44 Heredity and Child Culture 



to check this tainted stream not only for the 

 good of society but for the defectives them- 

 selves. A plan favored by some is to subject 

 them to sterihzation. This has been tried 

 in a limited way, but it need hardly be said 

 there are great social and legal difficulties in the 

 way of its general adoption. A recent judicial 

 decision in Oregon holds that the steriliza- 

 tion law adopted by that State is unconstitu- 

 tional. 



Is there no other way of handling these defec- 

 tives, who are often as prolific as they are 

 undesirable! Many years ago I advised that 

 they be permanently quarantined.^ If this were 

 done, in one or two decades they would die out, 

 and the world would be free of its principal 

 source of criminals and defectives. This class 

 should be permanently isolated from the rest 

 of society. According to this aspect, the ques- 

 tion of responsibility or punishment does not 

 enter into the question at all. It is simply 

 society protecting itself. Hence a perplexing 

 and uncertain problem is thereby removed. 



1 "The Survival of the Unfit," Popular Science Monthly, 

 June, 1892. 



