108 CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON. 



peramental peculiarities. All these conclusions, which arise naturally 

 and inevitably from experiments and observations in which this 

 country has taken a leading part, are bound to revolutionize man's 

 attitude toward himself, toward racial differences, and toward those 

 aberrant individuals who constitute so great a "social problem." 



The Eugenics Record Office has plaj^ed its part in applying some of 

 the genetic studies to man. It has first pointed out the method of 

 inheritance of *'feeble-mindedness" (1912), of epilepsy, of tempera- 

 mental disorders, of eye and hair color, and of inheritance of traits in 

 negro-white crosses. 



The work of the two departments at Cold Spring Harbor is fast 

 becoming interlocking. We have studied the distribution of twins in 

 human families and secured an interpretation of that distribution by 

 studies of sheep and pigs. Experimental studies of instincts and tem- 

 perament in dogs will supplement the pedigree studies made on humans; 

 and so with studies of heredity of cancer and the sex ratio. 



The future direction of our work lies plain before us. First, the work 

 of the Station for Experimental Evolution and that of the Eugenics 

 Record Office are so akin and so interdependent that they should ob- 

 viously be united in one department of Genetics, combining the two 

 sections, each of which will continue to develop its work by the use of 

 methods appropriate to it. 



Second, the experimental work at the Station should be largely with 

 mammals because of the probability that genetical results obtained 

 with them will be not only of general genetical interest, but also of 

 especial interest for the heredity of human traits. Thus, we should 

 breed dogs for the light they will throw on heredity of instincts and 

 temperament, rabbits (in so far as we can afford to) for the large num- 

 ber of characters that have already been worked out in them, mice for 

 the light they throw on the inheritance of resistance to malignant 

 growths, upon color factors, and upon problems of mammalian fecun- 

 dity. At the same time, we should continue to develop to the utmost 

 our genetical studies in plants and insects and, as opportunity offers, 

 in other organisms also, in order to maintain a broad view of genetical 

 phenomena, and because there is some of this work (as on plants) 

 which we are especially well fitted to do. 



It is also clear that progress in genetics will be made only as we con- 

 sider reproduction generally — what sex is, the sex ratio, and how it is 

 modified; differential fertilization and mortality; and the role of lethal 

 or absence of vital factors. 



For progress in genetics we need the assistance of the cytologist, the 

 anatomist, the biochemist, the biometrician, and the artist. These 

 accessory divisions of our work should not be permitted to develop 

 independently, but only as handmaidens, of genetics. Thus we are 

 not interested in painting or photography as such, or biometry and sta- 



