facts of heredity. 

[32] In a letter to the _Journal of Heredity_, under date of August 4, 1916. 

[33] Galton, Francis, _Inquiries into Human Faculty_, p. 167, London, 1907. 

[34] Woods, Frederick Adams, _Heredity in Royalty_, New York, 1906. 

[35] _Op. Cit. _, pp. 170-171. 

[36] Thorndike, E. L. , "Measurements of Twins, " _Arch. Of Philos. , Psych. And Sci. Methods_, No. 1, New York, 1905; summarized in his_Educational Psychology_, Vol. III, pp. 247-251, New York, 1914. Measured on a scale where 1 = identity, he found that twins showed aresemblance to each other of about . 75, while ordinary brothers of aboutthe same age resembled each other to the extent of about . 50 only. Theresemblance was approximately the same in both physical and mentaltraits. 

[37] The quotations in this and the following paragraph are from_Thorndike's Educational Psychology_, pp. 304-305, Vol. III. 

[38] _Biometrika_, Vol. III, p. 156. 

[39] "William of Occam's Razor" is the canon of logic which declaresthat it is unwise to seek for several causes of an effect, if a singlecause is adequate to account for it. 

[40] Schuster, Edgar, _Eugenics_, pp. 150-163, London, 1913. 

[41] _Educational Psychology_ (1914), Vol. III, p. 235. 

[42] Cobb, Margaret V. , _Journal of Educational Psychology_, viii, pp. 1-20, Jan. , 1917. 

[43] This is not true of the small English school of biometrists, founded by Sir Francis Galton, W. F. R. Weldon and Karl Pearson, and nowled by the latter. It has throughout denied or minified Mendelianresults, and depended on the treatment of inheritance by a study ofcorrelations. With the progress of Mendelian research, biometric methodsmust be supplemented with pedigree studies. In human heredity, on theother hand, because of the great difficulties attendant upon anapplication of Mendelian methods, the biometric mode of attack is stillthe most useful, and has been largely used in the present book. It hasbeen often supposed that the methods of the two schools (biometry andMendelism) are antagonistic. They are rather supplementary, each beingvaluable in cases where the other is less applicable. See Pearl, Raymond, _Modes of Research in Genetics_, p. 182, New York, 1915

[44] Few people realize what large numbers of plants and animals havebeen bred for experimental purposes during the last decade; W. E. Castleof Bussey Institution, Forest Hills, Mass. , has bred not less than45, 000 rats. In the study of a single character, the endosperm of maize, nearly 100, 000 pedigreed seeds have been examined by different students. Workers at the University of California have tabulated more than 10, 000measurements on flower size alone, in tobacco hybrids. T. H. Morgan andhis associates at Columbia University have bred and studied more thanhalf a million fruit flies, and J. Arthur Harris has handled more than600, 000 bean-plants at the Carnegie Institution's Station forExperimental Evolution, Cold Spring Harbor, L. I. While facts of humanheredity, and of inheritance in large mammals generally, are oftengrounded on scanty evidence, it must not be thought that the fundamentalgeneralizations of heredity are based on insufficient data. 

[45] For a brief account of Mendelism, see Appendix D. 

[46] Of course these factors are not of equal importance; some of themproduce large changes and some, as far as can be told, are of minorsignificance. The factors, moreover, undergo large changes from time totime, thus producing mutations; and it is probable small changes aswell, the evidence for which requires greater refinements of method thanis usual among those using the pedigree method. 

[47] _A Critique of the Theory of Evolution_, by Thomas Hunt Morgan, professor of experimental zoölogy in Columbia University. PrincetonUniversity Press, 1916. This book gives the best popular account of thestudies of heredity in Drosophila. The advanced student will find _TheMechanism of Mendelian Heredity_ (New York, 1915), by Morgan, Sturtevant, Müller, and Bridges, indispensable, but it is beyond thecomprehension of most beginners. 

[48] "On the Inheritance of Some Characters in Wheat, " A. And G. Howard, _Mem. Dep. Of Agr. India_, V: 1-46, 1912. This careful and importantwork has never received the recognition it deserves, apparently becausefew geneticists have seen it. While the multiple factors in wheat seemto be different, those reported by East and Shull appear to be merelyduplicates. 

[49] "The Nature of Mendelian Units. " By G. N. Collins, _Journal ofHeredity_, V: 425 ff. , Oct. , 1914. 

[50] Dr. Castle, reviewing Dr. Goddard's work (_Journal of AbnormalPsychology_, Aug. -Sept. , 1915) concludes that feeble-mindedness is to beexplained as a case of multiple allelomorphs. The evidence is inadequateto prove this, and proof would be, in fact, almost impossible, becauseof the difficulty of determining just what the segregation ratios are. 

[51] In strict accuracy, the law of ancestral inheritance must bedescribed as giving means of determining the probable deviation of anyindividual from the mean of his own generation, when the deviations ofsome or all of his ancestry from the types of their respectivegenerations are known. It presupposes (1) no assortative mating, (2) noinbreeding and (3) no selection. Galton's own formula, which supposedthat the parents contributed 1/2, the grandparents 1/4, thegreat-grandparents 1/8, the next generation 1/16, and so on, is of valuenow only historically, or to illustrate to a layman the fact that heinherits from his whole ancestry, not from his parents alone. 

