There is practically no hindrance to the rapid multipli- 

 cation of the unfit and degenerate. Recent studies show 

 that good and bad physique, the liability to and the im- 

 munity from disease, the moral characters, and the men- 

 tal temperament are inherited in man, and with much the 

 same intensity." 



It is inevitable that unless more stringent regulations 

 regarding marriage are adopted our nation stands exposed 

 to "the gravest risks of retrogression." 



By long-continued wars old Rome lost her best men 

 and the less fit were left to propagate the race. "Homo" 

 replaced " Vir," and the nation fell a prey to the more virile 

 northern conquerors. The wars of Louis XIV and Napo- 

 leon weakened France for generations, since the young able- 

 bodied men were drafted into the army and perished, and 

 the relatively more unfit left at home. 



Eugenics, in a word, attempts to apply the same prin- 

 ciples to man as the breeder applies in the development of 

 his herds of fine stock. The subject is one that deserves 

 the careful thought of every citizen who has at heart the 

 welfare of his country. 



Eugenics was a term introduced by Francis Galton' 

 in 1883 in his "Inquiries into Human Faculties" to express 

 "the study of the agencies under social control that may 

 improve or impair the racial qualities of future genera- 

 tions either physically or mentally." Galton in the same 

 work also stated the aim of Eugenics: "Its first object is to 

 check the birth rate of the unfit instead of allowing them to 

 come into being, though doomed in large numbers to perish 

 prematurely. The second object is the improvement of the 

 race by furthering the productivity of the fit, by early mar- 

 riages and the healthful rearing of their children". 



The Eugenic idea is an old one. Plato discussed the 

 problem in the Republic and the Laws, in which he ad- 

 vanced many of the suggestions being advanced nowadays 

 for the improvement of the human race, such as regulation 

 of marriages, taxation of bachelors over 35 years of ag6, and 

 care of mothers and children. 



About the beginning of the 17th century Campanella 

 discussed the problems of Eugenics, much after the fashion 



(O — Sir Francis Galton was a cousin of Chas. Darwin. He took his 

 medical degree at Cambridge. He travelled extensively in Africa, 

 and published two books on his experiences. He studied an- 

 thropology and heredity, and endowed a research fellowship in 

 the University of London for the Study of Eugenics. His pub- 

 lications are — "Hereditary Genius" (1869), "Human Faculty and 

 its Development" (1883), "Natural Inheritance" (1889). 



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