480 READINGS IN EVOLUTION, GENETICS, AND EUGENICS 
less than four generations would eliminate nine tenths of the crime, 
insanity and sickness of the present generation in our land. Asylums, 
prisons and hospitals would decrease, and the problems of the unem- 
ployed, the indigent old and the hopelessly degenerate would cease to 
trouble civilization.” 
5. THE CONSERVATION OF DESIRABLE GERMPLASM 
Not only negatively by the restriction of undesirable germplasm, 
but also positively by the conservation of desirable germplasm, may 
the eugenic ideal be approached. 
It is possible that if some of the philanthropic endeavor now 
directed toward alleviating the condition of the unfit should be directed 
to enlarging the opportunity of the fit, greater good would result in the 
end. In breeding animals and plants the most notable advances have 
been made by isolating and developing the best, rather than by 
attempting to raise the standard of mediocrity through the elimination 
of the worst. 
One leader is worth a score of followers in any community, and the 
science of genetics surely gives to educators the hint that it is wiser 
to cultivate the exceptional pupil who is often left to take care of him- 
self than to expend all the energies of the instructor in forcing the 
indifferent or ordinary one up to a passing standard. The campaign 
for human betterment in the long run must do more than avoid mis- 
takes. It must become aggressive and take advantage of those human 
mutations or combinations of traits which appear in the exceptionally 
endowed. 
There are various ways in which this improvement of society may 
be brought about. 
a) BY SUBSIDIZING THE FIT 
The following unconfirmed newspaper clipping illustrates the 
point of what is meant by subsidizing the fit so far as certain physical 
characteristics are concerned. ‘Berlin, Dec. 11, 1911. The Emperor 
is reported to be interested in a plan proposed by Professor Otto 
Hauser for the propagation of a fixed German type of humanity— 
a type which will be as fixed as the Jewish in its characteristics, if the 
suggestions of the professor can ever be carried out. The fixed type 
is to be produced as follows:—Only ‘typical’ couples are to be allowed 
tomate. The man is to be not more than thirty years old, the woman 
not over twenty-eight, and each have a perfect health certificate. The 
man should be at least five feet seven inches tall; the woman not under 
