The correlation of abilities is as well attested as any fact in psychology. Those who decry eugenics on the ground that it is impossible to establish any "standard of perfection," since society needs many diverse kinds of people, are overlooking this fact. Any plan which increases the production of children in able families of various types will thereby produce more ability of all kinds, since if a family is particularly gifted in one way, it is likely to be gifted above the average in several other desirable ways.
Eugenics sets up no specific superman, as a type to which the rest of the race must be made to conform. It is not looking forward to the cessation of its work in a eugenic millenium. It is a perpetual process, which seeks only to raise the level of the race by the production of fewer people with physical and mental defects, and more people with physical and mental excellencies. Such a race should be able to perpetuate itself, to subdue nature, to improve its environment progressively; its members should be happy and productive. To establish such a goal seems justified by the knowledge of evolution which is now available; and to make progress toward it is possible.
CHAPTER VIII
DESIRABILITY OF RESTRICTIVE EUGENICS
In a rural part of Pennsylvania lives the L. family. Three generations studied "all show the same drifting, irresponsible tendency. No one can say they are positively bad or serious disturbers of the communities where they may have a temporary home. Certain members are epileptic and defective to the point of imbecility. The father of this family drank and provided little for their support. The mother, though hard working, was never able to care for them properly. So they and their 12 children were frequent recipients of public relief, a habit which they have consistently kept up. Ten of the children grew to maturity, and all but one married and had in their turn large families. With two exceptions these have lived in the territory studied. Nobody knows how they have subsisted, even with the generous help they have received. They drift in and out of the various settlements, taking care to keep their residence in the county which has provided most liberally for their support. In some villages it is said that they have been in and out half a dozen times in the last few years. First one family comes slipping back, then one by one the others trail in as long as there are cheap shelters to be had. Then rents fall due, neighbors become suspicious of invaded henroosts and potato patches, and one after another the families take their departure, only to reappear after a year or two.
"The seven children of the eldest son were scattered years ago through the death of their father. They were taken by strangers, and though kept in school, none of them proved capable of advancement. Three at least could not learn to read or handle the smallest quantities. The rest do this with difficulty. All but two are now married and founding the fourth generation of this line. The family of the fourth son are now county charges. Of the 14 children of school age in this and the remaining families, all are greatly retarded. One is an epileptic and at 16 can not read or write. One at 15 is in the third reader and should be set down as defective. The remainder are from one to four years retarded.
"There is nothing striking in the annals of this family. It comes as near the lowest margin of human existence as possible and illustrates how marked defect may sometimes exist without serious results in the infringement of law and custom. Its serious menace, however, lies in the certain marriage into stocks which are no better, and the production of large families which continue to exist on the same level of semi-dependency. In place of the two dependents of a generation ago we now find in the third generation 32 descendants who bid fair to continue their existence on the same plane—certainly an enormous multiplication of the initial burden of expense."[75]
From cases of this sort, which represent the least striking kind of bad breeding, the student may pass through many types up to the great tribes of Jukes, Nams, Kallikaks, Zeros, Dacks, Ishmaels, Sixties, Hickories, Hill Folk, Piney Folk, and the rest, with which the readers of the literature of restrictive eugenics are familiar. It is abundantly demonstrated that much, if not most, of their trouble is the outcome of bad heredity. Indeed, when a branch of one of these clans is transported, or emigrates, to a wholly new environment, it soon creates for itself, in many cases, an environment similar to that from which it came. Whether it goes to the city, or to the agricultural districts of the west, it may soon manage to reëstablish the debasing atmosphere to which it has always been accustomed.[76] Those who see in improvement of the environment the cure for all such plague spots as these tribes inhabit, overlook the fact that man largely creates his own environment. The story of the tenement-dwellers who were supplied with bath tubs but refused to use them for any other purpose than to store coal, exemplifies a wide range of facts.