The first step in Eugenics progress—the elimination of defect by preventing the procreation of defectives—is easily stated, and may be almost as easily attained. The price of six battleships ($50,000,000) would probably provide homes for all of the seriously defective men, women and children now at large in the United States. Thus could the scum of society be removed, and a source of social contamination be effectively regulated. Yet with tens of thousands of defectives, freely propagating their kind, we continue to build battleships, fondly believing that rifled cannon and steel armor plate will prove sufficient for national defense.
This is but a part, and by far the least important part, of the eugenic programme. The elimination of defect prevents degeneracy, but does not insure the physical normality, mental capacity, aggressiveness, concentration, sympathy and vision of the Super Man. While the elimination of defect is imperative, it is after all only the first step toward the creation of positive qualities.
Positive Eugenics may be as obvious as Negative Eugenics, but the promulgation of its doctrines is not equally easy. A series of legislative enactments will prevent the mating of the hereditarily defective; nothing but the most painstaking education can be relied upon to secure the mating of those eugenically fit. Nevertheless for that modern state which seeks to persist and dominate, no lesser measure will suffice. After all, why should not society educate its youth to a sense of wisdom in mating? The United States spends each year some four hundred millions of dollars in public education, teaching children to read, to spell, to sew, to draw. The importance of these studies is obvious, yet, from a social standpoint, they cannot compare in significance with such training in the laws of heredity and biology as will insure wise choice in mating. The state, in its efforts at self preservation, cannot lay too much emphasis on the training for eugenic choice.
Biology, through the laws of heredity, applied in the science of Eugenics, holds out every hope for the coming of the Super Man and of the Super Race. Not in our knowledge of its laws, but in the practice of its precepts, are we lacking.
Eugenics, it is true, in its negative and positive phases, holds out a great hope for the future. But Eugenics alone will not suffice. The science of Eugenics must be coupled with the science of Social Adjustment to insure the production of a Super Race. The necessity of this union is well recognized by the students of heredity, while the students of Social Adjustment found their theories on premises essentially biologic in origin. One of the most widely known writers on heredity concludes a recent book with the statement that—“At present, we can only indicate that the future of our race depends on Eugenics (in some form or other), combined with the simultaneous evolution of eutechnics and eutopias. ‘Brave words,’ of course; but surely not ‘Eutopian’!”[15] Thus the knowledge and practice of the laws of heredity must be supplemented by a knowledge and practice of the laws of Social Adjustment.
SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT—THE SCIENCE OF MOLDING INSTITUTIONS
After a gardener has produced his seed, guaranteeing a good heredity by breeding together those individual plants which possess in the highest degree the qualities he desires to secure, he turns his attention to the seed bed. First of all, the location must be good—the bed must be on a southern slope, where it will benefit by the first warm rays of the spring sun; then the soil must be finely pulverized, in order that the tiny rootlets may easily force their way downward, finding nourishment ready at hand; when the seeds have been planted, in ground well prepared and fertilized, they must be watered, cultivated, weeded; and as they develop into larger plants, thinned, transplanted, pruned and sprayed. The wise gardener considers environment as well as heredity. By sowing choice seeds in well prepared soil, he ensures the excellence of his crop.