56 Proceedings of Indiana Academy of Science. 
for these he has at least the hope that he may find substitutes. The most 
deplorable waste is the waste of the hereditary sources from which genius 
springs. Professor Cattell tells us that a Harvard graduate has, on the 
average, three-fourths of a son. a Vassar graduate, one-half of a daughter. 
College graduates are regularly informed by the commencement speaker 
that they are the salt of the earth, the leaven of the whole lump of society, 
but in a biological sense the leaven is weak and the salt has lost much of its 
saltness. The call for highly educated men in the universities, colleges 
and the professions is greater today than ever before and it is certain to 
increase. If present tendencies continue, the future will see a great drain 
on the biological resources of the civilized nations. 
In order to improve his stock, the breeder of domestic animals selects ~ 
only perfect specimens; he knows that elimination of the superior animals 
will mean race deterioration. Has human mental capacity declined be- 
cause the talented ones of past ages failed to perpetuate their kind? There 
are those who believe that such a decline has occurred since the days of 
Aristotle. Perhaps it is safe to say there has been no great improvement. 
But this much is certain. Heredity is a factor in mental evolution, and if 
human talent had maintained itself in the past without loss, the average 
mental capacity of modern civilized man would be higher than it actually is. 
Whether a decline of this average mental capacity has occurred, er will 
hereafter. occur, must depend on the relation between losses and gains. To 
balance the loss of talent in the educated classes, there is the possibility 
of increase from mutations, or talent may increase in a latent condition. 
We know that heritable variations have occurred in the past; the exist- 
ence of different races of men is suflicient evidence of this. But if this 
evidence seems to justify the belief that progressive mutation of the 
mental faculties occurs today, we are still ignorant in regard to the fre- 
quency of their occurrence. We are not certain that they replace any 
considerable part of the losses of talent in civilized countries. There is, 
however, more or less latent talent among men, in families whose members 
are undeveloped because of lack of education. In the United States and 
other progressive nations the amount of such talent may also be aug- 
mented by immigration. From all of these sources. it is possible the in- 
crease may be suflicient to fill the places made vacant by the extermination 
of educated families. But substitution is not restoration. The losses on the 
firing line can not be made good by calling up the reserves: the total 
strength of the army is nevertheless reduced. We must conclude that man 
is advancing socially at the expense of his biological heritage. Whether 
this heritage is increasing or decreasing is uncertain, but under the most 
favorable conditions, society is falling behind the high development of which 
it is capable. At present the only hope for improvement lies in a cam- 
paign of education. Society should see to it that the rewards of service are 
sufficient to enable the educated man to live a normal life’as head of a fam- 
ily. The educated man should appreciate his obligations to society. The 
problem is to discover a way to utilize available talent and at the same time 
to conserve it for future generations. ; 
But if civilization has been unfavorable for the reproduction of the edu- 
cated classes, it has been especially favorable for the reproduction of the 
uneducated. In fact, it has become a veritable paradise for the unfit. In 