[52] Johnson, Roswell H. , "The Malthusian Principle and NaturalSelection, " _American Naturalist_, XLVI (1912), pp. 372-376. 

[53] Karl Pearson, _The Groundwork of Eugenics_, p. 25, London, 1912. 

[54] "Let _p_ be the chance of death from a random, not a constitutionalsource, then 1-_p_ is the chance of a selective death in a parent and1-_p_ again of a selective death in the case of an offspring, then

(1-_p_)^2 must equal about 1/3, = . 36, more exactly 'therefore' 1-_p_ =. 6 and _p_ = . 40. In other words, 60% of the deaths _are selective_. "

[55] _Archiv f. Rassen-u. Gesellschafts Biologie_, VI (1909), pp. 33-43. 

[56] Snow, E. C. , _On the Intensity of Natural Selection in Man_, London, 1911. 

[57] _Biometrika_, Vol. X, pp. 488-506, London, May, 1915. 

[58] Pearson, Karl, _Tuberculosis, Heredity and Environment_, London, 1912. Among the most careful contributions to the problem oftuberculosis are those of Charles Goring (_On the Inheritance of theDiathesis of Phthisis and Insanity_, London, 1910), Ernest G. Pope (_ASecond Study of the Statistics of Pulmonary Tuberculosis_, London, Dulau& Co. ), and W. P. Elderton and S. J. Perry (_A Third Study of theStatistics of Pulmonary Tuberculosis. The Mortality of the Tuberculousand Sanatorium Treatment_), London, 1909. See also our discussion inChapter I. 

[59] While most physicians lay too great stress on the factor ofinfection, this mistake is by no means universal. Maurice Fishberg, forexample (quoted in the _Medical Review of Reviews_, XXII, 8, August, 1916) states: "For many years the writer was physician to a charitablesociety, having under his care annually 800 to 1, 000 consumptives wholived in poverty and want, in overcrowded tenements, having allopportunities to infect their consorts; in fact most of the consumptivesshared their bed with their healthy consorts. Still, very few cases weremet with in which tuberculosis was found in both the husband and wife. Widows, whose husbands died from phthisis, were only rarely seen todevelop the disease. "

[60] In 9th Trans. Of _American Association for the Study and Preventionof Tuberculosis_, p. 117. 

[61] _Geographical and Historical Pathology_ (New Sydenham Society, 1883), Vol. III, p. 266. 

[62] Reid, G. Archdall, _The Present Evolution of Man_, and _The Laws ofHeredity_. 

[63] _In the South Seas, _ p. 27; quoted by G. Archdall Reid, _ThePrinciples of Heredity_ (New York, 1905), p. 183. Dr. Reid has discussedthe rôle of disease and alcohol on the modern evolution of man morefully than any other writer. 

[64] See, for example, John West's _History of Tasmania_, Vol. II, Launceston, Tasmania, 1852. 

[65] See Hollingworth, H. L. , _Vocational Psychology_, p. 170, New York, 1916. 

[66] Net increase here refers only to the first year of life, and wascomputed by deducting the deaths under one year, in a ward, from thenumber of births in the same ward for the same year. For details of thisstudy of the Pittsburgh vital statistics, see the _Journal of Heredity_, Vol. VIII, pp. 178-183 (April, 1917). 

[67] Quoted from Newsholme and Stevenson, _The Decline of HumanFertility_, London, 1906. 

[68] Heron, David, _On the Relation of Fertility in Man to SocialStatus_, London, 1906. The account is quoted from Schuster, Edgar, _Eugenics_, pp. 220-221, London, 1913. 

[69] _Ztschft. F. Sozialwissenschaft, _ VII (1904), pp. 1 ff. 

[70] Two of the best known of these tribes are the "Jukes" and "Nams. ""An analysis of the figures of the Jukes in regard to the birth-rateshows that of a total of 403 married Juke women, 330 reproduced one ormore children and 73 were barren. The average fecundity, counting thosewho are barren, is 3. 526 children per female. The 330 women havingchildren have an average fecundity of 4. 306 as compared with that of4. 025, based on 120 reproducing women in the Nam family. "--Estabrook, A. H. , _The Jukes in 1915_, p. 51, Washington, Carnegie Institution, 1916. 

[71] Woods, Frederick Adams, _Heredity in Royalty_, New York, 1906. 

[72] Beeton, Miss M. , Yule, G. U. , and Pearson, Karl, _On the Correlationbetween Duration of Life and the Number of Offspring_, Proc. R. S. London, 67 (1900), pp. 159-171. The material consisted of English andAmerican Quaker families. Dr. Bell's work is based on old Americanfamilies, and has not yet been published. 

[73] The entire field of race betterment and social improvement isdivided between _eugenics_, which considers only germinal or heritablechanges in the race; and _euthenics_, which deals with improvement inthe individual, and in his environment. Of course, no sharp line can bedrawn between the two spheres, each one having many indirect effects onthe other. It is important to note, however, that any change in theindividual during his prenatal life is euthenic, not eugenic. Therefore, contrary to the popular idea of the case, the "Better Babies" movement, the agitation for proper care of expectant mothers, and the like, arenot _directly_ a part of eugenics. The moment of conception is the pointat which eugenics gives place to euthenics. Eugenics is therefore the_fundamental_ method of human progress, euthenics the _secondary_ one;their relations will be further considered in the last chapter of thisbook. 

