themselves to the eugenic end of legislation, men would soon obey. The application of eugenics to the human species, coming, almost in the spirit of an inspiration, at the time when women are about to be enfranchised, is significant. It may be that destiny has decreed that the one shall be the complement of the other; it is certainly beyond contradiction that in eugenics the women of the earth have a divine weapon with which to wage a righteous and an awaking propaganda of truth.
A mother should be interested in every phase of the subject. Her daughter's success in marriage should intimately concern her. Her health and her happiness in that sphere should elicit her deepest maternal consideration. She may rightly hope to be proud of her daughter's offspring, and to find pleasure in the society of her grandchildren. She should, therefore, devote all her efforts to ascertain the truth, with reference to the physical and mental equipment of her future son-in-law; his ability adequately to support a family; his sobriety, his disposition, associates, etc., should all be carefully considered and pondered over. This is not going far enough, however; we must know positively that he is not diseased,—that he is not a victim of gonorrhoea or syphilis.
When parents weigh in the balance the possibility of a wrecked life, of destroying the right to have children, or of bringing them into the world blind or diseased; of permanently destroying the hope of happiness, peace, and success, no combination of advantages in a son-in-law is deserving of the slightest consideration. We are treating of the sacred things of life—of life itself. If parents combine to crucify and betray their daughters—to sell them body and soul into bondage for social or other advantages; if they preserve silence when they should speak and thereby take all the sunshine, for all eternity, out of one existence; then, if on their death-beds these daughters should accuse them, the guilty knowledge that they were responsible will be the sting that will blast their hope of peace and forgiveness here and in the worlds to come.
When mothers realize that, every day, in every large hospital in every city in the civilized world some woman
(a daughter of some mother) is being unsexed because of these unjustly obtained diseases, surely their voices shall speak in no uncertain way.
Another eugenic suggestion that should deeply concern every good mother is, that the mother's milk is the private property of the babe, and whoever deprives the babe of this, the sole right it possesses, is not only a thief but a scoundrel. A curious and significant fact was discovered by investigators when studying the question of infant mortality a few years ago. It was found from a mass of statistics that there were two recent instances when the death rate of infants decreased suddenly and quite decidedly. The first instance was when the Civil War in this country caused a cotton famine in England. As a result of the famine the factories of Lancashire were all closed and the employees being then without work remained at home. As a large percentage of the workers were married women with children they had the time and the opportunity to nurse their children regularly. Despite the fact that these women were starved and badly clad and deprived of the comforts of home, the death rate of the infants dropped steadily to an unprecedently low mark.
A number of years later, when the German army surrounded Paris during the Franco-Prussian War the besieged inhabitants of the capital suffered from hunger and disease. The death rate of the adult population increased enormously while the death rate of the infants dropped markedly.
The explanation of this curious phenomenon was simply that while times were normal the women labored outside of their homes and as a consequence the babies were not fed regularly and when fed were not fed mothers' milk. It demonstrated a truth that we are apt to lose sight of, that mothers' milk, even the milk from badly-nourished, poverty-stricken mothers is infinitely better than an abundant supply of artificial food combined with neglect. In view of the fact that there is a distinct tendency to evade this maternal duty these facts should be suggestive and important. It is the duty of the mother with any eugenic sense to preach and to practise
this gospel. Paris learned the lesson of the siege because though she has the smallest birth-rate to-day, she nevertheless has the smallest infant death-rate of any large city in Europe.
The writer believes that in eugenics the women of the race have the instrument wherewith to save the world. He is assured that it is the supreme potential agency for the betterment of the race, and that mankind will never be inspired with a holier cause. He believes that through all the ages the human race has been growing better, coming nearer the truth, and that as a result of this patient progress, there has been evolved the eugenic idea that is to solve the problems of the human family. If the "fit only are born" think of the possibilities of education and of environment. Each child is born with a great potential promise, and endowed with a reasonably good heredity, the whole effort of that child will be toward a higher moral attainment. If the effort of the individuals of the race is to achieve a high moral success, the quality of the civilization of future generations will be far superior to the type with which we are familiar.