What shall we do?
The Problem Has Two Phases.—For an intelligent consideration of the problem one must recognize at the outset that it has two distinct phases; namely, (1) a selective union of the fittest, or in other words, a conscious attempt to breed a superior race; and (2) the elimination of the obviously unfit by preventing their reproduction, with the purpose of purifying the present race. It is evident at a glance that these are two essentially distinct problems although the practise of either method could result in racial improvement. The first is sometimes spoken of as positive or constructive eugenics, the second as negative or restrictive eugenics.
Constructive Eugenics Must Be Based on Education.—As to the first phase, direct selection for superiority, the campaign must, in the very nature of things, be one of education. With the necessary knowledge of the facts in mind, the awakening conscience of the individual together with an enlightened public opinion will form the safest guide. Increasing popular comprehension of the inevitable nature of human inheritance must engender a sense of responsibility as to the positive eugenic fitness of a contemplated marriage. The growth of this sentiment will doubtless be slow, and properly so, for as yet we have but half-lights on what are the most desirable types of humanity. No one can say what the highest type of man should be, but almost any one can readily pick out types which certainly should not be.
Inferior Increasing More Rapidly Than Superior Stocks.—Modern eugenists, although realizing that the constructive phase is of great importance, are making no attempt to map out any fixed mode of procedure for it beyond pointing out the desirability of larger families among the better classes. The need for individuals of superior physical, mental and moral qualities to multiply is so obvious as scarcely to require comment. Yet the fact is that judging from all appearances these are the very ones who have the lowest birth-rate. Eugenics is mainly concerned with the relative rates of increase of the various classes, not with mere fertility in itself. And the actual increase must be measured in terms of the extent to which birth-rate exceeds death-rate. If a high birth-rate is accompanied by a high death-rate then it is not especially significant in increasing a given class as a whole. All available evidence points to the fact that to-day the lower strata of society are far outbreeding the middle and higher, with an almost negligible difference in death-rate, and just in the measure that these lower strata are innately inferior just in that degree must the race deteriorate. The seriousness of the whole situation as it exists to-day hinges, therefore, on the extent to which the lower strata are inferior to those above them.
An Unselected Population May Contain Much Valuable Material.—In evaluating these lower strata a matter of very great importance is whether the population is a selected or an unselected one. If the population has been long resident in a given region and has had fairly good opportunity for education then we will find in the lower reaches a larger percentage of sedimentation made up of the worthless and inferior stocks. If, however, a continual fomentation and geographical shifting of the population is in progress as in parts of America, or if adequate educational opportunities are lacking, as in some parts of Russia, the poor and less well-to-do classes may contain, no one can tell how much, relatively valuable stock.
Forel remarks on this point as follows:
“If we compare the nature of delinquents, abandoned children, vagabonds, etc., in a country where little or nothing has been done for the people (Russia, Galicia, Vienna, etc.), with that of the same individuals in Switzerland, for example, where much has already been done for the poor, we find this result: In Switzerland, these individuals are nearly all tainted with alcoholism, or pathological heredity; they consist of alcoholics, incorrigibles, and congenital decadents, and education can do little for them because nearly all those who have a better hereditary foundation have been able to earn their living by honest work. In Russia, Galicia, and even in Vienna, we are, on the contrary, astonished to see how many honest natures there are among the disinherited when they are provided with work and education.”
The Lack of Criteria for Judging Fitness.—Barring the untold hordes of actual defectives who have gravitated into this lower stratum, there are few positive criteria by which we can measure the real fitness of the remainder. Before we can set out on a campaign of positive eugenics we must have some standard by which to steer, and it would be a rash advocate indeed who would assert that class distinction alone, or even success as measured by public opinion to-day should be our whole criterion of fitness. Shall we measure fitness in terms of how successfully one can acquire worldly goods, or in other words, by the property test, or what shall be our standard?
The College Graduate.—Many of our modern critiques of the birth-rate situation make much of the fact that our college graduates as a group are scarcely reproducing themselves. According to Davenport, Bryn Mawr College between 1888 and 1913 has graduated 1,193 bachelors of arts, but these women have produced up to January, 1913, only 263 girls to take their place in the next generation. He also points out that statistics on some of the graduate classes of Harvard of twenty years ago or earlier show that they are little more than maintaining themselves; thus one class of 328 graduates twenty years later had produced 195 sons, and in another case a class of 278 individuals had produced, twenty-five years later, 141 sons. Relatively similar statistics can be cited for other eastern colleges.
All such cases of college graduates cited as especially deplorable declines in birth-rate are based on the assumption that these individuals are a particularly superior stock.[19] But one might question this premise as a generalization. It may or may not be true. Are they superior or have they had mainly a combination of luck and incentive, luck in that their parents had sufficient means, acquired possibly through their own superiority, possibly not, to send them to college, and incentive derived from a fortunate environment which awakened a desire in them—or in their parents for them—for college education? Is the woolly-witted son of opulence, so abundant in our colleges to-day, who is boosted through by hook or by crook, of superior eugenical value to the alert eager boy—and his name is legion—destined for economic reasons to go to work at or before the completion of his high-school course, perhaps because of the very fact of an unlimited fecundity in his own family which necessitates his help for the general support?