[74] The clan has now reached its ninth generation and its presentstatus has been exhaustively studied by A. H. Estabrook (_The Jukes in1915_: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1916). He enumerates 2, 820individuals, of whom half are still living. In the early 80's they lefttheir original home and are now scattered all over the country. Thechange in environment has enabled some of them to rise to a higherlevel, but on the whole, says C. B. Davenport in a preface toEstabrook's book, they "still show the same feeble-mindedness, indolence, licentiousness and dishonesty, even when not handicapped bythe associations of their bad family name and despite the fact of beingsurrounded by better social conditions. " Estabrook says the clan mighthave been exterminated by preventing the reproduction of its members, and that the nation would thereby have saved about $2, 500, 000. It isinteresting to note that "out of approximately 600 living feeble-mindedand epileptic Jukes, there are only three now in custodial care. "

[75] Key, Dr. Wilhelmina E. , _Feeble-minded Citizens in Pennsylvania_, pp. 11, 12, Philadelphia, Public Charities Assn. , 1915. 

[76] The most recent extensive study of this point is A. H. Estabrook's_The Jukes in 1915_ (Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1916). TheJukes migrated from their original home, in the mountains of New York, ageneration ago, and are now scattered all over the country. Estabrooktried to learn, at first hand, whether they had improved as the resultof new environments, and free from the handicap of their name, which fortheir new neighbors had no bad associations. In general, his findingsseem to warrant the conclusion that a changed environment in itself wasof little benefit. Such improvement as occurred in the tribe was ratherdue to marriage with better stock; marriages of this kind were made morepossible by the new environment, but the tendency to assortative matingrestricted them. It is further to be noted that while such marriages maybe good for the Juke family, they are bad for the nation as a whole, because they tend to scatter anti-social traits. 

[77] Key, _op. Cit. _, p. 7. 

[78] Figures furnished (September, 1917) by the National Committee forMental Hygiene, 50 Union Square, New York City. 

[79] This applies even to such an acute thinker as John Stuart Mill, whose ideas were formed in the pre-Darwinian epoch, and whose works mustnow be accepted with great reserve. Darwin was quite right in saying, "The ignoring of all transmitted mental qualities will, as it seems tome, be hereafter judged as a most serious blemish in the works of Mr. Mill. " (_Descent of Man_, p. _98_. ) A quotation from the _Principles ofPolitical Economy_ (Vol. 1, p. 389) will give an idea of Mr. Mill'spoint of view: "Of all the vulgar methods of escaping from the effectsof social and moral influences on the mind, the most vulgar is that ofattributing diversities of conduct and character to inherent naturaldifferences"!

[80] _Feeble-mindedness, its Causes and Consequences. _ By H. H. Goddard, director of the Research Laboratory of the Training School at Vineland, New Jersey, for feeble-minded boys and girls. New York, The MacmillanCo. , 1914. 

[81] Probably the word now covers a congeries of defects, some of whichmay be non-germinal. Epilepsy is so very generally found associated withvarious other congenital defects, that action should not be delayed. 

[82] Goddard, H. H. , _Feeble-Mindedness_, pp. 14-16. 

[83] See the recent studies of C. B. Davenport, particularly _The FeeblyInhibited_, Washington, Carnegie Institution, 1915. 

[84] In this connection diagnosis is naturally of the utmost importance. The recent action of Chicago, New York, Boston, and other cities, inestablishing psychological clinics for the examination of offenders is agreat step in advance. These clinics should be attached to the policedepartment, as in New York, not merely to the courts, and should pass onoffenders before, not after, trial and commitment. 

[85] As a result of psychiatric study of the inmates of Sing Sing in1916, it was said that two-thirds of them showed some mental defect. Examination of 100 convicts selected at random in the MassachusettsState Prison showed that 29% were feeble-minded and 11% borderlinecases. The highest percentage of mental defectives was found amongcriminals serving sentence for murder in the second degree, manslaughter, burglary and robbery. (Rossy, C. S. , in _State Board ofInsanity Bull. _, Boston, Nov. , 1915). Paul M. Bowers told the 1916meeting of the American Prison Association of his study of 100recidivists, each of whom had been convicted not fewer than four times. Of these 12 were insane, 23 feeble-minded and 10 epileptic, and in eachcase Dr. Bowers said the mental defect bore a direct causal relation tothe crime committed. Such studies argue for the need of a littleelementary biology in the administration of justice. 

[86] For a sane and cautious discussion of the subject see Wallin, J. E. W. , "A Program for the State Care of the Feeble-Minded and Epileptic, "_School and Society_, IV, pp. 724-731, New York, Nov. 11, 1916. 

[87] Johnstone, E. R. , "Waste Land Plus Waste Humanity, " _TrainingSchool Bulletin_, XI, pp. 60-63, Vineland, N. J. , June, 1914. 

[88] "Report of the Committee on the Sterilization of Criminals, "_Journal of the Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology_, September, 1916. Of the operations mentioned, 634 are said to have been performedon insane persons and one on a criminal. 

