78 The Journal 
concerning their future and their chil- 
dren’s future. If Eugenics as a science 
does not answer, nescience will—and it 
does. 
The hands of palmists, seers, chiro- 
graphers, astrologers, phrenolozists and 
mediums are crossed with silver mount- 
ing into hundreds of thousands of dol- 
lars a year, for the information they give 
on the subject of courtship, marriage and 
probabilities concerning children. The 
word Eugenics appears already in the 
literature of the underworld of quacks 
and fakirs, and on the gilded signs of 
medical museums and mail-order ‘‘Uni- 
versities.”’ This, of course, is to be ex- 
pected, for they seize on every instru- 
ment of popular fancy to further their 
trade; but do not the scope of the ques- 
tions that are asked, and the range of 
the answers given and paid for in cold 
cash, suggest that there is a wider field 
for the scientific Eugenist, even at this 
stage of the game? 
The Eugenics Record Office, through 
the interest of Mrs. Wortham James, 
was able to try a piece of extension work 
in the form of lectures on the general sub- 
ject of Eugenics. These lectures at- 
tracted favorable attention, and were 
well received largely because to those 
who heard them the word Eugenics con- 
noted heredity in relation to the prob- 
lems of marriage and parenthood. Au- 
diences were made up of people whose 
matrix of ideas was ready to receive new 
conceptions of science up to a certain 
limit, and in so far as these lectures car- 
ricd material that squared in with that 
limit they were useful; but they usually 
overshot their mark because the lec- 
turer wrongly assumed that the latest 
developments in scientific research 
would find a cordial welcome. But 
marriage and parenthood to the average 
college student mean far more than the 
facts concerning the segregation of unit 
characters in plants and the inheritance 
of eye coior in man. 
THE APPROACH TO EUGENICS 
Eugenics as an idea and an ideal of 
better marriages, better parenthood, 
better babies and a better race is a draw- 
ing card of no small power, but to get 
of Heredity 
Eugenics into the tissue of society as 
part of its thinking and feeling, science 
must take advantage of those keen per- 
sonal interests that, while not strictly 
biological, are yet very close to the ma- 
jor problems of biology. This, again, 
can be illustrated with the kind of 
questions young men and women are 
asking, questions which indicate the 
mental content and emotional tendency 
that Eugenics must recognize and use 
if it is to make headway. 
“T have just got under way with a 
piece of work that is taxing me heavily, 
the more so because I thoroughly enjoy 
it and am making it successful. Next 
spring I want to be married, and I want 
to be a mother assoonasIcan. Ihave 
an offer from a relative to take charge 
of her two children for the rest of this 
year, and just devote myself to their 
care, which means outdoors, happy 
times, very little strain, healthful hours 
and many points of advantage for one 
who wants to be in good shape for mo- 
therhood. Now, from the standpoint of 
Eugenics and heredity, is it worth while 
for me to sacrifice my work and take up 
this other line for the good of my chil- 
dren, or will their inheritance be just the 
same if their stock is sound?” 
Had this young woman already filled 
out a record of family traits, her ques- 
tion would remain the same concerning 
the welfare of her children-to-be. She 
wanted a specific answer to a specific 
question, from someone who had author- 
ity that she could respect back of the 
answer, and she put her question to me 
because I had the reputation of being an 
authority on Eugenics. Now I know 
perfectly well that we have no proof that 
running a successful class in handcraft 
work is damaging to the germ plasm, 
and therefore injurious to our racial 
stock; but I unhesitatingly told that 
young woman that if she considered 
motherhood her capital profession in life, 
she would be doing the eugenic thing by 
dropping her job, if she could afford it, 
and taking her relative’s children in 
hand. I said ‘if you can afford it’’ be- 
cause it might have been that her job 
was paying her well enough to enable 
her to marry in the spring, and that per- 
