52 WHAT IS EUGENICS? 



criminals may be described as not quite normal. Now all 

 these mental troubles, whether mild or severe, are often 

 transmitted to future generations by natural inheritance. 

 It is possible to do much to ward off the harm likely to 

 result from all such harmful predispositions ; but they are a 

 force which has to be reckoned with when once the child 

 is born. 



The ideal plan would be for every young person, when 

 accused of a crime, to be examined as regards his mental 

 powers before being brought into court. Those found to 

 be definitely feeble-minded should be certified as such and 

 the criminal proceedings at once abandoned. Here is a 

 direction in which reforms are much needed. The milder 

 cases of mental trouble constitute a more difficult and 

 possibly a more important problem. It is, however, one 

 which we are not yet ready to touch. 



It has just been suggested that the powers which human 

 beings possess of overcoming their evil propensities are 

 strictly limited ; and this view will doubtless be resented by 

 many. But we must look facts in the face. A boy from 

 a very bad home commits a crime with no excuse, and in 

 consequence he is sent to a reformatory, where he is well 

 cared for. Another boy does not fall so readily, but when 

 somewhat older and when more tempted he does become a 

 criminal. Now, those who put everything down to the 

 influence of home surroundings must assume that the home 

 of this second boy was bad, though not so bad as that of the 

 first boy. This second boy remained later in his presumably 

 bad home, and had for a shorter time the advantage of 

 reformatory training ; that is, in comparison with the first 

 boy, coming from the even worse home. Let those who 

 look only to surroundings consider which boy will be most 

 likely to commit a crime after having finished his reformatory 

 training. 



As a fact, it is those boys who have been longest in 

 reformatories who are found to be most Hkely to become 

 habitual criminals. Properly regarded this does not, how- 

 ever, throw any discredit on reformatory training. The 



