MORAL PROGRESS 47 1 



of the stock of the people. Under modern social conditions improve- 

 ment in the human stock can come only through securing an approxima- 

 tion to the selective birth-rate, since our traditions are uncompromis- 

 ingly opposed to the cruelty of the selective death-rate. Therefore we 

 ought to get into our mores the idea that the children of the present 

 generation must be born of physically healthy and mentally capable 

 parents, the idea that the propagation of the weak and defective human 

 stocks must be stopped by humane but firm methods. If this can be 

 done, then we shall have overcome most of the bad consequences which 

 have resulted from our interference with the extinction of unfit members 

 of the human race on the grounds of sympathy, mercy and pity. An 

 approximation to the selective birth-rate is all that is practicable under 

 the present democratic constitution of society. But since natural selec- 

 tion still exterminates the grossest cases of unfitness (imbeciles die be- 

 fore thirty years of age, consumptives die early, children of mothers and 

 fathers who die young generally die before leaving the normal quota 

 of offspring), the establishment of an approximately selective birth- 

 rate will effectively limit the procreation of the other undesirable classes. 

 In this way the cruelty of ruthless natural selection will be avoided and 

 yet the perpetuation of the better stock secured. 



Modern states have already embarked on programs of social legisla- 

 tion which aim at checking the multiplication of the unfit. In some 

 states, health certificates must precede the granting of marriage licenses. 

 In other states there are laws which require the sterilization of congen- 

 ital criminals. Massachusetts is at present endeavoring to secure the 

 segregation of feeble-minded persons during the reproductive period. 

 In all of these ways we are endeavoring to secure an approximately selec- 

 tive birth-rate. What is required if this notion of the selective birth- 

 rate is to become a widely recognized standard, is to get the idea of 

 better parentage into the mores of the masses as the necessary comple- 

 ment of humanitarian, democratic. Christian and medical ideas already 

 traditionalized. When this has been done we shall have secured a guar- 

 anty of continuous and abiding moral progress. Already the word 

 "eugenics" has been taken up by popular periodicals and newspapers. 

 Life pokes fun at the idea and the press has learned to use the word. 

 Realizing that the concept of better parentage may be gotten into the 

 popular mind by extensive educational propaganda, the Galton Labora- 

 tory for ISTational Eugenics of the University of London, and the Eugen- 

 ics Record Office of the Carnegie Station for Experimental Evolution at 

 Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, have embarked on programs of pop- 

 ular as well as scientific education in this matter. 



