376 CORA B. S. HODSON 



of certain specific types (e.g., Mongols, Microcephalics, etc.) feeble-minded- 

 ness is not a special and particular condition, but merely a grade of intel- 

 lectual capacity. The Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health, 

 Sir George Newman, has during the last few years attempted to rouse the 

 country to the real issue divulged by such a high proportion of certifiable 

 mental deficiency (as was previously given) by showing that it points to a 

 lamentable amount of poor intellectual capacity. He terms the grades 

 immediately above certifiable feeble-mindedness, "mental subnormality," 

 and it is asserted in one report after another that the subnormal in Great 

 Britain have now attained the proportion of one in ten. The same group 

 is receiving public notice under the title "The Social Problem Group," a 

 conception put forward already many years ago by a prominent member of 

 the English Eugenics Society, Mr. E. J. Lidbetter from his intensive inves- 

 tigation of the families of persons receiving public assistance in the Parish 

 for which he was responsible as senior Relieving Officer. 



It will be remembered that as much as thirty years ago the veteran Ger- 

 man eugenist Dr. Ploetz coined the term "Contra-Selection" as descriptive 

 of the trend of modern civilization. He issued a warning that this trend, 

 where pursued without hindrance, would result in racial deterioration. I 

 have tried to show by this brief historical sketch how contra-selection has 

 become increasingly operative in Great Britain over a period covering 

 something like seven generations of the working class. It is important 

 to remember that industrialization has reversed the marriage age in Europe, 

 bringing it down to about nineteen or twenty years, for the least skilled, 

 while it rises steadily up to round about thirty for specialists. It is true 

 to give the English population increase today as lying entirely within the 

 unskilled group and that which is dependent more or less permanently on 

 public assistance. This group numbers something like five generations 

 in the century to at most 3.25 of the skilled specialist workers— and we 

 cannot emphasize too strongly that the intellectual and skilled workers are 

 not only slightly decreasing from the point of view of children born, but are 

 contributing nearly two generations less per century to the population. 



We stand in a very grave situation and demonstrate in actual fact the 

 accuracy of Ploetz' prophesy. From whichever point of view we try to 

 assess our racial values, we find an exceedingly low level of virility. The 

 situation is paradoxical and this probably accounts for the extent to which 

 not only the general public but also specialist workers, in the main, fail to 

 recognize the gravity of the case. Our standard of living has risen steadily 

 (and during, and since the war with increasing rapidity), so that we find 

 every child in the community better in health and better nurtured than that 



