96 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Again, for many generations a considerable portion of the male 

 population of Switzerland have practiced rifle-shooting as a 

 national sport, yet in international contests they show no marked 

 superiority over our riflemen, who are, in a large proportion, the 

 sons of men who never handled a gun, Another case is afforded 

 by the upper classes of this country, who for many generations 

 have been educated at the universities, and have had their classi- 

 cal and mathematical abilities developed to the fullest extent by 

 rivalry for honors. Yet now, that for some years these institu- 

 tions have been opened to dissenters whose parents usually for 

 many generations have had no such training, it is found that 

 these dissenters carry off their full share or even more than their 

 share of honors. We thus see that the theory of the non-heredity 

 of acquired characters, whether physical or mental, is supported 

 by a considerable number of facts, while few if any are directly 

 opposed to it. We therefore propose to neglect the influence of 

 education and habit as possible factors in the improvement of our 

 race, and to confine our argument entirely to the possibility of 

 improvement by some form of selection.* 



Among the modern writers who have dealt with this question 

 the opinions of Mr. Galton are entitled to be first considered, be- 

 cause he has studied the whole subject of human faculty in the 

 most thorough manner, and has perhaps thrown more light upon 

 it than any other writer. The method of selection by which he 

 has suggested that our race may be improved is to be brought 

 into action by means of a system of marks for family merit, both 

 as to health, intellect, and morals, those individuals who stand 

 high in these respects being encouraged to marry early by state 

 endowments sufficient to enable the young couples to make a start 

 in life. Of all the proposals that have been made tending to the 

 systematic improvement of our race, this is one of the least objec- 

 tionable, but it is also, I fear, among the least effective. Its tend- 

 ency would undoubtedly be to increase the number and to raise 

 the standard of our highest and best men, but it would at the 

 same time leave the bulk of the population unaffected, and would 

 but slightly diminish the rate at which the lower types tend to 

 supplant or to take the place of the higher. What we want is, 

 not a higher standard of perfection in the few, but a higher average, 

 and this can best be produced by the elimination of the lowest of 

 all and a free intermingling of the rest. 



Something of this kind is proposed by Mr. Hiram M. Stanley 

 in his article on Our Civilization and the Marriage Problem, 

 already referred to. This writer believes that civilizations perish 



* Those who desire more information on this subject should read Wcismann's Essays 

 on Heredity. 



