mckeever] A BETTER CROP OF BOYS AND GIRLS 267 



on the subject, and perhaps along with a helpful letter from a 

 high-salaried expert. But if the refractory creature chances to 

 be his 16-year-old son or his fledgling daughter, the perplexed 

 ruralist must fight out the case alone, or aided only by a despairing 

 wife. 



Through government appropriations and private benefactions 

 we are expending vast sums of money in the pursuit of wealth 

 and in the hidden meanings of non-human nature. Just now we 

 read that government experts are constantly at work patrolling 

 the sea coast in order to make a careful study of the antics of the 

 sportive clam, the elusive mackerel and the hilarious "bachelor" 

 seal, but there is no publicly-supported effort to observe scientifi- 

 cally the interesting behavior of little children playing around 

 the family fireside. We have scholarly dissertations on how to 

 develop kindliness and good will in the recreant mule, and how to 

 bring up in a successful manner the orphan calf, but those who 

 have in charge the home development of the human offspring 

 must grope in the dark for a successful way. 



We require a long course of schooling for the teacher, the 

 physician, the veterinarian ; we offer advanced courses of instruc- 

 tion for those who would do well in the breeding and management 

 of cattle, hogs, and chickens, but we have no course of training or 

 any standard of requirement for those who are to engage in the 

 complex and difficult task of rearing children in the home. Any 

 young human pair — no matter how much diseased, how criminal 

 in their habits or tendencies, how ignorant of things in general 

 and of child-bearing in particular — may, if they so agree, become 

 married and blunder away without help or hindrance in the work 

 of bringing up a family. 



• Nov/ that the National Breeders' Association is about to in- 

 clude a department of eugenics, it will not be considered a matter 

 of sentimentalism for me to urge that there be instituted for pros- 

 pective parents something in the nature of a course in matrimony. 

 Let there be obtained by careful methods of study and inquiry a 

 body of information as to what physical and mental and moral 

 qualities are most satisfactory promises of efficient parenthood, 

 and what types of temperament may be regarded as compatible. 

 Inculcate these conclusions in the home, the school, the church and 

 the other socializing institutions so that they will become a part of 

 the common knowledge of the people. And then, before the 

 youthful wooer has the occasion to become blinded with a passion 

 for some ill-advised life mate he will have been guided intelligent- 



