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Till-; JoLKXAL OF Hkrkditv 



tration would be sought by all of the 

 best individuals of society and soon it 

 would come to be almost universal 

 among good families having pride or 

 confidence in their ancestry. Soon, if 

 one is not registered or his family is not 

 registered, the question would arise, 

 why are they not registered? In this 

 way I believe all individuals and families 

 that have not very serious defects in 

 their pedigrees would be led to register, 

 and thus the object would be accom- 

 plished, as we could then be certain that 

 unregistered families could not be con- 

 sidered good constructive eugenic 

 material. 



A OriDE TO MARRIAGE. 



"Such a register would have great 

 value, doubtless, as a guide to marriage. 

 Suppose a father notices a growing 

 intimacy between his daughter and a 

 young man of api)arcntly good character 

 but of unknown ancestry. The regis- 

 tration number of the young man's 

 father or mother could be obtained and 

 from this, for a small fee, the girl's 

 father could secure a brief outline of the 

 young man's family history. If this 

 history were bad doubtless it would 

 serve to check any growing intimacy 

 between the two and would save the 

 family much trouble and worry." 



Dr. Davenjjort makes clear one 

 feature of the jjrogram which some of 

 the other lecturers implied rather than 

 directly stated. "It is not sufficient to 

 secure good matings and cut ofT the 

 bad." he points out. "The eugenic 

 marriages must be fecund, and must 



eqvial or exceed the fecundity of the 

 cacogenic matings. No fact is more 

 startling today, and fraught with greater 

 danger to the commonwealth, than the 

 low fecundity of our best blood. 



"From 1193 bachelors of arts of 

 Br\'n Mawr college since 1888 there 

 have been produced to January, 1913, 

 263 girls all told. Twent}' years after 

 graduation, close to the reproductive 

 limit, 328 graduates of Harvard in my 

 class have reproduced 195 sons to take 

 their place. An earlier class of 278 

 persons, 25 years after graduation, had 

 jjroduccd 141 sons, or had only about 

 one-half reproduced itself; and no 

 account is made of infant deaths. 

 Assuming that a class produces half as 

 many sons as it graduates, and that 

 their descendants do the same for six 

 generations, 1000 Harvard graduates of 

 the 1880's will have 16 male descen- 

 dants of the 2080's. These 16 sons wall 

 be ruled by the scores of thousands of 

 descendants of 1000 of the Rumanians, 

 Bulgarians, Greeks and Hybrid Portu- 

 guese of the 1880's. Such figures must 

 make one fear for the future." He 

 therefore advocates examination of the 

 family history of immigrants, in order 

 to reject those who are manifestly 

 undesirable breeding stock. 



Stimming up his own paper, he says: 

 "Thus the program of eugenics stands; 

 first, investigation; then, as knowledge 

 grows, education. Finally, legislation 

 based on sound public sentiment. For 

 the carrying out of this program the 

 ])ublic is quite ready and indeed waiting. 

 It is seeking to be wisely led." 



