A HOME OF THE JUKES 
This two-room log cabin is occupied at the present time by a member of the 
Juke family. 
Some members of the great clan are useful members of 
society, but entirely too many of them, living in such places as this, 
are a burden whom society would be much better off without. 
It is 
not sufficient to move them into a better environment, for investigation 
shows that to a large extent they create their own environment—a 
bad one—wherever they go. 
(Fig. 9.) 
to marry persons like themselves. On 
the other hand, the dispersion has led 
some of these descendants to marry 
into better stocks and this is improving 
the quality of the germ-plasm. To be 
sure, this better germ-plasm into which 
the Jukes marry will sometimes become 
contaminated with the determiners for 
mental weakness and lack of control; 
but children who show such defects are 
more apt to be placed under restraint 
in their matings when they belong to 
families of fair social standing than when 
they arise in cacogenic communities. 
It is probable that, in the long run, the 
cheapest way to improve a bad germ- 
plasm is to scatter it. I do not, how- 
ever, recommend this course as superior 
to segregation; but only as a cheap and 
somewhat hazardous substitute. Inthe 
case of the Jukes there are so many 
dominant traits of feeble inhibition that 
scattering them is like scattering fire- 
brands—each tends to start a fire in a 
new place. One may doubt the wisdom 
of the operation of ‘Children’s Aid 
Photograph from Arthur H. Estabrook. 
Societies’ which send much bad germ- 
plasm to good farming communities 
throughout our Middle West. It will 
probably have, on the whole, the same 
sad effects that the transportation of 
convicts from London to Virginia and 
later to Australia have had on parts 
of those countries. 
GOOD HEREDITY ESSENTIAL 
““The most important conclusion that 
may be drawn from Dr. Estabrook’s 
prolonged study of the Jukes forty 
years later is that not merely institu- 
tional care, nor better community 
enviroment, will cause good social 
reactions in persons who are feeble- 
minded and feebly inhibited, although, 
on the other hand, better stimuli will 
secure better reactions from weak stock 
than will poor stimuli. There is, in- 
deed, no conflict betwéen environment 
and heredity; each is a factor in all 
behavior. Environment affords the 
stimulus; heredity determines largely 
the nature of the reacting substance; 
471 
