"When Martin, Sr., of the good family, was a boy of fifteen, his father died, leaving him without parental care or oversight. Just before attaining his majority, the young man joined one of the numerous military companies that were formed to protect the country at the

Legitimate line on left all members normal.

Illegitimate line on right-many members feeble-minded. beginning of the Revolution. At one of the taverns frequented by the militia he met a feeble-minded girl by whom he became the father of a feeble-minded son. This child was given, by its mother, the name of the father in full, and thus has been handed down to posterity the father's name and the mother's mental capacity. This

illegitimate boy was Martin Kallikak, Jr., the great-greatgrandfather of our Deborah, and from him have come four hundred and eighty descendants. One hundred and forty-three of these, we have conclusive proof, were or are feeble-minded, while only forty-six have been found normal. The rest are unknown or doubtful.

Among these four hundred and eighty descendants, thirty-six have been illegitimate.

"There have been thirty-three sexually immoral persons, mostly prostitutes.

"There have been twenty-four confirmed alcoholics. "There have been three epileptics.

"Eighty-two died in infancy.

"Three were criminal.

"Eight kept houses of ill fame.

"These people have married into other families, generally of about the same type, so that we now have on record and charted eleven hundred and forty-six individuals.

"Martin, Sr., on leaving the Revolutionary Army, straightened up and married a respectable girl of good family, and through that union has come another line of descendants of radically different character. These now number four hundred and ninety-six in direct descent. All of them are normal people. Three men only have been found among them who were somewhat degenerate, but they were not defective. Two of these were alcoholic, and the other sexually loose.

"All of the legitimate children of Martin, Sr., married into the best families in their state, the descendants of colonial governors, signers of the Declaration of Independence, soldiers and even the founders of a great university. Indeed, in this family and its collateral branches, we

find nothing but good representative citizenship. There are doctors, lawyers, judges, educators, traders, landholders, in short, respectable citizens, men and women prominent in every phase of social life. They have scattered over the United States and are prominent in their communities wherever they have gone.'

A study of the following charts will help to make clear the evidence:

INHERITANCE OF FEEBLE-MINDEDNESS

10

These three cases chosen practically at random from the hundreds at hand illustrate the various aspects of the problem. In the first we have the intermarriage of related lines which carry the common characteristic, illegitimacy, incest, many deaths of infants and a large percentage of feeble-minded. In the second we see again the results of the marriage of two affected individuals and also the effects of crossing a normal stock with one affected even though the individual person is normal. In the third we have another illustration wherein the father of normal stock has only normal children by his first

9 GODDARD, H. H. The Kallikak Family, p. 18 ff.

10 GODDARD, H. H.

Feeble-mindedness (redrawn), p. 158.

normal wife, while on remarrying later a feeble-minded woman at least three of his children are known to be afflicted.

To make detailed inquiry into the causes of feeblemindedness would be inappropriate here, so a general statement must suffice. The illustrations given indicate clearly the possibility of its inheritance. It is probable that within the group we now call feeble-minded are two classes of persons; first, those whose defect has come down

from earlier generations; second, those who have been crippled by accident or disease. From an educational or economic viewpoint, these groups are practically alike, biologically they are fundamentally different. The most serious objection to the old explanation in terms of accident and disease lies in the fact already stated, that two affected parents do not have normal children, but their children should be normal if the condition resulted from untoward circumstances of life. Moreover, when we increase our surveys of the families of the feeble-minded we almost always discover a lot of cases among the relatives or ancestors hitherto unknown. It is also a striking fact that the percentage apparently coming from perfectly normal families is nearly 50 among the idiots and not more than 25 among the higher imbeciles. Malnutrition, or a failure to develop normally, seems to characterize this lowest group which is so weak that it seldom reaches physical maturity. There is, then, no reproduction from