IMPROVING THE HUMAN PLANT 



human beings that make up the population are of 

 correspondingly aristocratic lineage. 



Here of course we do not use the word "aristo- 

 cratic" in the conventional sense. We are referring 

 to the qualities that make a good and desirable 

 citizen; and mean to imply that the process of 

 crossing and selection has been carried out so 

 well for the past ten generations or so in America 

 that a race has been developed having a very high 

 average of those traits that determine "fitness" for 

 existence in a civilized community. 



It is true that there are certain strains of 

 abnormality — of physical degeneracy, mental 

 obliquity, moral perversion — that have made their 

 way, generation after generation, like weeds in the 

 garden, and that must constantly be reckoned with 

 just as the gardener reckons with his weeds. But 

 the main body of citizens that make up the popula- 

 tion are at least moderately fit to live in harmony 

 with the normal environment of civilization, and 

 by the same token to reproduce their kind. 



Unfortunately, however, there has been a very 

 pronounced tendency within recent decades for 

 the individuals who were reared under the health- 

 ful conditions of the farm and village to make 

 their way to the cities and to take up the relatively 

 abnormal life that is forced upon a majority of 

 the city population under existing conditions. 



[217] 



