INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT 



The eugenics movement in this country has suffered 

 somewhat — at least among the well educated — ^from the 

 suspicion of sentimentality and of scientific super- 

 ficiality. Certain of its more enthusiastic proponents 

 may have given some ground for this distrustful atti- 

 tude. But, be that as it may, no thoughtful person who 

 reflects upon the vital and social statistics of his own 

 nation, to say nothing of those of less favoured peoples, 

 can have the slightest doubt that the population problem 

 is going quickly to take on vastly greater importance 

 than it has ever before enjoyed. International, as well 

 as national, relations are certain to be increasingly and 

 often critically affected by it. Not only the question of 

 the total population, but also, and even more urgently, 

 the problem of selecting the better and suppressing the 

 poorer stocks, must be given exhaustive study. 



No one is more competent to discuss these issues than 

 Major Leonard Darwin, who for nearly half a century 

 has been recognised as an authority in this field. In the 

 present monograph, he has brought together an extraor- 

 dinary amount of material and condensed its implica- 

 tions into the space of a few lucidly written pages. It 

 should receive a warm welcome in its American dress. 

 It will certainly be found provocative to honest think- 

 ing upon the problems with which it deals, and at the 

 present moment that is the result most to be desired. 



James R. Angell 

 Yale University 

 New Haven, Conn. 

 December 12, 1929 



