reproduction of the best. Stated thus every sensible person becomes at once an advocate, but great difficulties arise whenever we try to make concrete application of the idea.

Sterilization of the Unfit

Who are the "unfit" and by what measures is their reproduction to be stopped? Let us limit the discussion to biological unfitness. Take the feeble-minded as the best illustration. Every one agrees that they are undesirable either as children or as parents. It is patently absurd that the laws of most of our states do not forbid their marriage. But the lower grades are practically eliminated from the discussion for they seldom propagate. The higher grades care little for such prohibitions and will reproduce without reference to statutory requirements. We are driven then to advocate either their segregation, particularly of the women during childbearing years, or some surgical sterilization making parenthood impossible. The first policy will be immensely expensive. The second encounters great opposition because of the curious antagonism of some religious groups to any interference with reproduction and because of the fear that the great power with which some one would have to be invested might be abused. Oddly enough it is relatively easy to sterilize the male but the asexualization of the woman demands hospital conditions. As a punishment for certain crimes asexualization has been imposed (seldom carried out) in a few states.

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Since 1907 when the first law was passed, some twentythree states have enacted laws providing for sterilization and over 6,000 individuals had been treated up to 1925. In California, between 1911 and 1927, some 3,951 insane persons in institutions and, up to June 1, 1926, 1,054 feebleminded were asexualized. In most states and at most periods these laws have not been enforced. Regardless of their merits they are in advance of public sentiment. The

present status of the problem is most unsatisfactory. Adequate provision has not been made for segregation and all our institutions are overcrowded, with thousands not admitted. The cost of adequate care may force a change in public opinion which scientific evidence cannot effect. The argument that asexualization will increase the amount of sexual immorality has little weight to those who know the feeble-minded. The great difficulty lies in the fact that the subnormal shade into the normal, while thousands of normal folks are potential parents of subnormal children, as has been shown. But it is from the upper groups that most of the offspring come. The situation is one that calls for caution and long consideration. Unfortunately we cannot carry on breeding experiments as we would with lower animals to discover the best solution. Let us read what two men of long experience have to say.

Tredgold writes:

For my own part, I am convinced that the nation which wishes to escape degeneracy will sooner or later have to give serious consideration to the matter of the innate constitution of its citizens, and the manner in which that innate condition may be controlled by laws concerning marriage. Nevertheless, I do not think that any legislation on these lines is possible at present, for two reasons: Firstly, because the laws regarding hereditary transmission are not sufficiently known; and, secondly, because we have no data regarding the antecedents of the mass of the people. 42

Myerson also pleads for further study:

In other words, a study of those environmental forces which alter character and the general trends of the physical and psychical life of individuals must be linked up to a study of those environmental forces which alter these sets of qualities in a family group or the race. That long and arduous studies await us before we can even prepare to understand the problem of family mental disease needs no argument, but that is only an

other reason why they must be made. And especially must they be made before we leap into Legislatures with demands that this or that measure be carried out, before we call for the wholesale sterilization of the feeble-minded, the insane, the epileptic, and the criminal as blithely as if we knew all about the inheritance of mental disease when indeed we know remarkably little. We have a right, I think, to pass laws that no one shall conceal the fact of mental disease when entering upon marriage and that the concealment of such disease shall be a cause for annulment, whether or not the individual was insane at the time of marriage. We have a right to ask for the sterilization of those types of feeble-mindedness which we know to run in families. Wherever mental disease exists in a family group for more than one generation, it would be wise for society to sterilize those of the second generation who go to institutions. I do not believe we can ask for much more than this in the present state of our knowledge and we cannot afford to be unduly dogmatic.43

Breeding from the Best Strains

Positive eugenics is the attempt to improve the quality of race stock by encouraging the reproduction of the best strains. In the main it is now an ideal accompanied by a duty rather than an immediate program of social reform.

As a matter of fact, intelligent men and women have long given some consideration to eugenics. On the negative side they have often refused matrimony if they knew of some defect in the family line, or have sought mates coming from other strains. Health, strength and beauty-all indications of fitness-have often turned the scales. Few, however, have consciously thought to produce children with any given endowments. No doubt people can be trained to look on this or that type of suitor as undesirable. This now happens where race prejudice separates groups. The fundamental difficulty is that financial, social, political, religious considerations, rather than physical, loom so large in human choices.

Perchance this is not an unmixed evil. We breed plants or animals for specific purposes and they become more valuable as they are specialized. If society is to be controlled by some

autocrat, each citizen playing a rôle in large measure determined by the autocrat who decides whether a man shall be senator or woodchopper, or rather, decides how many senators or woodchoppers are needed, then specific and heritable qualities might be emphasized. But to most thoughtful men of to-day a beehive efficiency purchased at the cost of fixity of status does not seem a high ideal for society.

We are what we are, therefore, because of what our ancestors were, not because of what they did. Heredity sets the limits. Some day with greater knowledge we shall do more to check the unfit. Let us hope that we shall also create social ideals which will lead to more complete realization of innate possibilities unhampered by artificial and unwise restrictions.

I. E. G. CONKLIN, Development of Personality, pp. 126-127. 2. A. M. CARR-SAUNDERS, Eugenics, p. 56.

3. K. PEARSON, Treasury of Human Inheritance, Plate XXXV, Fig. 392.

4. M. F. GUYER, Being Well-Born (1st ed.), p. 110. 5. K. PEARSON, op. cit., Figs. 619, 708.

6. Ibid., Plate X, Figs. 62, 58.

M. F. GUYER, Being Well-Born (2d. ed.), p. 213. 8. A. F. TREDGOLD, Mental Deficiency (4th ed.), p. 9. 9. P. BAILEY, Mental Hygiene, April, 1920, p. 316. 10. A. F. TREDGOLD, op. cit., p. 23.

II. Ibid., p. 323.

12. Ibid., p. 26.

13. Ibid., p. 43, quoted from Eugenics Rev., July, 1913.

14. H. H. GODDARD, Feeble-Mindedness, p. 158, Redrawn.

15. Ibid., p. 94.

16. C. B. DAVENPORT, Heredity in Relation to Eugenics, pp.

78-79.

17. A MYERSON, The Inheritance of Mental Disease, p. 130. 18. Ibid., p. 176.

19. Ibid., p. 146.

20. Ibid., p. 100.

21. Ibid., p. 290.

22. M. F. GUYER, Being Well-Born, p. 344.

23. Ibid., p. 343.

24. Ibid., p. 337.

25. A. F. TREDGOLD, pp. 225-227.

26. M. F. GUYER, pp. 353-354

27. L. M. TERMAN, The Measurement of Intelligence, pp. 66-67. 28. A. E. WIGGAM, World's Work, Oct., 1926, p. 690.

29. A. M. CARR-SAUNDERS, op. cit., pp. 132-133.

30. A. E. WIGGAM, World's Work, Oct., 1926, gives most of facts used in this paragraph.

31. H. ELLIS, J. Anthrop. Inst., Vol. 33, pp. 179ff.

32. F. A. WOODS, Heredity in Royalty, p. 19.

33. Ibid., p. 301.

34. Ibid., p

35. Ibid..

36. F. 37. W

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ems of Eugenics, p. 250.

The Family and the Nation, p. 89. Sociology, p. 220.

13.

cit., p. 272.

NOE, discusses California policy in J. Soc. Hygiene,

y and June, 1927.

F. TREDGOLD, o cit., p. 538.

MYERSON op. cit., p. 320.