474. READINGS IN EVOLUTION, GENETICS, AND EUGENICS 
much of which rests upon questionable foundations. The great 
present need is to learn more facts; to sift the truth from error in what 
is already known; and to reduce all these data to workable scientific 
form. Much progress is being made in this direction, owing to the 
impetus given by the revival of Mendel’s illuminating work, but as yet 
the science of eugenics is in its infancy. 
The most systematic and effective attempt in this country to 
collect reliable data concerning heredity in man has been initiated by 
the Eugenics Section of the American Breeders’ Association under the 
secretaryship of Dr. C. B. Davenport. In rgro the Eugenics Record 
Office, with a staff of expert field and office workers and an adequate 
equipment of fire-proof vaults, etc., for the preservation of records, 
was opened at Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, New York, with 
Mr. H. H. Laughlin as superintendent. “The main. work of this 
office is investigation into the laws of inheritance of traits in human 
beings and their application to eugenics. It proffers its services free 
of charge to persons seeking advice as to the consequences of pro- 
posed marriage matings. In a word, it is devoted to the advance- 
ment of the science and practice of eugenics.”” The publication of 
results from the Eugenics Record Office has already been begun. 
The Volta Bureau, founded about twenty-five years ago in 
Washington by Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, is collecting data with 
reference to deafness and has now systematically arranged particu- 
lars concerning the history of over 20,000 individuals. In England, 
also, the Galton Laboratory for Eugenics, founded in 1905, is system- 
atically collecting facts about human pedigrees and publishing the 
results in a compendious ‘Treasury of Human Inheritance.” 
Besides these special bureaus of investigation, innumerable facts 
about the inheritance of particular traits are being incidentally brought 
together and made available in various institutions and asylums 
throughout the world which are immediately concerned with the care 
of defectives of different types. It is in connection with such institu- 
tions for defectives that much of the most successful ‘field work” of 
the Eugenics Section of the American Breeders’ Association is being 
accomplished in the United States. 
3. FURTHER APPLICATION OF WHAT WE KNOW NECESSARY 
Human performance always lags behind human knowledge. 
Many persons who are fully aware of the right procedure do not put 
their knowledge into practice. It follows, therefore, that any pro- 
