Eugenics as a Creed and the Last Decade of Galton's Life 373 



Meadow Cottage, Brockham Green, Betch worth. February 20, 1909. 



My dear Karl Pearson, Can you give me a line of guidance as to the value of Miss Mary 

 Dendy's data on Feeble-Minded Children, of which she sent you copies'? (She fears they were 

 not satisfactory.) My reason is that I have corresponded with her and she estimates that, for 

 every P.M. her institution takes in, two F.M.'s are prevented from coming into existence. 

 I asked for the grounds of this estimate and she writes offering to send masses of original or of 

 copied data, which I do not want. My object in writing to you is merely to learn in a general 

 way whether her grasp of statistics seems to you to be fairly good, or otherwise ? I was much 

 struck with the goodness of her evidence. 



All this arises out of a forthcoming little book from Cambridge, about which the Horace 

 Darwins and the Whethams are keen. Its purpose is to give a short account of the contents of the 

 Blue Book. They have persuaded Sir Edward Fry to write a short (and excellent) preface, and 

 me to write a short paper also, which I have done, calling it " Segregation." The weakest points 

 in this are want of good evidence for the great average fecundity of the P.M. women, and for 

 the happiness of the segregates in labour-colonies, etc. It was as to the former of these that 

 I wrote to Miss M. Dendy, and I have suggested that she might be asked to contribute also as 

 to the latter. I am sorry to bore you with all this rigmarole. 



We leave here on this day week, Saturday 26, for the Crown Hotel, Lyndhurst, where 

 I have taken rooms for a week certain, with power of staying on. How lovely this weather is ! 



Affectionately yours, Francis Galton. 



University College, London, W.C. February 21, 1909. 



My dear Francis Galton, We have in the Laboratory eight or nine MS. volumes covering 

 the records of nearly 1000 feeble-minded children provided for us by Miss Dendy but copied at 

 cur expense. We have only partially analysed these, and we did not go steadily at them because 

 we had our doubts as to whether in the cases of relatives no entry meant in all cases that the 

 relatives were sound, or that it was not really known whether they were sound or not. An 

 examination of our data for Birmingham and Manchester showed such very different percentages 

 of alcoholism and insanity in the P.M. stocks, that it did not seem feasible to advance farther 

 without more certainty of the method of examination and record. Miss Dendy was most kind, 

 and, of all the people working at the feeble-minded that I have come across, the most business- 

 like in her record and her talk. But in a long personal interview which Miss Elderton and 

 I had with her, we did not feel confident that the categories "sound" and "nothing known" 

 had been really kept apart. In few cases had the inquirer gone beyond the mother and 

 investigated the weight to be given to her answers. We could not press the point further, 

 because Miss Dendy rather resented our cross-examination as a charge on her own credibility. 

 I did not feel that her data were untrustworthy, but I did not feel confident enough about the 

 point mentioned to undertake heavy work on them, while we had better material unreduced. 

 I believe that as far as the size of fraternity of feeble-minded goes, the results are quite 

 trustworthy and I have used them, but I should use them with regard to heredity somewhat 

 cautiously. 



The next point we come to is exceedingly difficult. You may take it as certain that the 

 feeble-minded stocks are very prolific. But the feeble-minded girl or woman is not generally 

 selected as a wife. She is seduced and often bears illegitimate child after child in one or other 

 workhouse. You will find a good deal of evidence for this in the Report. Often she becomes 

 a prostitute and loses her power of bearing children. I do not think that in any of these 

 degenerate cases, the actual degenerates are so socially dangerous as the degenerate-bearin» 

 stocks, which are generally most fertile. A great many epileptics are, however, married and 

 appear to bear largely feeble-minded, albinotic and insane, as well as epileptic children. I should 

 certainly think Miss Dendy was correct, however, in saying that to segregate a feeble-minded 

 girl is to save society from one or two feeble-minded, or more accurately degenerate, children. 

 I have heard from more than one woman who works among the feeble-minded, that at certain 

 ages and times they cannot be allowed out for five minutes without offering themselves to the 

 first man they meet. You have in their cases the imperial passion unrestrained. Does not this 

 answer your second question l Given such a dominant impulse, and prevent its fulfilment by- 

 segregation, how can the segregated be " happy "1 It will be like a caged and foodless animal 



