PAPERS ON PSYCHOLOGY AND EDUCATION 495 



THE INFUSION OF BAD BLOOD INTO A GOOD 



FAMILY 



Elmer E. Joxes, Northwesterx L^xh^ersity 



Few families have been so fortunate as to have escaped 

 the infnsion of bad blood into the line of descent. No 

 matter how excellent the lineage from remote ancestors, 

 there are to be fonnd individuals in every family who 

 have disregarded, either voluntarily or ignorantly, the 

 family traditions, and have married into families whose 

 blood is teeming with undesirable traits and characteris- 

 tics. In some instances these traits have been so domin 

 ant as to overshadow practically all the good .qualities 

 of the family, and in the branch affected destroy its use- 

 fulness to society. The new science of Eugenics is bring- 

 ing to light many instances in which a single unsocial 

 dominant trait introduced into an otherwise excellent 

 family has wi'ought its ruin. Whole branches of families 

 have been wrecj^ed by a single marriage starting a line 

 of descent which is unsocial, mentally unbalanced or of 

 low intelligence. Such tragedies are continually occur- 

 ring, even among our most gifted and highly cultivated 

 families. 



This fact is frequently overlooked, viz., that there are 

 many intelligent, and even gifted individuals who are 

 members of degenerate families. Such individuals are 

 very apt to migrate from the home community in which 

 they were reared, in order to escape the stigma of the 

 home to which they belong. They are intelligent enough 

 to know that the "cards are stacked" against them so 

 long as the world knows their ancestry. They migrate to 

 remote regions in order to escape the disgrace. Here 

 they may marry and propagate their kind unrestricted, 

 provided, of course, the family tree remains unknown. 



About fifteen years ago an intelligent boy belonging 

 to a degenerate family in southern Indiana migrated to 

 the State of Kansas, where he married a talented and 

 well educated girl, the daughter of well-to-do parents of 

 the middle class. The type of degeneracy well known in 

 this man's family for several generations is a low grade 



