INSTRUCTION IN EUGENICS 169 



ways are the chief guides in determining action. The long-hoped-for sci- 

 entific control of action is still too largely in the realm of hope. Knowledge, 

 alone, cannot be depended upon to guide conduct. It must be so fully as- 

 similated into personal experience, that it results in a guiding attitude, 

 strong enough to hold when a strong adverse pull is applied. 



It is possible to change pupil attitudes and to develop new ones. A small 

 amount of experimental teaching has recently been done in an effort to 

 provide the factual correction for superstitions and other unfounded beliefs 

 regarding inheritance. Scientific persons now know that haemophilia and 

 color blindness are inherited in certain definite ways; that some organic and 

 nerve cell structures are inherited and serve to predispose their possessors 

 toward certain types of conduct. The experimental teaching referred to 

 proved that specific instruction on specific matters may produce desired 

 changes both in knowledge and attitude so far as these specific points are 

 concerned. While only a few of the points used in this experiment related 

 to eugenics, the few that did, experienced a desired change as did the other 

 beliefs used in the experiment. Such a procedure is recommended for fur- 

 ther use in problems of education in eugenics. Much such experimental 

 teaching about eugenics is needed. It is only upon the results of such ex- 

 periments that safe progress may be made. 



The biology course in secondary schools seems the logical opportunity 

 for a factual foundation for instruction in eugenics. The study cannot be 

 adequately made of plants and animals unless their reproduction is included. 

 The structures and processes of reproduction from simplest to most complex 

 forms is essential to an elementary understanding of plant and animal life. 

 If properly presented, these are full of interest to high school pupils. The 

 pupils' questions are direct and pertinent, and may be answered directly 

 and frankly, provided no wrong-minded adult injects such harmful attitudes 

 as the taboos, and "You are not old enough to know." If biology is prop- 

 erly taught, high school pupils acquire in a wholesome way, the founda- 

 tional knowledge requisite for later eugenical interpretation. Furthermore, 

 if biological knowledge is developed slowly and actually, the learners build 

 their own scientific basis for later eugenical applications, and thus may de- 

 velop their guiding attitudes based upon biological facts and not wholly upon 

 social admonitions. 



The course in biology, in its latter part, includes problems in cell division, 

 cell union, and chromosome structure and behavior. These provide a knowl- 

 edge basis of the biological mechanisms of inheritance. An elementary study 

 of Mendelism and the later contributions to knowledge of transmission of 

 inherited characters is a never-failing stimulant to discussions about our- 



