358 EUGENICS 



grandparents and grandchildren is evident though not as notice- 

 able as closer relationships. Outstanding groups of individuals 

 have descended from Peter the Great of Russia, William the Silent 

 of Holland, Isabella of Spain, and Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden. 

 These studies have shown that men of the type of the Sidneys, 

 Balfours, Cecils, and Churchills in England, and the Lowells, 

 Eliots, and Dwights in America are not the result of chance or 

 accident, but that their superior abilities are inheritable traits. 

 When an exceptional man chooses an exceptional wife, the ma- 

 jority, if not all, of their children will probably be exceptional. All 

 members of royal families are not superior. There are some groups 

 that show insanity, imbecility, and other mental defects, because 

 these traits have been introduced through marriages with mental 

 defectives. 



There seems little doubt that a certain stock or family will pro- 

 duce men of great ability more frequently than will another stock 

 or family. It is almost certain that the quality of mind and body of 

 the parents will affect the offspring. Parents, sound in mind and 

 healthy in body, tend to produce normal healthy children. 



Families of inferior ability. Parents physically weak and of a 

 low-grade mentality will give to the w^orld undesirable progeny, 

 probably physically unfit and with mediocre intelligence. An 

 American family which has been given the fictitious name of 

 '* Juke " has been carefully traced through a large number of 

 generations. This family record starts with a shiftless vagabond 

 born in New York state in 1720. In 1915, students had traced 

 2094 members of this family : 1600 were feeble-minded or epi- 

 leptic, 310 were paupers, 140 were convicted criminals, and large 

 numbers of the remaining group were traced through the records 

 kept in workhouses and other public institutions. This family by 

 1915, had already cost the state of New York more than $2,500,000 

 and the expense still goes on. Their descendants will continue to 

 bear the same traits. The mental ability of this family is very- 