[89] Guyer, M. F. , Wisconsin Eugenics Legislation. Trans. Amer. Asso. Study and Prevention of Infant Mortality, 1917, pp. 92-97. 

[90] Eugenics Record Office, Bulletin No. 10 A, _The Scope of theCommittee's Work_, Cold Spring Harbor, L. I. , Feb. , 1914; No. 10 B, _TheLegal, Legislative and Administrative Aspects of Sterilization_, samedate. 

[91] Eugenics Record Office Bulletin No. 9: _State Laws LimitingMarriage Selection Examined in the Light of Eugenics_. Cold SpringHarbor, L. I. , June, 1913. 

[92] Penrose, Clement A. , _Sanitary Conditions in the Bahama Islands_, Geographical Society of Baltimore, 1905. 

[93] See von. Gruber and Rüdin, _Fortpflanzung, Vererbung, Rassenhygiene_, p. 169, München, 1911. 

[94] Davenport, Charles B. , _Heredity in Relation to Eugenics_, pp. 184ff. , New York, 1911. 

[95] Harris, J. Arthur, "Assortative Mating in Man, " _Popular ScienceMonthly_, LXXX, pp. 476-493, May, 1912. The most important studies onthe subject are cited by Dr. Harris. 

[96] An interesting and critical treatment of sexual selection is givenby Vernon L. Kellogg in _Darwinism To-day_, pp. 106-128 (New York, 1908). Darwin's own discussion (_The Descent of Man_) is still very wellworth reading, if the reader is on his guard. The best general treatmentof the theory of sexual selection, especially as it applies to man, isin chapter XI of Karl Pearson's _Grammar of Science_ (2d ed. , London, 1900). 

[97] Diffloth, Paul, _Le Fin de L'Enigme_, Paris, 1907. 

[98] The best popular yet scientific treatment of the subject we haveseen is _The Dynamic of Manhood_, a book recently written by Luther H. Gulick for the Young Men's Christian Association (New York, TheAssociation Press, 1917). 

[99] The sympathy which we mentioned as the beginning of thehypothetical love affair does lead to a partial identity of will, it istrue; but there is often too little in common between the man and womanto make this identity at all complete. As Karl Pearson points out, it isalmost essential to a successful marriage that two people have sympathywith each other's aims and a considerable degree of similarity inhabits. If such a bond is lacking, the bond of sympathy aroused by sometrivial circumstance will not be sufficient to keep the marriage fromshipwreck. The occasional altruism of young men who marry inferior girlsbecause they "feel sorry for them" is not praiseworthy. 

[100] Ellis, Havelock, _The Task of Social Hygiene_, pp. 208-209, Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co. , 1912. 

[101] G. Stanley Hall (_Adolescence_, II, 113) found the followingpoints, in order, specified as most admired in the other sex by youngmen and women in their teens: eyes, hair, stature and size, feet, eyebrows, complexion, cheeks, form of head, throat, ears, chin, hands, neck, nose. The voice was highly specialized and much preferred. Theprincipal dislikes, in order, were: prominent or deep-set eyes, fullnessof neck, ears that stand out, eyebrows that meet, broad and long feet, high cheek-bones, light eyes, large nose, small stature, long neck orteeth, bushy brows, pimples, red hair. An interesting study of some ofthe trivial traits of manner which may be handicaps in sexual selectionis published by Iva Lowther Peters in the _Pedagogical Seminary_, XXIII, No. 4, pp. 550-570, Dec. , 1916. 

[102] It has been suggested that the same goal would be reached if ayoung man before marriage would take out a life insurance policy in thename of his bride. The suggestion has many good points. 

[103] The correlation between fecundity and longevity which Karl Pearsonhas demonstrated gives longevity another great advantage as a standardin sexual selection. See _Proc. Royal Soc. London_, Vol. 67, p. 159. 

[104] It is objected that if the long-lived marry each other, theshort-lived will also marry each other and thus the race will gain nomore than it loses. The reply to this is that the short-lived will marryin fewer numbers, as some of them die prematurely; that they will havefewer children; and that these children in turn will tend to die young. Thus the short-lived strains will gradually run out, while thelong-lived strains are disseminated. 

[105] Hankins, F. H. , "The Declining Birth-Rate, " _Journal of Heredity_, V, pp. 36-39, August, 1914. 

[106] Smith, Mary Roberts, "Statistics of College and Non-collegeWomen, " Quarterly Pubs. Of the _American Statistical Assn. _, VII, p. 1ff. , 1900. 

[107] "Statistics of Eminent Women, " _Pop. Sci. Mo. _, June, 1913. 

[108] "Marriage of College Women, " _Century Magazine_, Oct. , 1895. 

[109] Blumer, J. O. , in _Journal of Heredity_, VIII, p. 217, May, 1917. 

[110] The statistics of this and the following middle west universitieswere presented by Paul Popenoe in the _Journal of Heredity_, VIII, pp. 43-45. 

[111] _Harvard Graduates' Magazine_, XXV, No. 97, pp. 25-34, September, 1916. 

[112] Popenoe, Paul, "Stanford's Marriage-Rate, " _Journal of Heredity_, VIII, p. 170-173. 

