=Our Present Knowledge Insufficient.--=When all is said and done, after we take into account the meagerness of our present knowledge on the subject, it is not to be wondered at that many thoughtful students of a conservative turn of mind, feel that any considerable practise of sterilization is premature. The problem has so many phases, and despite occasional bits of positive knowledge, we are yet in such a sea of ignorance regarding it, that in no field is the good Friar Laurence"s admonition of "wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast," needed more at present than it is here.
There is little doubt that in theory the feeble-minded and similar defectives should be sent to inst.i.tutions and kept there, but the important practical question is, can this be done? We can have no final answer until it is tried. While the initial expense would undoubtedly be great, if we could keep our defectives from propagation for a single generation we could very materially lessen their numbers and in succeeding generations the expenses of their care would rapidly diminish.
The one crying need that stands out most prominently in this whole field is that of careful investigation of individual cases and specific types of malady, together with an accurate census of conditions as a whole. Our knowledge of individual malign heredities is too meager to carry us very far at present. When we have found after adequate investigation in just which specific types of defects heredity is an important factor--and we shall undoubtedly find it to be one in many cases--then we can proceed confidently with sterilization, if it will prove to be more practical and desirable than sequestration.
=Sterilization Laws on Trial.--=It will be of great interest and instruction to see how extensively, in the various states which have recently pa.s.sed sterilization laws, the experts selected will find it expedient to carry on sterilization, and what criteria they will use in deciding on individual cases. That sterilization can be put into effect is indisputable, as may be seen from the fact that several hundred operations have been performed in Indiana. If the board on whom the decision depends happens to be one which feels that many people are likely to distress themselves unduly over the border-line cases, and overlook the fact that there is always a goodly residue with which to proceed without great risk of mistake, then we may expect to see a vigorous campaign inaugurated, and those of us who are still undecided in the matter will have an opportunity of learning more certainly the merits or the failings of the scheme.
Certain married degenerate types would seem to be the ones most urgently demanding attention. Having already begotten several defective children and with nothing else in prospect but the production of the same kind, it is difficult to see from any standpoint why a vasectomy on the male would not be a merciful act. There are not a few such families where the father is periodically in the hands of the law and yet not in permanent restraint. Once in custody his release could be made contingent on vasectomy.
=An Educated Public Sentiment the Most Valuable Eugenic Agent.--=Coming now to the last proposition, education of the public in the principles of eugenics, this is the method calculated to be of more far-reaching service than any other, in the negative as well as in the positive phases of eugenics. Education is necessary before we can have effective restrictive measures for the mentally incompetent established and enforced, and it is also a prerequisite to intelligent procedure on the part of normal individuals in considering their own fitness for marriage.
Of greatest importance in preventing undesirable marriages, as far as people of normal intelligence is concerned, will be the sentiment of disapproval which will arise on the part of society itself when it becomes really convinced that certain marriages are inimical to social welfare.
Public opinion is, in fact, one of the most potent influences in marital affairs, simply because refusal to abide by the dictates of the community means social ostracism.
That social disapproval of certain unions can become a very real factor in preventing such marriage is evinced on all sides by the numerous barriers to marriage already in existence based on race, religious sect or social status. Even in our much vaunted democracies one is looked down on who marries "beneath" his or her social set. This sentiment of taboo, so readily and often so senselessly cultivated in our present human society, will inevitably spring up in consequence of a wide-spread knowledge of the facts of human heredity. It is to such a growth, to the establishment of a disapproval which is the product of its own sentiments rather than to legislative enactments, that society must look for the greatest furtherance of the eugenic program.
Necessary as legal restraint is in certain cases, it must obviously be restricted to only the most glaring defects. Moreover, legislation can not run far in advance of public opinion.
=The Question of Personal Liberty.--=It must be admitted that there is a reluctance on the part of many even thoughtful individuals to the application of methods which savor in any way of restraint. An objection not infrequently urged by such persons against the application of certain eugenic principles is that they demand an unwarranted curtailment of personal liberty.
To those who hoist the flag of personal liberty, it may fairly be asked, how much personal liberty does the syphilitic accord his doomed and suffering wife and children, or how much personal liberty is the portion of the offspring of feeble-minded parents? Or, what quota of personal liberty will accrue to the ill-fated descendants of the epileptic, the habitual drunkard or criminal, the gross moral pervert, the congenially deaf and dumb, or to even the progeny which may result from the union of two well-established tubercular strains?
We do not hesitate to send the pick of our stalwart healthy manhood to war to be slaughtered by the thousands and tens of thousands when an affront is offered to an abstraction which we term our national honor, and, sublimely unconscious of the irony of it all, we throw ourselves into a well-nigh hysterical frenzy of protest when it is proposed to stop the breeding of defectives by infringing to a certain extent on their personal liberties.
