"Thus asylums, retreats, hospitals, and so forth, have been established by private munificence or public grants. More or less under the protection of these institutions has grown up a body of semi-dependents and defectives whose increase it is that excites the apprehension of the eugenists. That in the past such individuals have always formed a part of our race cannot be doubted, but that they ever showed a tendency to increase comparable with what seems to be occurring at present is highly improbable. The occasion of this increase is not, in my opinion, merely the exigencies of modern civilization; it is at least in part due to the immense spread of humanitarian activities which have characterized the last century of our civilization."
If Andrew Carnegie were to give $100,000,000 for the support of paupers in the United States and Great Britain, and another $100,000,000 for the saving and kindly treatment and support of imbeciles and incompetents, more continuous harm to the race would result, by securing the survival of the unfit, than would result from a perpetual war between any two of the nations now engaged in the great European conflict.
As all charities thrive like a green bay tree in times of peace, and are neglected in times of war, it will be seen that charity alone in times of peace is more potent in securing the survival of the unfit than war could possibly be.
About here, the reader may conclude that I am just as inconsistent in advocating armaments to preserve peace, which, I hold, tends to foster degeneracy and decay, as are the pacifists who, by advocating disarmament, promote war, which, they hold, is most potential in fostering the same thing.
But this is not so striking an inconsistency as may first appear, because, as I have shown, nation-wide military training, such as that practised in Switzerland, would make for regeneracy and efficiency far more than all our charities, vices, and profligacy make for degeneracy and decay. No branch of education—not even all the prevalent preachments on the subjects of hygiene, moral reform, cleanliness, temperance, and right living—would be so influential for betterment as would the introduction of the Swiss system of military training.
In order to be a good soldier, a man must be fit, just as a college athlete must be fit; and military training, like the training of the college athlete, compels him to observe the hygienic laws of right living.
We grow upon what we do and what we eat. If we live on an unbalanced food, which supplies too much of one kind of nourishment and too little of another, we become unbalanced in body and mind. Similarly, if our occupation exercises some of our organs and faculties too much and others not enough, we become unbalanced in body and mind.
The saying is trite that a sound mind requires a sound body. Likewise, a balanced mind must have a balanced body.