[113] Banker, Howard J. , "Co-education and Eugenics, " _Journal ofHeredity_, VIII, pp. 208-214, May, 1917. 

[114] _Eugenics: Twelve University Lectures_, p. 9, New York, 1914. 

[115] Cf. Gould, Miriam C. , "The Psychological Influence upon AdolescentGirls of the Knowledge of Prostitution and Venereal Disease, " _SocialHygiene_, Vol. II, pp. 191-207, April, 1916. This interesting andimportant study of the reactions of 50 girls reveals that presentmethods or indifference to the need of reasonable methods of teachingsex-hygiene are responsible for "a large percentage of harmful results, such as conditions bordering on neurasthenia, melancholia, pessimism andsex antagonism. "

[116] Gallichan, Walter M. , _The Great Unmarried_, New York, 1916. 

[117] Sprague, Robert J. , "Education and Race Suicide, " _Journal ofHeredity_, Vol. VI, pp. 158 ff. , April, 1915. Many of the statistics ofwomen's colleges, cited in the first part of this chapter, are from Dr. Sprague's paper. 

[118] Odin calculated that 16% of the eminent men of France had at leastone relative who was in some way eminent; that 22% of the men of realtalent had such relation; and that among the geniuses the percentagerose to 40. There are thus two chances out of five that a man of geniuswill have an eminent relative; for a man picked at random from thepopulation the chance is one in several thousand. See Odin, A. , _LaGenése des Grands Hommes_, Vol. I, p. 432 and Vol. II, Tableau xii, Lausanne, 1895. 

[119] Crum, Frederick S. , "The Decadence of the Native American Stock, "_Quarterly Pubs. Am. Statistical Assn. _, XIV, n. S. 107, pp. 215-223, Sept. , 1914. 

[120] Kuczynski, R. R. , _Quarterly Journ. Of Economics_, Nov. 1901, andFeb. , 1902. 

[121] Nearing, Scott, "The Younger Generation of American Genius, " _TheScientific Monthly_, II, pp. 48-61, Jan. , 1916. "GeographicalDistribution of American Genius, " _Popular Science Monthly_, II, August, 1914. 

[122] In the chapter on Sexual Selection it was shown that the NormalSchool girls who stood highest in their classes married earliest. Thismay seem a contradiction of the Wellesley marriage rates in this table. The explanation probably is that while mental superiority is itselfattractive in a mate, there are interferences built up in the collegiatelife. 

[123] Banker, Howard J. , "Co-education and Eugenics, " _Journal ofHeredity_, VIII, pp. 208-214, May, 1917. 

[124] Hill, Joseph A. , "Comparative Fecundity of Women of Native andForeign Parentage, " _Quarterly Pubs. Amer. Statistical Assn. _, XIII, 583-604. 

[125] See Willcox, W. F. , "Fewer Births and Deaths: What Do They Mean?"_Journal of Heredity_, VII, pp. 119-128, March, 1916. 

[126] The data are published in full by Paul Popenoe in the _Journal ofHeredity_, October, 1917. It must be noted that, in spite of their smallsalaries, the Methodist clergymen marry earlier and have more childrenthan do other men of equal education and social status, such as theHarvard and Yale graduates. This difference in marriage and birth-rateis doubtless to be credited in part to their inherent nature and in partto the action of religious idealism. It confirms the belief of eugeniststhat even under present economic circumstances the birth-rate of thesuperior classes might be raised appreciably by a campaign of eugeniceducation. 

[127] For an official statement of the attitude of the birth-rate of theMormon church, see _Journal of Heredity_, VII, pp. 450-451, Oct. , 1916. 

[128] Mecklin, John M. , _Democracy and Race Friction, a Study in SocialEthics_, New York, 1914. P. 147. 

[129] It would be more accurate to say the Nordic race. Other whiteraces have not uniformly shown this discrimination. The Mediterraneanrace in particular has never manifested the same amount of race feeling. The Arabs have tended to receive the Negro almost on terms of equality, partly on religious grounds; it seems probable that the decadence of theArabs is largely due to their miscegenation. 

[130] Mecklin, _op. Cit. _, p. 147. 

[131] Blascoer, Frances, _Colored School Children in New York_, PublicEducation Association of the City of New York, 1915. The preface, fromwhich the quotation is taken, is by Eleanor Hope Johnson, chairman ofthe committee on hygiene of school children. 

[132] Mecklin, _op. Cit. _, p. 32. 

[133] The Negro's contribution has perhaps been most noteworthy inmusic. This does not necessarily show advanced evolution; AugustWeismann long ago pointed out that music is a primitive accomplishment. For an outline of what the Negro race has achieved, particularly inAmerica, see the _Negro Year Book_, Tuskegee Institute, Ala. 

[134] _Social Problems; Their Treatment, Past, Present and Future_, p. 8, London, 1912. 

[135] Stetson, G. R. , "Memory Tests on Black and White Children, "_Psych. Rev. _, 1897, p. 285. See also MacDonald, A. , in _Rep. U. S. Comm. Of Educ. , _ 1897-98. 

[136] Mayo, M. J. , "The Mental Capacity of the American Negro, " _Arch. Of Psych. _, No. 28. 

