18 CHARLES B. DAVENPORT 



of Holmes' Bibliography of Eugenics, the number of papers on the subject 

 has increased enormously. We may share part of the credit for this advance 

 so well recorded in the textbooks of Baur, Fischer and Lenz. In application 

 there has been a slow but steady spread. Sterilization as a useful aid in 

 negative eugenics has been adopted by Denmark, largely through the 

 activities of our colleague Soren Hansen. England and the Netherlands are 

 considering legislation on the subject. Sterilization is being at least widely 

 discussed. The principle of national determination of immigration has 

 become recognized. One country may not relieve itself of its socially in- 

 adequate by slyly exiling them to another country. Each country must 

 bear the burden of caring for the socially inadequate that it breeds. 



The seriousness of the act of mate selection is, I think, becoming increas- 

 ingly recognized partly as a result of increasing instruction on eugenics 

 given in the schools. Marriage advice stations have sprung up in Germany 

 and Gosney and Popenoe are responsible for an active center in Los Angeles. 



Eugenical ideals are as old as mankind and have their roots in the instinct 

 of mate selection which is found through the largest part of the vertebrate 

 phylum, if not below. 



The necessity of emphasizing these ideals now is partly the spread of non- 

 biological theories of equality of breeding stocks; the doubt entertained by 

 many sociologists whether there is any difference in quality of fitness among 

 humans (despite the difference between an idiot and a scholar; an epileptic 

 and a person with controllable emotions) ; the undue emphasis on economic, 

 rather than biological, considerations in mate selection and in reproduction. 



We honor Galton for arousing the conscience of civilized peoples on 

 these matters, and starting a movement to mend them. Galton saw clearly 

 that the conscious improvement of mankind must be based on the laws of 

 heredity and he turned his attention to its study. But in his day a knowl- 

 edge of this subject was very incomplete; so that he failed in more than 

 demonstrating in general the importance of heredity in human affairs. 



With the rise of Mendelism a new era opened. In place of average 

 results in inheritance it now became possible to state more precisely the 

 consequences of a given mating; or at least the way was opened to acquire 

 knowledge toward such a statement. Such at least was the idea that led to 

 the establishment of the Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor 

 by Mrs. E. H. Harriman. Such an ideal was doubtless in Galton's mind 

 when he made the Galton Laboratory at London the residuary legatee of 

 his estate. Unfortunately it got into the hands of an opponent of the new 

 method of analysis. 



