Eugenics as a Creed and the Last Decade of Galton's Life 223 



"(b) To institute and carry on such investigations into the history of classes and families 

 as may be calculated to promote the knowledge of Eugenics. 



"(c) To prepare and present to the Committee, though not necessarily for publication, an 

 annual Report on his work [to be done under general direction of the Committee]. To give from 

 time to time, if required or approved by the Committee, short Courses of Lectures on Eugenics, 

 and in particular on his own investigations thereon. 



" (rf) To prepare for publication at such times and in such manner as may be approved 

 by the Committee (and at least at the end of his tenure of the Fellowship), a Memoir or 

 Memoirs on the investigations which he has carried out." 



The origin of the trend on which the Galton Laboratory of National 

 Eugenics was developed later will be found in this Draft Scheme. 



The University Senate on October 17th accepted the Draft Scheme 

 without emendation, voted its cordial thanks to Francis Galton for his 

 gift, and appointed as a Special Committee to recommend a Fellow and 

 afterwards direct him*, Sir Edward Busk, Mr Mackinder, Francis Galton 

 and myself. It also directed the Principal to issue an advertisement of the 

 Fellowship and its conditions. This Sir Arthur Rucker did, but either out 

 of sheer perversity, or through some clerical error, the word " morally " was 

 substituted for " mentally " in the definition, and National Eugenics appeared 

 in the advertisement as " the study of agencies under social control that may 

 improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations either physically 

 or morally." Quite recently this absurd definition was communicated to me 

 by a member of the executive of the University as the work of the Special 

 Committee ! It has, I believe, no standing whatever, except that of an 

 advertisement issued by the executive f, for which neither Galton, nor the 

 Special Committee, had any responsibility. Galton, in his Herbert Spencer 

 Lecture at Oxford in 1907, cites the definition correctly, and in his Memories 

 of my Life, 1908 (p. 321), he writes that Eugenics is officially defined in the 

 Minutes of the University of London as " the study of agencies under social 

 control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations 

 either physically or mentally," I do not know whether this definition fully 

 covered his original views or not. I only know of one occasion on which 

 during his life he departed in public from it. This was during a talk with an 

 interviewer from the Jewish Chronicle, July 20, 1910. He then defined 

 Eugenics with a slight difference as "the study of the conditions under human 

 control which improve or impair the inborn characteristics of the racef ." It 



* There was too much " direction " about the scheme as originally planned. Galton, as 

 I have previously remarked (see p. 135 above), was in my judgment too fond of working 

 through committees. Beside the University Special Committee, which on the whole did little 

 more than leave the first Research Fellow and Galton to their own devices, there was an 

 "Advisory Committee" nominated by Galton, which met at the Eugenics Record Office and 

 achieved little beyond hampering the Fellow. On this point the reader will find further remarks 

 later. 



t It is to be noted that in an announcement of the Fellowship in The Times of Oct. 26, 

 1904, the word "mentally" occurs in its proper place. 



| In this interview Galton stated that it is one part of Eugenics to encourage the idea of 

 parental responsibility, the other part is to see that the children born are well born. Galton 

 considered that the Mosaic code had enjoined the multiplication of the human species, but it 

 was really more important to prescribe that the children should be born from the fit and not 