[137] Phillips, B. A. , "Retardation in the Elementary Schools ofPhiladelphia, " _Psych. Clinic_, VI, pp. 79-90; "The Binet Tests Appliedto Colored Children, " _ibid. _, VIII, pp. 190-196. 

[138] Strong, A. C. , _Ped. Sem. _, XX, pp. 485-515. 

[139] Pyle, W. H. , "The Mind of the Negro Child, " _School and Society_, I, pp. 357-360. 

[140] Ferguson, G. O. , Jr. , "The Psychology of the Negro, " _Arch. OfPsych. _ No. 36, April, 1916. 

[141] Though the Negro is not assimilable, he is here to stay; he shouldtherefore be helped to develop along his own lines. It is desirable notto subject him to too severe a competition with whites; yet suchcompetition, acting as a stimulus, is probably responsible for part ofhis rapid progress during the last century, a progress which would nothave been possible in a country where Negroes competed only with eachother. The best way to temper competition is by differentiation offunction, but this principle should not be carried to the extent ofpocketing the Negro in blind-alley occupations where development isimpossible. As mental tests show him to be less suited to literaryeducation than are the whites, it seems likely that agriculture offersthe best field for him. 

[142] This letter, and much of the data regarding the legal status ofNegro-white amalgamation, are from an article by Albert Ernest Jenks inthe _Am. Journ. Sociology_, XXI, 5, pp. 666-679, March, 1916. 

[143] A recent readable account of the races of the world is MadisonGrant's _The Passing of the Great Race_ (New York, 1916). 

[144] _The Old World in the New. _ By E. A. Ross, professor of Sociologyin the University of Wisconsin, New York, 1914. 

[145] Cf. Stevenson, Robert Louis, _The Amateur Emigrant_. 

[146] Interview with W. Williams, former commissioner of immigration, inthe _New York Herald_, April 13, 1912. 

[147] Of the total number of inmates of insane asylums of the entire U. S. Of Jan. 1, 1910, 28. 8% were whites of foreign birth, and of thepersons admitted to such institutions during the year 1910, 25. 5% wereof this class. Of the total population of the United States in 1910 theforeign-born whites constituted 14. 5%. Special report on the insane, Census of 1910 (pub. 1914). 

[148] _The Tide of Immigration. _ By Frank Julian Warne, special experton foreign-born population, 13th U. S. Census, New York, 1916. 

[149] _Essays in Social Justice. _ By Thomas Nixon Carver, professor ofPolitical Economy in Harvard University, Cambridge, 1915. 

[150] Fairchild's and Jenks' opinions are quoted from Warne, ChapterXVI. 

[151] _America and the Orient: A Constructive Policy_, by Rev. Sidney L. Gulick, Methodist Book Concern. The _American Japanese Problem: a Studyof the Racial Relations of the East and West_, New York, Scribner's. 

[152] _Oriental Immigration. _ By W. C. Billings, surgeon, U. S. PublicHealth Service; Chief Medical Officer, Immigration Service; Angel Island(San Francisco), Calif. , _Journal of Heredity_, Vol. VI (1915), pp. 462-467. 

[153] _Assimilation in the Philippines, etc. _ By Albert Ernest Jenks, professor of anthropology in the University of Minnesota. _AmericanJournal of Sociology_, Vol. XIX (1914), p. 783. 

[154] Students of the inheritance of mental and moral traits may beinterested to note that while the ordinary Chinese mestizo in thePhilippines is a man of probity, who has the high regard of his Europeanbusiness associates, the Ilocanos, supposed descendants of pirates, areconsidered rather tricky and dishonest. 

[155] An important study of this subject was published by ProfessorVernon L. Kellogg in _Social Hygiene_ (New York), Dec, 1914. 

[156] Nasmyth, George, _Social Progress and the Darwinian Theory_, p. 146, New York, 1916. While his book is too partisan, his Chapter III iswell worth reading by those who want to avoid the gross blunders whichmilitarists and many biologists have made in applying Darwinism tosocial progress; it is based on the work of Professor J. Novikov of theUniversity of Odessa. See also _Headquarters Nights_ by Vernon Kellogg. 

[157] Jordan, D. S. , and Jordan, H. E. , _War's Aftermath_, Boston, 1915. 

[158] Jordan, David Starr, _War and the Breed_, p. 164. Boston, 1915. Chancellor Jordan has long been the foremost exponent of the dysgenicsignificance of war, and this book gives an excellent summary of theproblem from his point of view. 

[159] See Woods, Frederick Adams, and Baltzly, Alexander, _Is WarDiminishing_? New York, 1916. 

[160] See an interesting series of five articles in _The AmericanHebrew_, Jan and Feb. , 1917. 

[161] _Journal of Heredity_, VIII, pp. 277-283, June, 1917. 

[162] _The Early Life of Abraham Lincoln_, New York, 1896. For theEmancipator's maternal line see _Nancy Hanks_, by Caroline HanksHitchcock. New York, 1899. 

[163] _The Life of Pasteur_ by his son-in-law, René Vallery Radot, should be read by every student of biology. 

[164] Hollingworth, H. L. , _Vocational Psychology_, pp. 212-213, NewYork, 1916. 

