BELL: IMPRovING THE Human Race 7 
the undesirables, as a rule, are descend- 
ed from normal parents. 
Prohibition of marriage would not, 
therefore, have much effect upon the 
continued production of an undesirable 
class. We would have just about as 
many undesirable people appear in the 
next generation, born from the normal 
population. 
Then again, the tendency to reversion 
to the normal type of the race is so 
strong that the children of undesirables 
are mainly of the normal type; so that 
prohibition of marriage would prevent 
the production of very many more nor- 
mal children than undesirable children. 
Whatever processes may be employed 
to improve the race, we shall always 
have the undesirable with us, because 
they are sprung mainly from the normal 
class; and it 1s more practicable to im- 
prove the undesirable strains than to 
eradicate them. —__ 
If undesirables marry normal or 
desirable partners they will not only 
have fewer undesirable children than if 
they married one another, but the 
potency of the offspring to produce 
undesirable grandchildren will be re- 
duced. The undesirable blood is di- 
luted, so to speak, by admixture with 
normal blood; and most of the offspring 
will be of the normal type. 
CONCLUSION. 
A public sentiment already exists 
that persons possessing inherited char- 
acteristics of a desirable kind should 
marry and have large families. This 
sentiment undoubtedly is favorable to 
the improvement of the race; but it does 
not go far enough. 
We should impress upon the public 
the point that one certain means of 
increasing the prevalence of any hered- 
itary characteristic in a community is 
to induce the individuals who possess it 
to marry one another; and thus produce 
a more potent stock in the next genera- 
tion. 
It is neither practicable nor advisable 
that the individuals referred to should 
marry exclusively among themselves, 
but only to a much greater extent than 
now prevails; and the public policy 
should be: Promote the marriages of 
the desirable with one another. 
Selection by Birth-Rate 
The eugenist recognizes that selection is essential to the progressive improvement 
of the human race, but he seeks to substitute a selective birth-rate for the selective 
death-rate which has been the cruel instrument used by nature —W. C. Marshall, 
in the Eugenics Review. 
Need of Eugenic Education 
Recent investigations point with no uncertain hand to degeneracy rather than 
racial progress as the probable result of our existing social system. How then is 
this danger to be averted? The social reformer has long been busy in his attempts 
to improve the environment of the people ; and his efforts merit our warmest ap- 
proval. Progress in the evolutionary sense is, however, not certainly thus promoted, 
and may not be promoted at all. What we also need is an intellectual campaign, 
which will make the path of eugenic reform stand out more clearly in front of us by 
increasing our knowledge of the laws of heredity; and a moral campaign to make our 
fellow countrymen now ready to accept the sacrifices necessary to insure the racial 
progress of their country in the future.—Extract from presidential address (1913) 
of Major Leonard Darwin before The Eugenic Education Society, London. 
