Part 4 (1/2)
LESSON VI
THE SCIENCE OF EUGENICS
No one who keeps in even only fair touch with the affairs of the world of today can have failed to notice the frequent mention of the term ”Eugenics” in the newspapers, magazine, and books of the hour. And yet, many persons seem to be in doubt as to the meaning and use of the term; some thinking that it refers to some new ”ism” or ”ology,” or perhaps to some new and strange doctrine concerning the relations of the s.e.xes. In view of this fact, the writer has thought it well to give the readers of this book a brief, though somewhat comprehensive, view of the general subject of Eugenics.
Eugenics, sometimes known as the Science of Parenthood, has well been styled ”the New Science,” for it has forced itself into public notice within the past ten or fifteen years, whereas before that time it was practically unknown to the general public. At the present time some of the world's greatest thinkers have spoken or written on the subject, and many regard it as one of the most vital branches of human research, endeavor, and study, for the future of the race is involved in the solution of its problems. In its general phase of race-betterment, Eugenics is receiving the attention of statesmen, sociologists and patriots; in its particular phases, the earnest attention, interest and study of men and women who wish offspring of the best quality obtainable.
The spirit of Eugenics may be expressed in the words of Dr. G. Stanley Hall, president of Clark University, who has said: ”Our duty of all duties is to transmit the sacred torch of life undiminished, and, if possible, a little brightened, to our children. This is the chief end of men and women. All posterity slumbers in our bodies, as we did in our ancestors. The basis of the new biological ethics of today, and of the future, is that everything is right that makes for the welfare of the yet unborn, and all is wrong that injures them, and to do so is the unpardonable sin--the only one nature knows.”
That phase of Eugenics which has brought the new science more prominently before the public mind, and which has enrolled on its roster the names of some of the world's most eminent scientists, sociologists, and writers--the phase of race-betterment from the standpoint of sociology--has led many to believe that Eugenics is confined to that phase, and is but a movement toward ”the successful breeding of the human race” on a universal scale. To many, such a movement while deemed commendable and desirable nevertheless lacks the appeal of the heart and affections--it seems to be of the head alone. But when such persons are brought to their realization that Eugenics is also a movement to promote the bearing of children--to enable each mated couple to bring forth perfect offspring--then the heart is enlisted as a co-worker with the head.
The sociological phase of Eugenics--the phase of Race Culture in general--is being vigorously advanced by societies and organizations in various parts of the world, the parent organization being the Eugenics Education Society, of London, England. Dr. C. W. Saleeby, one of those prominent in the work of the said Society, has the following to say concerning the work of that organization:
”The Eugenics Education Society exists to uphold the ideal of Parenthood as the highest and most responsible of human powers; to proclaim that the racial instinct is therefore supremely sacred, and its exercise through marriage, for the service of the future, the loftiest of all privileges. It stands for a transfigured sentiment of parenthood which regards with solicitude not child and grandchild only, but the generations to come hereafter--fathers of the future creating and providing for the remote children. That which too many schools of thought and practice have derided or defiled, it seeks to elevate and enn.o.ble. Parenthood on the part of the diseased, the insane, the alcoholic--where these conditions promise to be transmitted--must be denounced as a crime against the future. In these directions the Society stands for active legislation, and for the formation of that public opinion which legislation, if it is to be effective, must express.
Parenthood on the part of the worthy must be b.u.t.tressed, guided, and extolled. The Society stands for the education of the young regarding the responsibility and holiness of the racial function of parenthood.”
The Eugenists hold that in the near future our children, looking back upon the present and the past state of indifference and neglect concerning the important subject of bearing and rearing of children, will experience the same horror that we now feel when we look back upon the indifference to the horrors of human slavery, imprisonment for debt, cruelty toward prisoners, treatment of the insane, executions for trivial offences, etc., on the part of our ancestors. Our descendants will deem it almost inconceivable that we, their ancestors, could have been so blind and criminally negligent.
But, as leading Eugenists have pointed out, the new science does not confine its attention to the subject of preventive measures, important as they are--it also directs its attention to the constructive phase of the subject, i. e., the production of better children. While Eugenics strives to prevent the unfit from flooding the race with unfit progeny, it at the same time strives to educate the race so that the fit may bear and rear better offsprings. It is not sufficient merely to eliminate the unfit--we must also improve, and still further render fit, the fit members of the race. The fit must not be allowed to remain merely the fit--we must evolve a fitter--and ever move onward toward the realization of the ideal of the fittest. We must not only strive to eliminate the beast in the race of men--we must also aid the race to unfold in the direction of the super-man.
The Eugenists know that much of the talk concerning Race Suicide is not only futile and uncalled for, but is also in a sense misleading and actually dangerous. The real danger of Race Suicide comes not from the decreasing birth-rate, but from the excessive, ignorant, and unscientific bearing and rearing of children by unfit parents. It is not so much a matter of HOW MANY children are born, as of HOW they are born, what kind of children they are, and how they are reared physically, mentally and morally, and how many survive. It is not so much that the lower death-rate be avoided, says the Eugenist, as it is that the higher death-rate be overcome. The intelligent stockbreeder grasps this scientific law of the Eugenists when he endeavors to produce the best young, and then to take care of them that they survive and reach a healthy maturity. To the Eugenist, it is not so much a question of ”more,” but of ”better”--not so much a question of quant.i.ty as of quality--not so much a question of production, but of conservation and preservation.
