78 



genital heredity the terrible work of this one deficient and diseased woman 

 is still going on. It gives us a new phase of the problem of eternal life, 

 and makes it an educational and social problem, rather than a the- 

 ological one. 



Compare such statistics with that of the descendants of Jonathan 

 Edwards, the great New England theologian. One thousand three hundred 

 ninety-four of his descendants were identified in 1900, of whom 295 were 

 college graduates: 13 presidents of our greatest colleges: 65 professors 

 in colleges, besides many principals of other important educational insti- 

 tutions ; 60 physicians, many of whom were eminent ; 100 or more clergy- 

 men, missionaries, or theological professors : 75 were officers in the army 

 and navy : 60 prominent authors and writers : 100 or more were lawyers 

 of whom one was our most eminent professor of law : 30 were judges : 

 SO held public office, of whom one was a Vice-President of the United 

 States : 3 were United States senators ; several were governors, members 

 of congress, trainers of state constitutions, mayors of cities, and ministers 

 to foreign courts : one was president of the Pacific Mail Steamship Com- 

 pany ; railroads, banks, insurance companies, and large industrial enter- 

 prises have been indebted to their management. Almost if not every 

 department of social and intellectual progress has felt the impulse of this 

 healthy and long-lived family. It is not known that any of them ever 

 committed a crime, or died in a poorhouse. 



Let us protect for life every feeble-minded girl in the commonwealth, 

 and thus cut off one of the most potent influences for social corruption 

 which now embarrasses the State. 



