250 GENETICS 



ties from which our immigrants come, whose duty 

 it shall be to look up the ancestry of prospective 

 applicants and to stamp desirable ones with approval. 

 The national expense of such a program of genealogi- 

 cal inspection would be far less than the mainte- 

 nance of introduced defectives, in fact it would 

 greatly decrease the number of defectives in the 

 country. At the present time this country is spending 

 over one hundred million dollars a year on defectives 

 alone, and each year sees this amount increased. 



The United States Department of Agriculture 

 already has field agents scouring every land for 

 desirable animals and plants to introduce into this 

 country, as well as stringent laws to prevent the im- 

 portation of dangerous weeds, parasites, and organ- 

 isms of various kinds. Is the inspection and super- 

 vision of human blood less important ? 



b. More Discriminating Marriage Laws 



Every people, including even the more primitive 

 races, make customs or laws that tend to regulate 

 marriage. Of these, the laws which relate to the 

 eugenic aspect of marriage are the only ones that 

 concern us in this connection. "Marriage," says 

 Davenport, "can be looked at from many points of 

 view. In novels as the climax of human courtship ; 

 in law largely as two lines of property descent ; in 

 society, as fixing a certain status ; but in eugenics, 

 which considers its biological aspect, marriage is an 

 experiment in breeding." 



Certain of the United States have laws for- 



