PROHIBITION
It was shown in Chapter II that the attempt to ban alcoholic beverages on the ground of direct dysgenic effect is based on dubious evidence. But the prohibition of the use of liquors, at least those containing more than 5% alcohol, can be defended on indirect eugenic grounds, as well as on the familiar grounds of pathology and economics which are commonly cited.
1. Unless it is present to such a degree as to constitute a neurotic taint, the desire to be stimulated is not of itself necessarily a bad thing. This will be particularly clear if the distribution of the responsiveness to alcoholic stimulus is recalled. Some really valuable strains, marked by this susceptibility, may be eliminated through the death of some individuals from debauchery and the penalization of others in preferential mating; this would be avoided if narcotics were not available.
2. In selection for eugenic improvement, it is desirable not to have to select for too many traits at once. If alcoholism could, through prohibition, be eliminated from consideration, it would just so far simplify the problem of eugenics.
3. Drunkenness interferes with the effectiveness of means for family limitation, so that if his alcoholism is not extreme, the drunkard's family is sometimes larger than it would otherwise be.
On the other hand, prohibition is dysgenic and intemperance is eugenic in their effect on the species in so far as alcoholism is correlated with other undesirable characters and brings about the elimination of undesirable strains. But its action is not sufficiently discriminating nor decisive; and if the strains have many serious defects, they can probably be dealt with better in some other, more direct way.
We conclude, then, that, on the whole, prohibition is desirable for eugenic as well as for other reasons.
PEDAGOGICAL CELIBACY
Whether women are more efficient teachers than men, and whether single women are more efficient teachers than married women, are disputed questions which it is not proposed here to consider. Accepting the present fact, that most of the school teachers in the United States are unmarried women, it is proper to examine the eugenic consequences of this condition.
The withdrawal of this large body of women from the career of motherhood into a celibate career may be desirable if these women are below the average of the rest of the women of the population in eugenic quality. But it would hardly be possible to find enough eugenic inferiors to fill the ranks of teachers, without getting those who are inferior in actual ability, in patent as well as latent traits. And the idea of placing education in the hands of such inferior persons is not to be considered.