Dr. Saleeby refers to the death-rate of London, which is but 16 to the 1000, as compared to that of Bombay, which is 79 to the 1000. He adds: ”It is a.s.serted that in many large Indian cities the infant mortality approaches one-half of all the children born. What it amounts to in such cities as Canton and Pekin we can only surmise with horror. * * * *
Unless it be supposed by bishops and others, then, that a peculiar value attaches to the production of a baby shortly to be buried, the suggestion evidently is the same as that to which every humanitarian and social and patriotic impulse guides us, namely, the reduction of the death-rate, and especially of infant mortality. * * * * Hence the Eugenists and the Episcopal Bench may join hands so far as the reduction of the death-rate is concerned, and the only persons with whom a practical quarrel remains are those who applaud the mother who boasts that she has buried twelve.”
The Eugenists urge that if the principles applied to plant-life by that master of his science, Luther Burbank, were applied to the production and rearing of young human life, in a few generations we should have a race so far advanced beyond the present average as to be almost G.o.d-like by comparison. But this means a far different thing from the ideal of merely ”more children”--it requires the manifestation of the ideal of ”better children,” well born, carefully reared, well nourished, and scientifically educated. And this rearing, nouris.h.i.+ng, and education must not be confined to the physical part of the child's nature--it must proceed along the three-fold line of physical, mental, and moral culture.
The Eugenists have been actively concerned with the question of the prevention of the transmission of undesirable qualities to offspring.
They have held that while crime is more frequently rather the result of evil environment than of criminal heredity, nevertheless there is a large cla.s.s of children who are ”born criminals”--that is, born with such a decided tendency toward criminal acts that the slightest influence of environment may, and often does, serve to kindle into a blaze the undesirable and criminal characteristics.
Dr. Saleeby says of this: ”In the face of the work of Lombroso and his school, exaggerated though some of their conclusions may be, we cannot dispute the existence of born criminals and the criminal type. There are undoubtedly many such persons in modern society. There is an abundance of crime which no education, practiced or imaginable, would eliminate.
Present day psychology and medicine and, for the matter of that, ordinary common-sense, can readily distinguish cases at both extremes--the mattoid or semi-insane criminal at one end, and the decent citizen who yields to exceptional temptation at the other end.”
The Eugenists quote as an instance of the above contention the celebrated case of Max Jukes, a notorious criminal and drunkard, who as the records show us was the ancestor of a foul brood of descendants which cost the State of New York over a million dollars in seventy-five years. Among these descendants were 200 thieves and murderers; 285 subject to idiocy, blindness or deafness; 90 prost.i.tutes; and 300 children born prematurely. It is possible that a portion of this evil result was caused not alone by bad heredity but, at least in part, by the suggestion of the environment, and the influence of example of the parents; but even so, the primal cause was that Max Jukes, the notoriously unfit ancestor, was allowed to propagate this evil brood, destined to be born and reared under the most adverse conditions and environment.
The Eugenists also place great importance upon the prevention of insane persons becoming parents. To those who consider that this is but an exceptional and rare occurrence, the Eugenists reply that a large percentage of insane patients in asylums have a family history showing insanity in one or both parents; that reports show that there are thousands of feeble-minded women in every large city allowed to (yes, often actually compelled to) bear children to their husbands or male companions.
Ribot says: ”Every work on insanity is a plea for heredity.” Maudsley says: ”More than one-fourth and less than one-half of all insanity is heredity.” Riddell says: ”Of the great causes of insanity, alcoholism is perhaps the greatest, while morbid heredity ranks next. Insanity is largely the result of degeneracy. Most persons who become mentally deranged are the offspring of neurotic, drunken, insane or feeble-minded parents.” While it by no means follows that one must manifest traits of insanity or mental disturbance simply because one of his parents suffered from a like trouble--and we believe that many a one has frightened himself into those conditions by pure auto-suggestion inspired by a one-sided belief in heredity--still it is unquestionably true that a fair mind must concede that wisdom and a proper sense of right and justice would require that parents of unsound mental tendencies should not be permitted to bring into the world children who might inherit a tendency toward a like, or worse, condition.
The Eugenists also have called the attention of the thinking public to the danger of deaf-and-dumb persons transmitting their condition to their offspring. Of this Dr. Saleeby says: ”The condition known as deaf-mutism is congenital or due to innate defect in about one-half of all the cases in Great Britain.” Dr. Love says: ”In every inst.i.tution, examples may be found of deaf-mute children who have had one or two deaf parents or grandparents, and of two or more deaf-mute children belonging to one family.” A case is noted in England where a deaf-and-dumb man having been killed by an accident, his relatives could not identify the body, as the wife and sister were blind, deaf-and-dumb, and the four children were deaf-and-dumb. The man and his wife were both deaf-and-dumb when they were married, the wife being also blind.
Perhaps no subject has aroused the active Eugenists to a greater pitch of indignation than the ascertained results of the effect upon offspring of parents addicted to the over-indulgence in alcohol. It is known by the records that a large number of cases of feeble-mindedness and actual insanity are due to inebriety of parents, and often of grandparents, or ancestors for several generations. Epilepsy, idiocy, and criminality are also traceable in many cases to drunkenness of parents. Dr. Saleeby, moved by indignation by the ascertained results of the investigations of the Eugenists, has said: ”Parenthood must be forbidden to the dipsomaniac, the chronic inebriate, or the drunkard, whether male or female.”
Professor Grenier, writing on the subject of alcoholic degeneration, has said: ”Alcohol is one of the most active agents in the degeneracy of the race. The indelible effects produced by heredity are not to be remedied.
Alcoholic descendants are often inferior beings, a notable proportion coming under the categories of idiots, imbeciles, and the debilitated.