Practical Eugenics.
[GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS UPON "EDUCATION BEFORE PROCREATION."]
(Abstract.)
By Adolphe Pinard,
Professor at the Faculty; Member of the Academy of Medicine of Paris.
Sir Francis Galton has entitled Eugenics the new science having for its object the study of the causes subject to social control which can improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations, whether physical or mental.
Eugenics, thus defined, is nothing else but "Education before Procreation," which has been studied in France for a number of years, and which constitutes the first part of child-culture, "a science having for its object the search for information relative to the reproduction, preservation, and improvement of the human species"( [1]).
[ [1] v. De la Puériculture in Revue Scientifique, 1897.
The Congress ought then to have for its object to work for the investigation of the conditions necessary to secure a favourable procreation. Now, it appears that the word "Eugenics," from the etymological point of view, does not characterise either explicitly or sufficiently the proposed object, while the word "Eugénique," of [Greek: gennaô], at once recalls to the mind the idea of a favourable procreation( [2]).
[ [2] Besides, the word "Eugenics" recalls in France a chemical term: eugenic-acid.