April 24, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



617 



double the population during the summer. A 

 lime kiln and a stone quarry represent the only 

 industries outside of prosperous farming, that 

 are followed. The Hill Folk descended from 

 two men, a shiftless basket maker, known here 

 as Neil Rasp, and an Englishman, owner of a 

 small farm, both of whom came to the settle- 

 ment about the year 1800. Their descendants 

 have " sifted through the town and beyond it. 

 Everywhere they have made desolate, alcoholic 

 homes which have furnished state wards for 

 over fifty years, and have required town aid 

 for a longer time." 



After an explanation of the charts — which 

 are printed in the circular form with lines of 

 descent radiating from the center and oldest 

 generation — and a general survey of the 

 strains involved and their traits, the follow- 

 ing topics indicate the methods of study fol- 

 lowed, viz., (a) inheritance, (6) marriage 

 selection, (c) financial burden entailed by 

 criminals and dependents (with a comparison 

 with the Jukes), (d) survey of the present 

 school children and (e) heredity and environ- 

 ment. An appendix takes up a detailed his- 

 torj' of the separate families and certain 

 individuals and their characteristics. The 

 usual conventional symbols (American) are 

 employed, though an apparently successful 

 effort has been made to distinguish two degrees 

 of mental deficiency and to indicate the same 

 by the symbols. The members of the higher 

 group, which are indicated by the letter " F " 

 on white background, are able to support them- 

 selves in an inefficient " meager way," but 

 " lack ambition, self control, common sense 

 and the ordinary mental and moral capacity 

 for differentiating between right and wrong." 

 The individuals of the lower group, indicated 

 by the symbol on a black background, are inca- 

 pable of self support and " are a special menace 

 to the community from their lack of all mental 

 and moral stamina." 



The symbol " Sx " is applied to the cases 

 only where the " sex impulse works unhin- 

 dered " from a lack of proper balance between 

 the impulse and self control, as distinguished 

 from those who only incidentally commit a 

 sexually immoral act. 



There is considerable data found in this 

 study for comparing the effects of changes of 

 environment. 



An excellent lesson is derived from the study 

 of one typical case showing the result of per- 

 mitting marriage between and propagation of 

 children by a pair of evident defectives. Of 

 eleven children born from this union, all but 

 two, that died in infancy, became public 

 charges. Seven were known to be feeble- 

 minded. Two of these and one of the infanta 

 that died early were epileptic. 



An exceedingly interesting and instructive 

 study is the survey of seventy-five school chil- 

 dren from these families. Of these, school 

 records were obtained in all but seven cases. 

 From these the mental characteristics are 

 noted. Thirty-eight are below the grade in 

 which they should be in the schools, and in 

 general they are either unable to fix attention 

 upon one thing long enough to grasp it or re- 

 quire so much time to comprehend ideas that 

 they progress very slowly. Usually they are 

 " quiet, stupid laggards." The aggressive dis- 

 turbers of social peace, though present, are the 

 exceptions here. 



This study of eight hundred and thirty-seven 

 people has involved an immense amount of work 

 on the part of the field worker. Miss Daniel- 

 son, and has been subjected to a very searching 

 and critical analysis by Dr. Davenport. It is 

 full of interesting material for comparisons, 

 some of which are discussed by the authors ; as, 

 for instance, the effects of dispersion of the 

 feeble-minded groups ; the attempt to approach 

 the determination of unit mental character- 

 istics; the ultimate cost of early segregation 

 as compared with its neglect, etc. 



The following is a brief summary of con- 

 clusions given. 



" 1. The analysis of the method of inherit- 

 ance of feeble-mindedness shows that it can 

 not be considered a unit character. It is evi- 

 dently a complex of quantitatively and quali- 

 tatively varying factors most of which are 

 negative, and are inherited as though due to 

 the absence of unit characters. 



" 2. The value of out-marriage, exogamy, as 

 a means of attenuating defective strains is 



