538 IMPROVEMENT OF THE HUMAlSr BREED. 



The tone of the place would be higher than elsewhere on account 

 of the high quality of the inmates, and it would be distinguished by 

 an air of energ}^, intelligence, health, and self-respect, and by mutual 

 helpfulness. 



PROSPECTS. 



It is pleasant to contrive Utopias, and I have indulged in man}-, of 

 which a great society is one, publishing intelligence and memoirs, hold- 

 ing j'Carly elections, administering large funds, establishing personal 

 relations like a missionary societ}^ with its missionaries, keeping 

 elaborate registers and discussing them statistically with honest 

 precision. But the first and pressing point is to thoroughly justify 

 any crusade at all in favor of race improvement. More is wanted in 

 the way of unbiased scientific inquiry along the manj^ roads I have 

 hurried over to make every stepping-stone safe and secure, and to 

 make it certain that the game is really worth the candle. All I dare 

 hope to effect by this lecture is to prove that in seeking for the 

 improvement of the race we aim at what is apparently possible to 

 accomplish, and that we are justified in following every path in a 

 resolute and hopeful spirit that seems to lead toward that end. The 

 magnitude of the inquiry is enormous, but its object is one of the 

 highest man can accomplish. The faculties of future generations will 

 necessarily be distributed according to laws of heredity, whose statis- 

 tical effects are no longer vague, for they are measured and expressed 

 in formulae. We can not doubt the existence of a great power ready 

 to hand and capable of being directed with vast benefit as soon as we 

 shall have learned to understand and apply it. To no nation is a high 

 human breed more necessary than to our own, for we plant our stock 

 all over the world and lay the foundation of the dispositions and 

 capacities of future millions of the human race. 



