PAPERS OX PSYCHOLOGY AND EDUCATION 505 



mate of hospital and asylum fees for the incompetents is 

 placed at $20,000. The negative results entailed upon 

 the community by mere residence of such socially unfit 

 can never be estimated. 



The question naturally arises, ho^v long will society 

 fail to comprehend this problem? How long will our 

 marriage laws pennit unsocial dominant traits to be free- 

 ly propagated by any wretch who may possess them? It 

 should be as difficult to get a marriage license as a 

 life insurance policy. If men and women who con- 

 template marriage were compelled to submit with the 

 application for the license a true family tree indicating 

 family traits and hereditary tendencies, and if this ap- 

 plication were compulsory long enough time before con- 

 templated marriage to permit the state eugenist to pass 

 upon the family of pedigrees, it is possible that two- 

 thirds of the degenerate and unsocial qualities in the 

 race could be eliminated. 



