496 READINGS IN EVOLUTION, GENETICS, AND EUGENICS 



second factor is just as important as the first, for racial progress; that 

 one leg is just as important as the other, to a pedestrian. Its only con- 

 flict with euthenics appertains to such euthenic measures as impair the 

 adaptability of the race to the better environment they are trying to 

 make. 



Some supposedly euthenic measures opposed by eugenics are not 

 truly euthenic, as for instance the limitation of a superior family in 

 order that all may get a college education. For these spurious 

 euthenic measures, something truly euthenic should be substituted. 



Measures which show a real conflict may be typified by the infant 

 mortality movement. There can be no doubt but that sanitation and 

 hygiene, prenatal care and intelligent treatment of mothers and babies, 

 are truly euthenic and desirable. At the same time, as has been 

 shown, these euthenic measures result in the survival of inferior 

 children, who directly or through their posterity will be a drag on the 

 race. Euthenic measures of this type should be accompanied by 

 counterbalancing measures of a more eugenic character. 



Barring these two types, euthenics forms a necessary concomitant 

 of the eugenic program ; and, as we have tried to emphasize, eugenics 

 is likewise necessary to the complete success of every euthenic program. 

 How foolish, then, is antagonism between the two forces! Both are 

 working toward the same end of human betterment, and neither can 

 succeed without the other. When either attempts to eliminate the 

 other from its work, it ceases to advance toward its goal. In which 

 camp one works is largely a matter of taste. If on a road there is a 

 gradient to be leveled, it will be brought down most quickly by two 

 parties of workmen, one cutting away at the top, and the other filling 

 in the bottom. For the two parties to indulge in mutual scorn and 

 recrimination would be no more absurd than for eugenics and euthenics 

 to be put in opposition to each other. The only reason they have been 

 in opposition is because some of the workers did not clearly understand 

 the nature of their work. With the dissemination of a knowledge of 

 biology, this ground of antagonism will disappear. 



