March 5, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



341 



If they marry and have children in the face 

 of the knowledge that at least half of their 

 children will have the same undesirable 

 trait, perhaps their poignant regrets or the 

 sad example wiU make it easier for some 

 couples in the next generation to mingle 

 some intelligence with their wooing. 



In still another respect a knowledge of 

 racial traits may well be of advantage, and 

 that is in the training of a child. Vegetable 

 seedsmen usually send with their seeds 

 directions as to the specific culture of the 

 particular variety. Now, different children 

 have all the racial distinctness of different 

 kinds of cabbages or melons, and it is un- 

 warranted assumption that they aU have 

 the same capacities to be educated and that 

 there is a single course of education that 

 is best for them all. The time is coming, 

 we may trust, when a teacher shall begin a 

 class with something more from the regis- 

 trar's office than the names of his pupils, 

 when it will be recognized that the teacher 

 can train his pupils the more intelligently 

 and effectively the more he knows about 

 the racial qualities as depicted in the family 

 histories of the individuals he is to train. 



So, too, in assisting a young person to 

 decide on a vocation it is now recognized as 

 useful to have an analysis of the traits of 

 the person, as far as they have been devel- 

 oped. But the wise adviser will want to go 

 farther and to study the family history of 

 the young man to see if it may not suggest 

 undeveloped potentialities and thus help 

 in a decision as to the kind of life work he 

 should undertake. 



Admitting the value of a knowledge of 

 the presence and distribution of racial traits 

 in a family the question remains: "What 

 form should genealogy take in the future to 

 furnish the desired information? Since 

 families are merely collections of related 

 individuals, what is needed is, for as many 

 members of the family as possible, a record 



which should comprise not only the usual 

 statements about birth and marriage and 

 also the biographical and social data so 

 commonly found, but, in addition, and 

 above all, physical and mental data includ- 

 ing build, proportions, pigmentation, qual- 

 ity of sense organs and other important 

 physical traits, also the mental equipment, 

 tastes for particular occupations, tempera- 

 ment and social reactions. Because of their 

 importance for advice as to the care of the 

 health, the facts of liability to disease, of 

 grave illnesses and of surgical operations 

 should be given and precise cause or causes 

 of death of those who have died. Those 

 individuals who are willing to give more 

 time to their record will find a detailed 

 analysis of the personality an absorbing 

 occupation. Guidance in such an analysis 

 may be obtained from the "Outline of a 

 Study of the Self" by Yerkes and LaRue, 

 also from a "Guide to the Analysis of the 

 Personality," by Drs. August Hoch and 

 George S. Amsden, printed in Bulletin No. 

 7 of the Eugenics Record Office. It takes 

 several hours to make such an analysis and 

 record ; but it has to be done only once in a 

 lifetime and perhaps we owe it to posterity 

 to leave behind us such a record. To en- 

 courage the making of such records the 

 Eugenics Record Office, at Cold Spring 

 Harbor, distributes free to applicants a 

 schedule which was based in the first in- 

 stance on Galton's "Record of Family 

 Faculties" and has undergone three revi- 

 sions. About 20,000 of these schedules have 

 been distributed to individuals, on request. 

 This fact indicates that there is a wide- 

 spread interest in this country in making 

 a record of family traits. 



It is not sufficient, however, that records 

 be made. In order that such records should 

 be of the greatest service to humanity they 

 should be deposited in a central bureau 

 where they are to be kept as confidential 



