614 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIII. No. 590. 



and the pursuit of happiness. The wisest 

 economy for the state is the greatest care 

 and culture of the citizen from birth to 

 death. This gives strength to good char- 

 acter and force for good citizenship that 

 will exalt the nation. 



Recapitulation of Causes. — (1) Advan- 

 cing civilization increases crime, because of 

 irrational methods. (2) By dealing with 

 results instead of causes, relying more upon 

 repression and reformation than upon 

 formation and prevention. (3) By allow- 

 ing officials interested pecuniarily in the 

 arrest, confinement and conviction of of- 

 fenders to have supervision over them. 

 (4) By releasing offenders upon society 

 worse morally and physically than when 

 arrested. 



Some Methods of Relief. — (1) Quicken 

 the public conscience for the amelioration 

 of social and economic conditions. (2) 

 Eemedial legislation in providing juvenile 

 courts, detention homes and schools, proba- 

 tion system or suspension of sentence and 

 the indeterminate sentence. (3) Efficient, 

 intelligent and humane officials for the 

 proper enforcement of these laws. (4) 

 The substitution of salaries for fees for 

 officials who deal with offenders. (5) Re- 

 liance upon formative and constructive 

 methods rather than adherence to repres- 

 sive and retributive ideals of justice. (6) 

 A thorough revision of our legal provisions 

 and methods of administration so as to re- 

 lieve the state of the odium of participation 

 in the creation of criminals. 



These methods have passed the experi- 

 mental stage; they are in accord with the 

 dictates of law and philosophy, of science, 

 morality and religion; and if adopted and 

 wisely enforced in all our states, civiliza- 

 tion will continue to advance and crime 

 will decrease. 

 Race Degeneracy: Professor Jerome 



DowD, Wisconsin University, Madison, 



Wis. 



Among savages the degenerate and de- 

 fective individuals were considered be- 

 witched and hence speedily put out of the 

 world. Even down to the eighteenth cen- 

 tury mental and corporal afflictions were 

 largely explained as demoniac possessions. 

 The development of hospitals for the in- 

 sane gave rise to the science of psychiatry, 

 and the effort to trace insanity to natural 

 causes. Then the success of the psychia- 

 trists stimulated the criminologists to in- 

 quire whether the moral perversities of the 

 thief, the forger, the murderer, etc., were 

 not also the result of inherited physical 

 and mental defects. A still further step 

 in the study of degeneracy was to inquire 

 if the man of genius was not also, as the 

 insane man and criminal, the result of a 

 deteriorated physical or mental organism. 

 Lombroso in Italy and Nisbet in England 

 have attempted to show a necessary con- 

 nection between degeneracy and genius. 

 Nisbet cites in his book a long list of great 

 men with the peculiar evidences of de- 

 generacy which characterized each of them. 

 Shakespeare, he says, belonged to a very 

 degenerate stock, the average length of life 

 of the children of his parents being only 

 thirty-two years, and he himself died of a 

 sort of 'epileptic seizure.' Milton was 

 blind at the age of forty-four years, and 

 his daughter Anne was lame and otherwise 

 defective. Only one of his daughters had 

 offspring, and she gave birth to ten chil- 

 dren, of whom only three lived to attain 

 adult age. 



Advancing a step further in the study 

 of degeneracy, Max Nordau, in Germany, 

 has attempted to show that degeneracy is 

 not a peculiarity of criminals, lunatics or 

 men of genius, but that it is characteristic 

 of all modern civilized races. Many of our 

 celebrated men have all the special stig- 

 mata of the criminal or lunatic, but they 

 manifest their defects in a way which es- 

 capes general notice. They are, however. 



