58 ANTHROPOLOGY IN WESTERN HEMISniERE AND PACIFIC ISLANDS. 



What will be the result? As an illustration of the facts of amalgamation 

 that may be obtained, I cite a recent investigation of about 40,000 families 

 in Minneapolis, conducted primarily to ascertain local ethnic conditions. 

 Among the interesting facts revealed were the strength of the natural pre- 

 judices to intermarriage between the thirty-seven ethnic groups studied, 

 the relative rapidity with which the different groups amalgamate, and the 

 influence of amalgamation on fecundity. For instance, it was found that 

 the so-called pure-blood families (those in which husband and wife are both 

 Irish or both Scandinavian, etc.) were more fecund than families of mixed 

 ethnic parentage. In Minneapolis to-day fecundity decreases with increas- 

 ing amalgamation, even when social, economic, and geographic conditions 

 are taken into consideration. Here man and woman of the same ethnic group 

 appear to have become mutually fitter for parenthood than man and woman 

 of different groups. 



Though there are so few available facts on amalgamation among con- 

 siderable numbers of individuals, those cited emphasize the value of a thor- 

 ough study of the subject in the light of the rapidly accumulating knowledge 

 of human heredity. Only when the facts of amalgamation are known can 

 modern nations wisely encourage, prohibit, or regulate this factor which so 

 powerfully operates before our open eyes which see not. 



There have been many theories about the "half breed"; the time has 

 come to know the facts about him. Great opportunities for the scientific study 

 of amalgamation are open in the Hawaiian Islands, the Philippines, Brazil, 

 Argentine, and the United States. Brazil, perhaps, offers the best opportunity 

 for the study of unhindered amalgamating tendencies, because of the mini- 

 mum of race prejudice between the three races amalgamating there. 



AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL LABORATORY. 



A permanent laboratory should eventually be established in connection 

 with these studies in ethnic heredity, environment, and amalgamation where 

 records of research would continually accumulate and where they would be 

 kept indefinitely. From this laboratory new data should be published fre- 

 quently, not alone for conclusions which might have been arrived at, but that 

 such data might assist investigators in various parts of the world. Such a 

 laboratoiy should be so equipped and manned that it would become the world 

 clearing-house for anthropology for all time. 



It may be argued that, even were the facts of heredity, environment, and 

 amalgamation obtained and available, they would be of little use to-day, 

 since influences are already at work which would be impossible to control. 

 To a certain extent this is true, but one of the essentials of human progress is 

 that man works not for his own generation alone, but for future generations. 

 One can not measure the beneficial results to future generations of a body of 

 accurate and scientific facts available on these subjects. Moreover, facts of 

 this kind to-day in America become a part of educated public opinion sur- 

 prisingly soon, and have their inevitable and far-reaching influence. 



