RELATION OF BIOLOGY TO AGRICULTURE 553 



entire population live less intelligently and therefore to less purpose 

 than they might live if, for the almost complete ignorance of the hered- 

 itary processes there could be substituted a reasonable conception of the 

 things that connect the individual with his ancestry and which show 

 that the welfare of the race, while advanced by the improvement of the 

 individual, is still of greater moment than that of any one individual, 

 and conditions which are seriously detrimental to the individual are 

 not infrequently beneficial to a large number of the race. 



The American Breeders' Association is an organized agency working 

 to bring human needs and industries into more intimate relation with 

 the fundamental science of heredity. One branch of the work of this 

 association, of vital importance to the nation, has been given some 

 prominence in late magazine numbers. This is the study of human 

 inheritance as carried on by the association's committee on eugenics. 



The objects of this committee are "to investigate and report on 

 heredity in the human race; to devise methods of recording the values 

 of the blood of individuals, families, peoples and races ; to emphasize the 

 value of superior blood and the menace to society of inferior blood; 

 and to suggest methods of improving the heredity of the family, the 

 people and the race." 



The personnel of the committee is a guarantee that the matter will 

 be thoroughly studied and that there will be no premature recommenda- 

 tions of legislation. David Starr Jordan is the chairman of the com- 

 mittee and Professors C. B. Davenport, Castle and Kellogg are among 

 the members. Their plan is to first study the situation and effect a 

 reform in the tabulation of vital and social statistics, then to work for 

 the education of the race upon the facts of human inheritance. The 

 situation is well expressed by the secretary of the committee in a recent 

 publication : 



A new plague that rendered four per cent, of our population, chiefly at the 

 most productive age, not only incompetent but a burden costing one hundred 

 million dollars yearly to support, would instantly attract universal attention, 

 and millions would be forthcoming for its study. . . . But we have become so 

 used to crime, disease and degeneracy that we take them as necessary evils. 

 That they were, in the world's ignorance, is granted. That they must remain 

 so, is denied. Vastly more effective than ten million dollars to " charity " 

 would be ten million to eugenics. He who, by such a gift, should redeem man- 

 kind from vice, and suffering, would be the world's wisest philanthropist. 



VOL. LXXVIII. — 39. 



