90 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



such as have a white, hairless skin, that have never acquired an appre- 

 ciation of cause and effect, of the importance of controlling the ses- 

 passion, of the necessity of regarding the rights and feelings of others. 

 The marvel is not that these strains still persist, but rather that they 

 have been so nearly exterminated. 



This brings us to the subject of the control of mental defectiveness. 

 We see at once that there must have been at work, even in prehistoric 

 times, a sort of natural control by the elimination of those incapable 

 of meeting the ever-increasing complexities of " advancing civilization." 

 As man spread to the north those strains that had not acquired the 

 trait of hoarding for the winter mostly perished of cold and hunger; 

 those strains that had not acquired the sense of property rights and 

 tended to invade the stores of others were always in danger of being 

 cut off. In England, less than a century ago, there were 323 classes 

 of offences punishable by death. Under such rigid selection " de- 

 fective " ancestral strains tended to be eliminated. 



To-day, in our most highly civilized countries, the process of elim- 

 ination of the unfit animal strains is largely reversed. We protect, in 

 an institution, the members of a weak strain up to the period of repro- 

 duction and then let them free upon the community and encourage 

 them to leave a large progeny of " feeble-minded " ; which, in turn, 

 protected from infantile mortality and carefully nurtured up to the 

 reproductive period, are again set free to reproduce, and so the stupid 

 work goes on of preserving and increasing our socially unfit strains. 



But a reaction is setting in. The legislatures of six of the United 

 States have already voted to permit the sterilization of defective per- 

 sons. But it is doubtful if the " more advanced " public is altogether 

 ready for such operations. A less drastic, but not less effective, method 

 is the segregation of the defective strains during the entire reproductive 

 period. However, the method is not so important, but in some way or 

 other society must end these animalistic blood-lines or they will end 

 society. 



