PEOPLE FOR THE EARTH 583 



and writings and buildings and monuments and in ways of 

 doing things. Each generation may indeed start with a little 

 advantage, but this is an advantage in environment, not in 

 organism. We cannot talk any better than our ancestors, 

 but we can use motor cycles and aeroplanes, and so get about 

 faster. We cannot figure any better than the best mathem.a- 

 ticians of old, but we have not only thousands of tricks that 

 have been gathered through the years, but machinery which 

 enables a rather simple-minded person to get difficult calcula- 

 tions done accurately and quickly. And so with our other 

 abilities ; the social heritage makes us truly richer and more 

 powerful, but this is not the same as saying that the race itself 

 is more competent in any way. 



417. Improving the race. The thought of improving the race 

 is a very old one. Two examples of Greek thought are interest- 

 ing. The Spartans, who were very warlike, attempted to weed 

 out the incompetents and the weak by exposing infants that 

 were not well-formed or robust, so that only the tougher ones 

 had a chance to grow up. They also provided very severe train- 

 ing for the young people, which only the hardiest could endure 

 or survive. Plato, the greatest mind that Athens produced, and 

 one of the greatest that the race has known, advocated the idea 

 that defective people should not be permitted to have children. 



In modern times the whole question of race improvement has 

 taken on great importance for several reasons, and it has given 

 rise to a special branch of science called eugenics. This name 

 and this science were founded by Francis Galton about 1875. 

 The word eugenic comes from two Greek words, meaning "well 

 born." The study was defined by Galton as that of "agencies 

 under social control that may improve or mar the racial quali- 

 ties of future generations, either physically or mentally." 



418. Why eugenics is important. People are not all alike. 

 Some of the differences are not of any importance — color of 

 hair or eyes, the amount of pigment in the skin, the exact shape 

 of the head or of the nose. Some of the differences are of great 

 importance to the individual but not to the race— taste for one 