Society has already found it necessary to suppress certain individuals and yet we hear little complaint about loss of personal liberty in such cases. But if it is necessary to restrain the man who would steal a purse or a horse, is it not still more urgent to restrain one who would poison the blood of a whole family or even of an entire stock for generations?
Surely there can be but one answer; society owes it to itself as a matter of self-preservation to enforce the restraint of persons infected with certain types of disease and of individuals possessing highly undesirable inheritable traits, so that perpetuation of such defects is impossible.
=Education of Women in Eugenics Needed.--=One of the most crying needs of the present is the awakening and educating of women to the significance of the known facts. For they are perhaps the greatest sufferers, and once informed, as a mere matter of safety if for no other reason, they will see the necessity of demanding a clean bill of health on the part of their prospective mates. Furthermore in the last a.n.a.lysis woman is the decisive factor in race betterment, for it is she who says the final yea or nay which decides marriage and thus determines in large measure the qualities which will be possessed by her children. Above all, young women must come to realize that the fast or dissipated young man, no matter how interestingly or romantically he may be depicted by the writer of fiction, is in reality unsound physically, and is an actual and serious danger to his future wife and children.
=Much Yet to Be Done.--=But plain as is our duty regarding the application of facts already known, when we consider that the student of heredity has made only a beginning, it is equally evident that he must be urged on in his quest for new facts, and the establishment of new principles. There is imperative need to carry on proper experiments with plants and animals, to collect necessary data regarding man, and for what is scarcely less important, the publication of the facts already acquired so that the public may be guided aright.
Just at present it is of the utmost importance to secure more trustworthy statistics in order that we may intelligently go about inst.i.tuting suitable restrictive measures for undesirable human strains. We must know the exact number and kinds of feeble-minded, epileptic and insane in our population, and we must have more insight into the personal status and pedigrees of our delinquents and criminals. For purposes of rational procedure such information is indispensable. Much can be done by hospitals, "homes" and penal inst.i.tutions by determining and recording more accurately all obtainable facts regarding the ancestry of their charges. Moreover, in such states as Wisconsin, where the state hospitals for the insane have each an "after-care-agent," the duties of such officers might well include the collection of more adequate data regarding the hereditary aspects of their patient"s condition. And lastly, if in every census, whether state or national, it were made an important part of the work to secure accurate vital statistics, particularly as they pertain to human heredity, the contribution toward enabling us ultimately to purge the blood of our nation of certain forms of suffering, degeneracy and crime would be inestimably great.
=A Working Program.--=And now after reviewing at some length various aspects of man"s hereditary and congenital endowment, the important question arises as to whether it is possible, with the knowledge at present available, to go ahead with a practical program which will insure to the child of the future its right of rights, that of _being well-born_.
When one considers the matter it is evident that much can be done at once.
Most of the needs set forth in the preceding paragraph can clearly be met in a fair degree by inst.i.tuting the procedures indicated.
One of the obvious duties in a restrictive way that confronts us right at the start is the care and control of the feeble-minded and of the defective delinquent in such a way as to prevent procreation. Much help can be given also through intelligent agitation for the establishment of colonies for epileptics and the higher grades of feeble-minded which can be made in considerable measure self-supporting. A given colony must, of course, be for one s.e.x alone. Much can be done, furthermore, by putting into operation, both in and out of inst.i.tutions, effective systems of registering births and deaths together with accompanying facts which may prove of eugenical significance.
Again, we should more surely identify and exclude undesirable immigrants and also undertake thoroughgoing investigations to determine which races we can not profitably a.s.similate into our own blood.
Physicians should pay more attention to the hereditary and congenital aspects of their cases and make it more a matter of conscience than they do at present to advise patients with regard to marriage. Prenuptial medical inspection should become the custom, if not by law at least as a voluntary procedure. Every parent must come to realize the grave risk to which he is subjecting his daughter if a guarantee of physical fitness, even more than a.s.surance of financial standing or social position, is not forthcoming from her prospective mate.
Wholly apart from the field of heredity though in a realm intimately concerned with the birthright of the child, much practical good can be accomplished by pondering the facts and the fictions of prenatal influence and in the light of the knowledge thus gained, seeing that while foolish and unnecessary worries are abolished, the conditions of health, nutrition and occupation surrounding the expectant mother are the best obtainable.
It is the sacred duty of every individual, moreover, to see that the maximal possibilities of his own germ-plasm are not lowered by vicious or unwholesome living.
