636 IMPROVEMENT OF LIVING THINGS BY MAN 



PROBLEM VI. HOW DO THE LAWS OF HEREDITY APPLY 



TO MAN? 



Since our knowledge of heredity has been increased, the demand 

 has become more urgent that we do something to prevent the race 

 from handing down diseases and other defects, by applying to 

 man some of the methods we employ in breeding plants and 

 animals. This is not a new idea. The Greeks in Sparta had it ; 

 Sir Thomas More wrote of it in his Utopia; and today it is brought 

 to us as the science of eugenics (u-jen'iks). This word comes from 

 the Greek word eugenes, which means well born. Eugenics is the 

 science of being well born, or born well, healthy and fit in every 

 way. A tendency to cancer, tuberculosis, epileptic fits, or feeble- 

 mindedness is a handicap which it is not merely unfair, but 

 criminal, to hand down to posterity. 



Two notorious families. Studies have been made on a number 

 of different families in this country, in which mental and moral 

 defects were present in one or both of the parents as far back as it 



O 



IHccrt: 



rtin,Sn 



6 666b 6 6 



«5oo descendants t a\\ worn 



normal PTartin.Jft 



o 



a*T**ti4* J 66 



a- ••■■•■•■•■■> 



^Deborah [■]■ 



O means normal woman ; □ , normal man ; the solid black indicates f eeble-mindedness, 

 and the small black circle means died in infancy. A study of the Kallikak family was made 

 by Goddard, who traced back the history from Deborah. 



