36 ILLINOIS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



HEREDITY. 



Vitality rests upon inherited qualities. A child born of weak 

 parents, those parents having received their weakness by inher- 

 itance, will itself be weak in the same way. Idiots breed idiots. 

 Whatever improvement the child ma}^ enjoy must rest upon its 

 inherited foundations. If a child inherits brown eyes, they must 

 stay brown; but inherited weak sight may be improved to a 

 greater or less degree. Two forces, therefore, control vitality — 

 namely, conditions preceding birth and conditions during life. 

 In other words, the foundations of vitality are wholly inherited, 

 and may be cultivated to the degree the inherited foundations will 

 permit. 



A perfectly sound physical and mental inheritance is rare, and 

 is the greatest of all assets. The highest development of a nation 

 will begin when the human law conforms to God's law of devel- 

 opment and parenthood is denied the defectives. A defective has 

 no right to burden society with other defectives. Prisons and 

 asylums are now sufficiently numerous, and it is evidence of 

 defectiveness of the masses to conduct our affairs so as to neces- 

 sitate their increase. My State now has five great insane asy- 

 lums, each representing about one million dollars, and there are 

 enough insane in jails, poorhouses and in homes to fill another 

 one. Our population increased 7.6 per cent in the last decade, 

 and insanity increased 29 per cent. 



To go along in the future as in the past, permitting — even fos- 

 tering — the production of the hereditary insane, of the hereditary 

 criminals, of the hereditary idiot and feeble-minded, and then 

 building great palaces in parks to care for them, will mean we 

 have not the sense necessary for the proper conduct of our 

 affairs. 



HYGIENE. 



We must look to hygiene, the science of health, to conserve 

 human vitality. The term includes every force necessary to pre- 

 vent disease, to increase strength and endurance, and to prevent 

 the production of the unfit. 



The ponderous and oppressively costly courts have been grind- 

 ing for centuries, and crime increases. Punishment and fear of 

 punishment restrain evil-doing, but do not eradicate the tend- 

 ency to evil. This and other defects we must, as far as possible, 

 breed out of the race, and science can find a valid answer for 



