208 RURAL SOCIOLOGY 



one trait and in another branch by quite a different one. Thus, 

 in one line alcoholism is universal among the men ; their male 

 cousins in another line are fairly temperate, plodding workers, 

 but the women are immoral. Another branch shows all the men 

 to be criminal along sexual lines, while a cousin who married into 

 a more industrious family has descendants who are a little more 

 respectable. These people have not been subjected to the social 

 influences of a city or even of a large town, so that the traits 

 which they show have been less modified by a powerful social 

 environment than those of urban dwellers. 



The conclusion of this brief survey, then, must be that the 

 second and third generations from a union of mentally defective 

 individuals show an accumulation and multiplication of bad 

 traits, even though a few normal persons also appear from such 

 unions. It is also evident that certain traits tend to follow 

 certain lines of descent, so that after one generation, related 

 families may each have a different characteristic trait. Feeble- 

 mindedness is due to the absence, now of one set of traits, now 

 of quite a different set. Only when both parents lack one or 

 more of the same traits do the children all lack the traits. So, 

 if the traits lacking in both parents are socially important the 

 children all lack socially important traits, i.e., are feeble-minded. 

 If, on the other hand, the two parents lack different socially 

 significant traits, so that each parent brings into the combination 

 the traits that the other lacks, all of the children may be with- 

 out serious lack and all pass for "normal." However, inasmuch 

 as many of the traits of such "normals" are derived from one 

 side of the house only (are simplex), that may, on mating per- 

 sons of like origin with themselves, produce obviously defective 

 offspring. 



The large majority of the matings which are represented in 

 this report are of defectives with defectives. A few of those 

 who have drifted into a different part of the country have mar- 

 ried persons of a higher degree of intelligence, but the most of 

 such wanderers have, even in a new location, found mates who 

 w r ere about their equal in intelligence and ambition. 



In a rural district which supports such a class of semi-paupers 

 as has been described the social advantages which come to them 

 are meager and narrow. After a long day's work on the farm 



