LAUGHLIN] EUGENICS 111 



man traits must be studied. The kinship networks studied must 

 be extensive, extending in each case along all possible direct, 

 collateral, and consort lines, and the authenticity of the pedigree 

 must be doubly sure. The data so collected must then be re- 

 duced, and, thanks to the recently discovered methods of analysis, 

 such processes slowly but surely wrest from nature the truth con- 

 cerning the manner of the inheritance of the traits studied. By 

 the expression ''understanding of the behavior in heredity" is 

 meant that ability, by the study of the somatic appearance and 

 the ancestry of two parents, to work out their germ-plasm formu- 

 lae, and to predict the nature of their offspring, in reference to 

 their traits under observation. When such predictions can be 

 accurately made, it will be in order for the social workers to take 

 up the thread, to promote the diffusion of knowledge concern- 

 ing the inheritance of traits, and to shape public opinion as to tit 

 and unfit matings, and to promote legislation concerning the best 

 means of eugenic amelioration. 



This new science owes much to Dr. Charles B. Davenport, 

 Director of the Carnegie Station for Experimental Evolution at 

 Cold Spring Harbor. Long Island, Xew York. Extending his 

 studies from plants and animals to man, he has become the 

 foremost authority on human inheritance in America. In his 

 earlier Eugenic studies he described to a nicety the behavior 

 in inheritance of albinism, of eye and hair color, and hair form, 

 did much to solve the riddle of the behavior of skin color in 

 white and negro crosses, and instituted many other lines of 

 investigation. He has secured funds for the establishment of 

 the Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island. 

 New York. This institution, which seeks to be a clearing house 

 in matters pertaining to human inheritance, is the first of its 

 kind in America, if not in the world, and its activities under 

 Dr. Davenport's direction consist in training for institutions 

 and positions concerned with Eugenic investigation, persons ex- 

 pert in collecting at first hand in the home territory of the fam- 

 ilies studied, records adequate to Eugenic research ; in employ- 

 ing on its staff a limited number of such trained workers as- 

 signed to special problems ; in indexing all obtainable specific 

 data on human inheritance ; in promoting a general interest in 

 Eugenic research ; and in analyzing the assembled data with 

 the view of determining the laws of inheritance. There has 

 just been completed an index or catalogue of analysis of human 

 traits, mental, physical, normal, and pathological. The scheme 



