Be;ll: Improving the Human Racd 



the undesirables, as a rule, are descend- 

 ed from normal parents. 



Prohibition of marriage would not, 

 therefore, have much effect upon the 

 continued production of an undesirable 

 class. We would have just about as 

 many undesirable people appear in the 

 next generation, born from the normal 

 population. 



Then again, the tendency to reversion 

 to the normal type of the race is so 

 strong that the children of undesirables 

 are mainly of the normal type; so that 

 prohibition of marriage wordd prevent 

 the production of very many more nor- 

 mal children than undesirable children. 



Whatever processes may be employed 

 to improve the race, we shall always 

 have the undesirable with us, because 

 they are sprung mainly from the normal 

 class; and it is more practicable to im- 

 prove the undesirable strains than to 

 eradicate them^. 



If undesirables marry normal or 

 desirable partners they will not only 

 have fewer undesirable children than if 

 they married one another, but the 

 potency of the offspring to produce 

 undesirable grandchildren will be re- 



duced. The undesirable blood is di- 

 luted, so to speak, by admixture with 

 normal blood ; and most of the offspring 

 will be of the normal type. 



CONCLUSION. 



A public sentiment already exists 

 that persons possessing inherited char- 

 acteristics of a desirable kind shotdd 

 marry and have large families. This 

 sentiment undoubtedly is favorable to 

 the improvement of the race ; but it does 

 not go far enough. 



We should impress upon the public 

 the point that one certain means of 

 increasing the prevalence of any hered- 

 itary characteristic in a community is 

 to induce the individuals who possess it 

 to marry one another; and thus produce 

 a more potent stock in the next genera- 

 tion. 



It is neither practicable nor advisable 

 that the individuals referred to should 

 marry exclusively among themselves, 

 but only to a much greater extent than 

 now prevails; and the public policy 

 should be: Promote the marriages of 

 the desirable with one another. 



Selection by Birth-Rate 



The eugenist recognizes that selection is essential to the progressive improvement 

 of the himian race, but he seeks to substitute a selective birth-rate for the selective 

 death-rate which has been the cruel instrument used by nature. — W. C. Marshall, 

 in the Eugenics Review. 



Need of Eugenic Education 



Recent investigations point with no uncertain hand to degeneracy rather than 

 racial progress as the probable result of our existing social system. How then is 

 this danger to be averted ? The social reformer has long been busy in his attempts 

 to improve the environment of the people; and his efforts merit our warmest ap- 

 proval. Progress in the evolutionary sense is, however, not certainly thus promoted, 

 and may not be promoted at all. What we also need is an intellectual campaign, 

 which will make the path of eugenic reform stand out more clearly in front of us by 

 increasing our knowledge of the laws of heredity ; and a moral campaign to make our 

 fellow countrymen now ready to accept the sacrifices necessary to insure the racial 

 progress of their country in the future. — Extract from presidential address (1913) 

 of Major Leonard Darwin before The Eugenic Education Society, London. 



