The Editor: The Increase of Ignorance 



183 



<:;hany River whence it is popularly 

 called "The Strip;" it is one of the j;reat 

 factory districts of the city but also 

 contains a large number of working- 

 men's homes. Nearly 3,000 out of a 

 total of 14,817 males of voting age are 

 iUiterate. Its death-rate is the highest 

 in the city. Almost nine-tenths of its 

 residents are either foreigners or the 

 children of foreigners. Its record is 

 black in most ways. 



And its birth-rate is three times that 

 of the prosperous, educated, intelligent, 

 superior, seventh ward. 



It is true that a larger proportion of 

 the children in these factory homes die, 

 but the infant mortality is not enough 

 greater to reduce their gain very much. 

 When the net increase is computed, 

 the ignorant sixth ward is found third 

 from the top, while the intelHgent 

 seventh stands eighth from the bottom. 



BREEDING FROM THE BOTTOM 



The significance of such figures, for 

 the future of the city, must be per- 

 fectly evident. Pittsburgh (like prob- 

 ably all other large cities) breeds from 

 the bottom. 



The lower a population is in the scale of 

 intelligence, the greater is its reproductive 

 contribution. When we recall that intel- 

 ligence is inherited, that like begets 

 like in this respect, we can hardly feel 

 encouraged over the population of 

 Pittsburgh, a couple of generations 

 hence. 



Of course, these foreign laborers, 

 from a eugenic point of view, are not 

 wholly bad. I do not wish to paint 

 the picture any blacker than the object. 

 Many of these illiterate stocks, in 

 another generation and with decent 

 surroundings, would furnish excellent 

 citizens. 



But taken as a whole, the fecund 

 stocks of Pittsburgh, with their illiter- 



acy, squalor and tuberculosis, their 

 many saloons, their economic straits, 

 can hardly be considered as eugenic 

 material as the families that are dying 

 out in the fashionable residence section 

 which their fathers created in the 

 eastern part of the city. If they were, 

 they would not be where they arc. 



And it can hardly be supposed that 

 the city, and the nation, of the future 

 would not benefit by a change in the 

 distribution of births, whereby more 

 would come from the se\^enth ward and 

 its Hke, and fewer from the sixth and 

 its like. 



If the more ignorant stocks of the 

 city are reproducing three times as 

 rapidly as the more intelligent, the 

 proportion of inef^cient people in the 

 city is going steadily to increase. And 

 it is now increasing — ^not only in 

 Pittsburgh but, to a much less degree 

 no doubt, in the whole nation. 



The problem of eugenics is to alter 

 this trend. 



PITTSBURGH WARDS, 1912 



Illiteracy and net increase 731 : 



Per cent native born ... — . 697 ^ 



Infant mortality 254 = 



Birth rate 753 = 



Birth rate and illiteracy 753 = 



Infant mortality 307 = 



Net increase 978 = 



Per cent native born ... — . 755 = 



Net increase and per cent native 



born — .673 = 



Birth rate 978 = 



Illiteracy 731 = 



Infant mortality 245 = 



Per cent native born and infant 



mortality — . 139 = 



Illiteracy — . 697 = 



Birth rate — . 755 = 



Net increase — . 673 = 



Infant mortality and per cent 



native born — . 139 = 



lUiteracv 254 = 



Birth rate 307 = 



Net increase 245 = 



.063 



.07 



.129 



.059 



.059 



.136 



.128 



.058 



.074 

 .128 

 .063 

 .128 



.133 

 .07 

 .058 

 .074 



.133 

 .129 

 .136 

 ,128 



Experiments with Potato-Beetles 



The plant used by W. L. Tower at 

 Tucson, Ariz., in his studies on potato 

 beetles is being entirely rebuilt, accord- 

 ing to the annual report of the Carnegie 

 Institution. Dr. Tower's breeding ex- 

 periments have now gone as far as the 



eighteenth generation, in some cases. 

 He states that his stocks are producing 

 mutations and that he is securing 

 valuable new evidence on adaptations 

 to climatic conditions. At least one pro- 

 gressive mutation is reported. 