[165] Sir Francis Galton and C. B. Davenport have called attention tothe probable inheritance of artistic ability and lately H. Drinkwater(_Journal of Genetics_, July, 1916), has attempted to prove that it isdue to a Mendelian unit. The evidence alleged is inadequate to provethat the trait is inherited in any particular way, but the pedigreescited by these three investigators, and the boyhood histories of suchartists as Benjamin West, Giotto, Ruskin and Turner, indicate that anhereditary basis exists. 

[166] The difficulty about accepting such traits as this is that theyare almost impossible of exact definition. The long teaching experienceof Mrs. Evelyn Fletcher-Copp (_Journal of Heredity_, VII, 297-305, July, 1916) suggests that any child of ordinary ability can and will composemusic if properly taught, but of course in different degree. 

[167] Seashore, C. E. , in _Psychol. Monogs, _ XIII, No. 1, pp. 21-60, Dec. , 1910. See also Fletcher-Copp, _ubi sup. _ Mrs. Copp declares thatthe gift of "positive pitch" or "absolute pitch, " i. E. , the ability toname any sound that is heard, "may be acquired, speaking veryconservatively, by 80% of normal children, " if they begin at an earlyage. It may be that this discrepancy with Seashore's careful laboratorytests is due to the fact that the pupils and teachers trained by Mrs. Copp are a selected lot, to start with. 

[168] The contributions on this subject are very widely scatteredthrough periodical literature. The most important is Karl Pearson'smemoir (1914), reviewed in the _Journal of Heredity_, VI, pp. 332-336, July, 1915. See also Gini, Corrado, "The Superiority of the Eldest, "_Journal of Heredity_, VI, 37-39, Jan. , 1915. 

[169] _Journal of Heredity_, VIII, pp. 299-302, July, 1917. 

[170] _Biometrika_, IV, pp. 233-286, London, 1905. 

[171] See, for example, _Journal of Heredity_, VIII, pp. 394-396, September, 1917. A large body of evidence from European sources, bearingon the relation between various characters of the offspring, and the ageof the parents, was brought together by Corrado Gini in Vol. II, _Problems in Eugenics_ (London, 1913). 

[172] Davenport, Charles B. , "The Personality, Heredity and Work ofCharles Otis Whitman, " _American Naturalist_, LI, pp. 5-30, Jan. , 1917. 

[173] Gillette, John M. , _Constructive Rural Sociology_, p. 89, NewYork, 1916. 

[174] Cook, O. F. , "Eugenics and Agriculture, " _Journal of Heredity_, VII, pp. 249-254, June, 1916. 

[175] Gillette, John M. , "A Study in Social Dynamics: A StatisticalDetermination of the Rate of Natural Increase and of the FactorsAccounting for the Increase of Population in the United States, "_Quarterly Publications of the American Statistical Association, _ n. S. 116, Vol. XV, pp. 345-380, December, 1916. 

[176] The popular demand for "equality of opportunity" is, if takenliterally, absurd, in the light of the provable inequality of abilities. What is wanted is more correctly defined as an equal consideration ofall with an _appropriate_ opportunity for each based on his demonstratedcapacities. 

[177] _Essays in Social Justice. _ By Thomas Nixon Carver, HarvardUniversity Press, 1915, pp. 168-169. 

[178] Answering the question "How Much is a Man Worth?" Professor Carverstates the following axioms:

"The value of a man equals his production minus his consumption. "

"His economic success equals his acquisition minus his consumption. "

"When his acquisition equals his production then his economic successequals his value. "

"It is the duty of the state to make each man's acquisition equal hisproduction. That is justice. "

Of course, "production" is here used in a broad sense, to mean the realsocial value of the services rendered, and not merely the presentexchange value of the services, or the goods produced. 

[179] Kornhauser, A. W. , "Economic Standing of Parents and theIntelligence of their Children, " _Jour. Of Educ. Psychology_, Vol. IX. , pp. 159-164, March, 1918. 

[180] The coefficient of contingency is similar in significance to thecoefficient of correlation, with which readers have already becomefamiliar. Miss Perrin's study is in _Biometrika_, III (1904), pp. 467-469. 

[181] "The Social Waste of Unguided Personal Ability. " By Erville B. Woods, _American Journal of Sociology_, XIX (1913), pp. 358-369. 

[182] See also "Eugenics: With Special Reference to Intellect andCharacter, " by E. L. Thorndike. In _Eugenics: Twelve UniversityLectures_, pp. 319-342, New York, 1914. 

[183] See U. S. Department of Labor, Children's Bureau Publication, No. 7, "Laws Relating to Mothers' Pensions in the United States, Denmark andNew Zealand, " Washington, 1914. 

[184] _American Journal of Sociology_, Vol. XX, No. 1, pp. 96-103, July, 1914. 

[185] According to Captain (now Lt. Col. ) E. B. Vedder of the MedicalCorps, U. S. A. , 50% of the Negroes of the class applying for enlistmentin the army are syphilitic. He believes that the amount of infectionamong Negro women is about the same. (_Therapeutic Gazette_, May 15, 1916. ) Venereal disease must, then, play a much more important part thanis generally supposed, in cutting down the birth-rate of the Negro race, but it would of course be a mistake to suppose that an abnormally lowbirth-rate among Negroes is always to be explained on this ground. Professor Kelly Miller points out (_Scientific Monthly_, June, 1917)that the birth-rate among college professors at Howard University, theleading Negro institution for higher education, is only 0. 7 of a childand that the completed families will hardly have more than two children. He attributes this to (1) the long period of education required of Negro"intellectuals", (2) the high standard of living required of them, and(3) the unwillingness of some of them to bring children into the world, because of the feeling that these children would suffer from raceprejudice. 

