Eugenics Committee: Studies in Human Heredity 



553 



lines which vary greatly in social effi- 

 ciency, and Dr. Key concludes: "Their 

 evolution shows the effect of marriage 

 selection in concentrating defect and 

 degeneracy in certain lines, and dissi- 

 pating defect and introducing traits 

 which make for increased efficiency in 

 others." Special attention was given 

 to the appearance in successive genera- 

 tions of different grades of calculating- 

 ability, aggressiveness and persever- 

 ance, and the investigator thinks that 

 these traits appear in conformity with 

 Mendel's Law. 



Samuel C. Kohs of Clark University, 

 Worcester, Mass., who approaches the 

 problem of eugenics from the psycho- 

 logical side, writes as follows: "My work 

 comes, first, under the broad head of 

 the psychology of individual differences. 

 More specifically, however, my interest 

 is focussed on the significance of the 

 complex, for differential psychology as 

 well as for mental inheritance. My 

 studies have led me to conclude that the 

 unconscious should be given a more 

 prominent place in psychogenesis. Most 

 modem psychologists recognize that 

 conscious phenomena are but a small 

 fraction of all psychic functioning, and 

 that most of the important factors 

 influencing activity, mental and ph3^si- 

 cal, lie below the conscious threshold. 

 Some of these factors are reducible to 

 the complex as at present used in psy- 

 choanalysis. 



"As we come to recognize more and 

 more the deep significance of Semon's 

 mnemic theory, the more are we led to 

 believe that inherent mental ability is 

 not as simple a structure as has been 

 assumed by many. 



' 'A paper attempting to deal with this 

 problem adequately would include the 

 following : 



"(1) Discussion of the complex and 

 its significance. 



"(2) Discussion of the unconscious 

 in relation to the dynamic forces of life 

 activity. 



"(3) Methods of diagnosing the exist- 

 ence of complexes. 



"(4) The complex and the question of 

 unit characters." 



H. H. Laughlin, superintendent of 

 the Eugenics Record Office, has been 



devoting his attention particularly to 

 a study of the effects of sterilization in 

 reducing the amount of caogenic breed- 

 ing in the United States. He writes: 



"We hope at intervals of not too long 

 a time to publish the reports outlined 

 in Bulletin No. 10a. The American 

 Institute of Criminal Law and Criminol- 

 ogy, at its recent meeting, appointed 

 Committee H on sterilization. This 

 committee consists of: 



"Joel D. Hunter, Chief Probation 

 Officer of Cook County, Chicago, 111. ; 

 Father O'Callaghan and Dr. William 

 T. Belfield, of Chicago; Judge Warren 

 W. Foster, of New York; Dr. WilHam 

 A. White, of the Government Hospital 

 for the Insane, Washington; Hastings 

 H. Hart, of the Russell Sage Founda- 

 tion, New York; and H. H. Laughlin, 

 of the Eugenics Record Office, Cold 

 Spring Harbor, L. I." 



RESEARCH IN BALTIMORE. 



The Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic 

 of Baltimore, directed by Dr. Adolf 

 Meyer, is collecting data about the 

 ancestries of its patients, and is also 

 collecting similar data from school 

 children in one ward of Baltimore. An 

 analysis of the recorded matings and 

 their offsprings is being made with 

 special attention to a more definite 

 characterization of common traits and 

 their groupings in the diverging lines of 

 the families and especially also the 

 weight of ontogenetic factors in the 

 determination of the individual fate 

 and means of analyzing the personality. 



Casper L. Redfield of Chicago has 

 been studying for many years the effect 

 of the age of parents on the character 

 of the offspring, particularly from an 

 intellectual point of view. This investi- 

 gation, which has led not only to a 

 thorough study of the parentage of 

 men of genius, but to similar studies on 

 race horses, cattle and pedigreed dogs, 

 has led Mr. Redfield to a belief in the 

 inheritance of certain classes of acquired 

 characters, and the data which he has 

 published probably forni one of the 

 most serious contributions made to 

 Lamarckism during the last decade or 

 two. The practical conclusion which he 

 reaches is that intellectual excellence 



