16 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



way to supply its place is discovered and adopted ; and the first step 

 in this direction is to prove by actual experiment that the race can he 

 modified by selection like any other species of organism. 



The researches of Professor Bell, which show that a race of deaf- 

 mutes is actually growing up in the United States through an unfor- 

 tunate application of the law of selection, therefore have a very great 

 scientific value, which is entirely independent 'of the warning they 

 give of a danger which threatens us. 



In the paper which is quoted above he renders the community an 

 important service by pointing out this danger ; but it seems to me that 

 the chief value of his work is not in this direct practical bearing, but 

 in the convincing proof which he furnishes to show that the law of 

 selection does place within our reach a powerful influence for the im- 

 provement of our race, for, as soon as the truth is borne home to all 

 men by facts like those which Professor Bell has brought together, 

 some effective means of applying it to mankind will certainly be 

 devised. 



Mankind will not submit to any direct interference with personal 

 liberty ; but, if it is true that desirable characteristics can be perpetu- 

 ated and developed by selection, indirect methods of influencing the 

 choice of husbands and wives could undoubtedly be devised and em- 

 ployed. 



If all the children which exhibit the desired peculiarity could be 

 brought together as early as possible, and could be made to live to- 

 gether during their youth, carefully guarded from the possibility of 

 making acquaintance with any other children, and if this restriction 

 could be continued through the period when acquaintances and friend- 

 ships and attachments are most easily established, this would be a 

 great step toward selective breeding ; for all the children with the 

 desired peculiarity would become intimately acquainted with one 

 another, while they would have few outside friendships. If, after the 

 children had grown up and become scattered, they were encouraged to 

 hold periodical reunions for promoting social intercourse between them 

 in adult life, and if they were provided with newspapers and peri- 

 odicals of their own, which should make a specialty :>f " personals " 

 relating to them, giving a full account of their conventions and re- 

 unions, and keeping their readers informed of all their movements, 

 their employments, their marriages, deaths, etc., the chances of inter- 

 marriage among them would be greatly increased. 



If they were taught to speak and think in a language of their own, 

 and Avere furnished with a literature of their own in this language, 

 they would be very effectively cut off from intercourse with outsiders, 

 and would be compelled to look to their own numbers for their com- 

 panions and acquaintances; and there can be no doubt that, if all 

 these influences Avere employed together generation after generation, 

 they would soon lead to the establishment of a race sharply marked off 



