382 THE TREND OF THE RACE 



For most civilized countries, therefore, the necessity for further 

 restriction of the birth rate must sooner or later become impera- 

 tive. If this should occur mainly in people of better endowments 

 who already have a low birth rate the deterioration of our racial 

 inheritance will go on at an accelerated pace. 



The birth rate of different stocks would become more nearly 

 equalized by economic reforms which would effect a more equi- 

 table distribution of wealth and by the greater diffusion of educa- 

 tion which would be favored by such reforms. An ignorant and 

 poverty-ridden proletariat will multiply rapidly through sheer 

 lack of restraint. It is a most fortunate circumstance that the 

 third estate continues to include many people of excellent heredi- 

 tary qualities; in course of time, however, they tend t,o rise and 

 become sterile, and thus the great breeding ground from which 

 they emerged is impoverished. It is the very inadequancy and 

 incompleteness of this sifting process which has thus far tended to 

 keep racial deterioration in check. A social system in which 

 human beings are rewarded by education and position according 

 to their inborn capacity has often been held up as a desideratum. 

 But lest the racial effect of such a regime should prove to be 

 more destructive than our present system, some means must be 

 instituted for encouraging race suicide among those to whom 

 Nature has been grudging in her distribution of desirable endow- 

 ments. 



It is doubtless feasible to do much through education toward 

 the accomplishment of this purpose, but the advantages conferred 

 by elimination, however extensively it may be carried out, are of 

 less value than those resulting from an increase in the highest 

 types of inheritance. The best blood of a nation is its most 

 priceless possession. It cannot be increased by any artificial or 

 arbitrary methods as these would not commend themselves to 

 modern ethical standards. Education to whose influence many 

 dysgenic effects may now be justly charged is, after all, the essen- 

 tial basis for the realization of any project of racial improvement. 

 To be effective it must include the inculcation of a sense of 

 responsibility for the hereditary qualities of future generations. 



