Being Well-Born: An Introduction to Eugenics

BEING WELL-BORN
AN INTRODUCTION TO EUGENICS
By MICHAEL F. GUYER, Ph. D. Professor of Zoology, The University of Wisconsin
Childhood and Youth Series Edited by M. V. O’SHEA Professor of Education, The University of Wisconsin
INDIANAPOLIS THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY PUBLISHERS
Copyright 1916 The Bobbs-Merrill Company
PRESS OF BRAUNWORTH & CO. BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS BROOKLYN, N. Y.
TO MY WIFE HELEN M. GUYER
The writer recalls that when he was a young boy, he heard the grown-up people in the community earnestly and incessantly debating the question: Does heredity play a greater part in shaping one’s mind and body than does his environment? From that day to this he has listened to men and women in every walk of life discussing the relation of heredity to environment in determining human traits. Teachers and parents are constantly asking: “Are such and such characteristics in my children due to their inheritance or to the way they have been trained?” Students of juvenile delinquency and of mental defect and deficiency are searching everywhere for light on this matter. It is not to be wondered at that practically all people are peculiarly interested in this problem, since it concerns intimately one’s personal traits, and it constantly confronts any one who is responsible for the care and culture of the young.
It is suggestive to note how people differ in their views regarding the extent to which a child’s physical and mental qualities and capacities are fixed definitely by his inheritance. The writer has often heard students in university classes discuss the subject; and their handling of the problem has shown how superficially and even superstitiously most persons regard the mechanism and functions of heredity. It is significant also to observe what extreme views many people hold regarding the possibility of affecting a child’s traits and abilities by subjecting him to specific influences during his prenatal life. In any group of one hundred persons chosen at random, probably seventy-five will believe in specific prenatal influence. Many of them will believe in birthmarks due to peculiar experiences of the mother. A popular book recently published asserts among other things that if a mother will look upon beautiful pictures and listen to good music during the prenatal period of her child, the latter will possess esthetic traits and interests in high degree. On the other hand, people generally do not seem to think that degenerate parents beget only degenerate children. Alcoholics, feeble-minded persons and the like are permitted to bring children into the world.