THE FINAL STEP, OR RACE REGENERATION 203 



Since his time other men have not only discovered other 

 disease microbes, but have shown us how to escape them, 

 and it is this set of microbe discoveries that has brought 

 us at last to the parting of the ways. 



In studying records of the past we find that during recent 

 years there has been an enormous increase in the numbers 

 of feeble-minded, insane, epileptic, criminal, deaf and dumb 

 and blind, and those ruined by alcohol, by overwork, and by 

 unyielding chronic disease. 



When we ask for an explanation of this, and when we 

 study statistics, we see that because we have kind hearts, and 

 because, in these days, we know how to save people from 

 disease microbes, we have for years, innocently enough, 

 been helping on the misfortunes of the race. In the struggle 

 for existence we who are the fit have spent time and strength 

 and money in keeping the unfit alive. We have lengthened 

 the lives of our degenerates and maintained them in comfort. 1 

 This we should have done. At the same time, however, we 

 have allowed these same degenerate people to become ances- 

 tors of others like themselves. This we should not have done. 

 To-day our asylums, our prisons, and our hospitals are caring 

 for multitudes of defective descendants of those who should 

 have been as carefully guarded as were the cretins of Aosta. 



It is this situation which compels us to study the old road 

 as we have just been doing, and helps us to understand why 

 we must travel the new road — a road dedicated not alone to 

 this generation but also to the next generation. 



Common sense tells us that if we step across from the old 

 road to the new, — that is, if, from now on, we heed the 



1 Dr. Morrow has said that during the past twenty years " the life of the 

 insane has been increased eight years, while that of the general population 

 has been increased but four and a half years." He says " this is doubtless 

 true of other defectives." 