As individuals we can cultivate a greater sense of responsibility regarding marriage and parenthood in those for whose training we are responsible. We can study this whole subject conscientiously, keep pace with new knowledge and see that other people are likewise informed. In showing an enlightened interest in the ideals of eugenics and a sympathetic approval of wholesome marriages, a sentiment toward parenthood will gradually arise which will make it seem more desirable to many worthy people than it does at present. If we are of good stock ourselves we should recognize that it is highly desirable that we give to the race at least four children. On the other hand, if we come from a strain which is eugenically undesirable we should with equal conscientiousness refrain from contributing to human misery. For where serious obstacles to a union exist, renunciation is certainly a higher manifestation of love than is consummation of a marriage which will result in untold misery to the object of the affections. As a matter of fact, with adequate preliminary knowledge as to what actually const.i.tutes a serious drawback to marriage, where such really exists and is recognized by the a.s.sociated individuals, love of the kind that leads to marriage is not likely to arise.
As has been suggested by various students of eugenics, it is even at present perhaps not infeasible for earnest individuals to start in a quiet way local centers for the keeping and filing of accurate records of their family traits for the future use of their descendants. Such groups, voluntary though they be, would soon acquire a degree of distinction that would make other people of good endowments wish to join in and go on record as eugenically desirable.
Lastly, it should not be forgotten that good traits are inherited as certainly as bad ones. Moreover, in the realm of human conduct, even though the fundamental features of behavior are based on an inherited organization, man is not always driven by an inexorable linkage of inherited neutral units into only one line of conduct, since more or less capacity for alternative action is also inherited. It is the personal duty of every member of society to aid in affording the opportunity and providing the proper stimuli to insure that out of the many possibilities of behavior which exist in the young at birth, those forms are realized which are best worth while to the individual and to society. And while we recognize that improved environment alone can not correct human deficiencies we must nevertheless not relax our efforts to get cleaner foods, cleaner surroundings, cleaner politics and cleaner hearts.
Why go on alleviating various kinds of misery that might equally well be prevented? When one squarely faces the issue, surely the absurdity of our present practises can not but be evident to even the most thoughtless.
=Which Shall It Be?--=As a matter of social evolution, human homes originated in the necessity of an abiding place for the nurture and training of the young past their first period of helplessness. Well in the foreground of the mental picture which arises when we hear the very word _home_, are children. What shall the home of the future be with regard to its most important a.s.sets, the children? Shall we as a people continue to be confronted at every turn by the dull countenance of the imbecile, the inevitable product of a bad parental mating; or the feeble body and the clouded intellect of the child sprung from a parentage of polluted blood; or the furtive cunning of the born criminal, the will-less mind of the bred degenerate, or the shiftless sp.a.w.n of the pauper? Or shall it be a type with laughing face, with bounding muscles, with unclouded brain, overflowing with health and happiness--in short, _the well-born child_?
The answer is in our own hands. The fate of many future generations is ours to determine and we are false to our trusteeship if we evade the responsibility clearly laid before us. How conscientiously we heed known facts, how actively we acquaint ourselves with new facts, and how effectively we execute the obvious duties demanded by these facts, will give us the answer.
THE END
GLOSSARY
ACQUIRED CHARACTERS, traits developed in the body through changes in environment or function, in contra-distinction to those which have their specific causes in the germ-cells.
ADAPTATION (L. _ad_, to; _aptus_, fit), fitness to environment.
ALBINISM (L. _albus_, white), a condition of deficiency in pigment.
ALLELOMORPH (Gr. _allelon_, of one another; _morphe_, form), one of a pair of alternate Mendelian characters.
AMEBA (Gr. _amoibe_, change), a primitive single-celled animal.
AMPHIBIAN (Gr. _amphi_, both; _bios_, life), capable of living both on land and in water.
ANTHROPOID (Gr. _anthropos_, man; _eidos_, form), man-like.
ARISTOGENIC (Gr. _aristos_, best; _genesis_, origin), pertaining to the genetically most desirable human strains.
a.s.sOCIATION AREAS, those regions of the brain in which presumably the higher mental processes are effected.
ATAVISM (L. _ad_, before; _avus_, grandfather), a return in one or more characters to an ancestral type. See p. 8 for restricted modern usage.
ATROPHY (Gr. _a_, negative; _trophe_, nourishment), a wasting away of a part of a living organism.
AXON (Gr. _axon_, axis), the process from a nerve cell which becomes a nerve fiber.
BINET-SIMON SCALE, a series of tests graded to age and previous training of the average normal child, much used in measuring mental deficiency.
BIOLOGY (Gr. _bios_, life; _logos_, discourse), the study of life and of living things.
BIOMETRY (Gr. _bios_, life; _metron_, measure), the study of biological problems by means of statistical methods.
BLASTOMERE (Gr. _blastos_, germ; _meros_, part), one of the early cells formed by the division of the ovum.