[186] One can not draw a hard and fast distinction between reason andinstinct in this way, nor deny to animals all ability to reason. We havesimplified the case to make it more graphic. The fact that higheranimals may have mental processes corresponding to some of those we callreason in man does not impair the validity of our generalization, forthe present purpose. 

[187] See _Jewish Eugenics and Other Essays_, By Rabbi Max Reichler, NewYork, Bloch Publishing Co. , 1916. 

[188] Dublin, Louis I. , "Significance of the Declining Birth Rate, "_Congressional Record_, Jan. 11, 1918. 

[189] At the request of Alexander Graham Bell, founder and director ofthe Genealogical Record Office, Paul Popenoe made an examination andreport on these records in the fall of 1916. Thanks are due to Dr. Bellfor permitting the use in this chapter of two portions of theinvestigation. 

[190] Beeton, Mary, and Karl Pearson, _Biometrika_ I, p. 60. The actualcorrelation varies with the age and sex: the following are the results:

 COLLATERAL INHERITANCE

 Elder adult brother and younger adult brother . 2290 ± . 0194 Adult brother and adult brother . 2853 ± . 0196 Minor brother and minor brother . 1026 ± . 0294 Adult brother and minor brother -. 0262 ± . 0246 Elder adult sister and younger adult sister . 3464 ± . 0183 Adult sister and adult sister . 3322 ± . 0185 Minor sister and minor sister . 1748 ± . 0307 Adult sister and minor sister -. 0260 ± . 0291 Adult brother and adult sister . 2319 ± . 0145 Minor brother and minor sister . 1435 ± . 0251 Adult brother and minor sister -. 0062 ± . 0349 Adult sister and minor brother -. 0274 ± . 0238

[191] The method used is the ingenious one devised by J. Arthur Harris(_Biometrika_ IX, p. 461). The probable error is based on n=100. 

[192] A. Ploetz, "Lebensdauer der Eltern und Kindersterblichkeit, "_Archiv für Rassen-u Gesellschafts-Biologie_, VI (1909), pp. 33-43. 

[193] Or it may be supposed that the environment is so good as to make anon-selective death less likely, and therefore such deaths as do occurmust more frequently be selective. 

[194] Hibbs, Henry H. , Jr. , _Infant Mortality: Its Relation to Socialand Industrial Conditions_, New York, 1916. 

[195] See Castle, W. E. , _Heredity_, pp. 30-32, New York, 1911. 

[196] Doll, E. A. , "Education and Inheritance, " _Journal of Education_, Feb. 1, 1917. 

[197] Atwater's celebrated experiments proved that all the energy (food)which goes into an animal can be accounted for in the output of heat orwork. They are conveniently summarized in Abderhalden's _Text-book ofPhysiological Chemistry_, p. 335. 

[198] In this connection see farther Raymond Pearl's review of Mr. Redfield's "Dynamic Evolution" (_Journal of Heredity_) VI, p. 254, andPaul Popenoe's review, "The Parents of Great Men, " _Journal ofHeredity_, VIII, pp. 400-408. 

[199] See Dr. Hrdlicka's communication to the XIXth InternationalCongress of Americanists, Dec. 28, 1915 (the proceedings were publishedat Washington, in March, 1917); or an account in the _Journal ofHeredity_, VIII, pp. 98 ff. , March, 1917. 

[200] Cf. Grant, Madison, _The Passing of the Great Race_p. 74 (NewYork, 1916): "One often hears the statement made that native Americansof Colonial ancestry are of mixed ethnic origin. This is not true. Atthe time of the Revolutionary War the settlers in the 13 colonies werenot only purely Nordic, but also purely Teutonic, a very large majoritybeing Anglo-Saxon in the most limited meaning of that term. The NewEngland settlers in particular came from those counties in England wherethe blood was almost purely Saxon, Anglian, and Dane. "

[201] Comprising Armenians, Croatians, English, Greeks, Russian Jews, Irish, South Italians, North Italians, Magyars, Poles, Rumanians andRussians, 500 individuals in all. 

[202] English data from K. Pearson, _Biometrika_ V, p. 124. 

[203] Pearson (_ubi supra_) measured 12-year-old English schoolchildren, and found the average cephalic index for 2298 boys to be78. 88, with [Greek: s] = 3. 2, for 2188 girls 78. 43, with [Greek: s] =3. 9. It is not proper to compare adolescents with adults, however. 

[204] Sewall Wright has pointed out (_Journal of Heredity_, VIII, p. 376) that the white blaze in the hair can not be finally classed asdominant or recessive until the progeny of _two_ affected persons havebeen seen. All matings so far studied have been between an affectedperson and a normal. It may be that the white blaze (or piebaldism)represents merely a heterozygous condition, and that the trait is reallya recessive. The same argument applies to brachydactyly. 

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