CHAPTER XII 



INBREEDING AND OUTBREEDING IN MAN: 

 THEIR EFFECT ON THE INDIVIDUAL 



THE world has entered an age of reason. The leaven 

 of education is working rapidly, and all relations of man 

 to his fellow-man, all connections of man with his environ- 

 ment, are being subjected to thorough scrutiny. To ac- 

 company the current changes in the arts due to new 

 advances in science, enlightened democracy demands 

 progress in religion and philosophy, in government and 

 social policy. It has set upon its program the task of 

 establishing a broad scheme of social hygiene, and more 

 than one might suspect has been accomplished. 



Although there is still room for improvement, general 

 communistic sanitation has reached a degree of efficiency 

 which a few years ago would hardly have been deemed 

 possible. The civilized world has gone through a clean- 

 ing-up period which has provided reasonably hygienic 

 buildings, tidy streets and excellent waste disposal ; which 

 has bettered the condition of the people and lowered their 

 death rate by quarantine regulations, public hospitals, 

 and free medical attention in the schools ; and has passed 

 on to preventive work, vaccination, pure food legislation, 

 and the like. There has been marked progress in 

 ameliorating conditions of work. Sanitation has been 

 made the subject of many laws ; hours of toil shortened 

 particularly for women and children. Factory super- 

 vision and wage regulation are accepted facts ; industrial 

 insurance is in the air. Public education has made strides 



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