78 
genital heredity the terrible work of this one deficient and diseased woman 
is still going on. It gives us a new phase of the problem of eternal life, 
and makes it an educational and social problem, rather than a_ the 
ological one. 
Compare such statistics with that of the descendants of Jonathan 
Edwards, the great New England theologian. One thousand three hundred 
ninety-four of his descendants were identified in 1900, of whom 295 were 
college graduates; 13 presidents of our greatest colleges; 65 professors 
in colleges, besides many principals of other important educational insti- 
tutions; 60 physicians, many of whom were eminent; 100 or more clergy- 
men, missionaries, or theological professors; 75 were officers in the army 
and navy; 60 prominent authors and writers; 100 or more were lawyers 
of whom one was our most eminent professor of law; 80 were judges; 
80 held public office, of whom one was a vice-President of the United 
States; 3 were United States senators; several were governors, members 
of congress, framers of state constitutions, mayors of cities, and ministers 
to foreign courts; one was president of the Pacific Mail Steamship Com- 
pany; railroads, banks, insurance companies, and large industrial enter- 
prises lave been indebted to their management. Almest if not every 
department of social and intellectual progress has felt the impulse of this 
healthy and long-lived family. It is not known that any of them ever 
committed a crime, or died in a poorhouse. 
Let us protect for life every feeble-minded girl in the commonwealth, 
and thus cut off one of the most potent influences for social corruption 
which now embarrasses the State. 
