Such a eugenic record as that of this Kallikak family should be reviewed in every high school and college in connection with the topic "heredity" in a course of biology, for it will teach two important lessons: (1) The biological principle that defects, both physical and mental, are highly heritable, even for many generations; and (2) the ethical responsibility for the sex actions of the individual who may start a long train of human disaster that may visit the children unto even later than the third and fourth generations. The first lesson is a purely biological one which suggests the eugenic argument that defective humans, like undesirable animals and plants, should not take part in the perpetuation of the species. The second lesson is not biological but ethical, suggesting individual responsibility for conduct which may disastrously affect other individuals' lives. It seems to me that so far as general education is concerned, the ethical lesson is the more impressive and more likely to lead to voluntary eugenic practice by individuals. It is my observation that even many intelligent people are not seriously impressed by the biological evidences for eugenics considered as a general problem, but their reaction is one of interest when one begins to present the question of ethical responsibility for the transmission of physical and mental defects to future generations. Such considerations have led me to the view, already suggested, that eugenic studies in courses of biology have their greatest practical value in their ethical implications, which, of course, by influencing individual responsibility for reproduction may lead to the desirable biological improvement of the human race. Teachers of biology should present, as an economic problem, the facts which will make better breeds of plants and animals by direct application of the biological laws of heredity; but they should present and apply parallel facts to human life in order to influence first of all individual responsibility for ethical control of reproductive activity, and thus indirectly work eugenically for an improved human race.
Aim of eugenics.
Thus the aim of eugenics is most likely to be attained through ethical rather than biological application of the teaching which our schools can give. The men and women who view life selfishly with no feelings of ethical responsibility towards others of the present or future will take no practical interest in the biological problems of human eugenics, although the economic problems of plant and animal breeding may interest some of these same people.
Education and other aspects of sex problems.
In addition to the ethical-social bearings of biological teaching, our sex-education will be incomplete until we learn how to attack the sex problems directly and effectively with reference to the ethical, social, psychical, and æsthetic aspects. Perhaps we may be able to do this only with mature people; probably it is too much to hope that even a serious impression will be made on all intelligent people; but somehow sex-education must be completed by adequate presentation of these aspects, for the problems of sex are satisfactorily solved only in the lives of those fortunate individuals whose vision of the relation of sex and life combines the viewpoints of biology, hygiene, psychology, ethics, religion, and last—but far from least—æsthetics.
Only essential knowledge of social diseases.
Finally, the educational application of the fourth aim demands some explanation. Sometime in the adolescent period all young people should learn the essential facts regarding the two social diseases and their relation to immoral living. There is the widespread impression that those advocating sex-education believe in giving great prominence to the social diseases; but in opposition to this I cite the report of a committee of the American Federation for Sex Hygiene, published in the Journal of the Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis, January, 1913, and later reprinted as a pamphlet by the American Social Hygiene Association. In that report there are twenty-three recommendations concerning sex-instruction; but only one mentions social diseases and in these words: "During the later period of adolescence ... there should be given ... special instruction as to the character and dangers of the venereal diseases." That seems sufficient. It is not desirable that young people should review the horrible facts relating to perverted sexuality. Ten or twenty brief and authoritative statements quoted impressively from medical and social literature ought to give fair warning of lurking dangers in immoral living. More extensive information has often proved dangerous. I would gladly advocate that this dark side of life be kept in sealed books if I did not know that so many young people need forewarning and definite guidance. Our educational system will not do its full duty if it fails to offer the needed help so that it may be obtained by all adolescent young people who are not so fortunate as to be guided by parents and other personal teachers.
FOOTNOTES:
[12] To avoid misunderstanding, let me repeat from the first lecture that I am constantly thinking of sex-education in the larger sense; and instruction in schools can be, at best, only a part.