NEW ENGLAND 221 



selection of the best and rejection of some of 

 those unfit for breeding purposes. If we must 

 have the stupendous pride and effrontery of 

 placing ourselves above the ordinary everyday 

 laws of the universe, we bring destruction upon 

 ourselves, like the fool who builds his tinsel house 

 upon the shifting sands. Education, training, 

 and preventive measures are obviously essential 

 makeshifts, but no amount of kind treatment or 

 education can ever obliterate heredity defects 

 from the race. Incompetents and criminals are 

 bom with these defects. Why not accept this 

 fact squarely? The world will be a slaughter 

 house — an insane asylum, and imbeciles and 

 incompetents will walk the earth until the truth 

 shall at last percolate into the minds of all that 

 the unavoidable and unchangeable laws of nature 

 which apply to the improvement of domestic 

 animals and plants also apply especially to 

 ourselves as well. 



In the matter of my own heredity: though 

 apparently frail in childhood and youth, I was 

 in many respects fortunate in having the will 

 and ability to work hard with head, hands, and 

 feet, averaging more than ten hours for each 

 calendar day for the past sixty years, and having 

 lately sought for the causes of this state of affairs, 

 find that all my ancestors and all my relatives on 



