New-York tribune., 1912-03-10

on an official examination free OF charge
at the time when d marriage license is
taken out. At the same time provision
might be made for any one, on payment Of
a prescribed fee, to submit himself or her.
self for examination at any time for the
purpose of obtaining an official certificate
No doubt numbers Of those who received
low grade certificates would wish to dis
pute the doctors findings and il should not
be impossible to meet their complaints by
providing appeal boards in different dis
tricts Persons appealing would deposit 50
much to defray the expenses Of the ap-
peal, the deposit to be returned where the
appellant was successful, and to be for
feited where he failed.
PLAN NOT REVOLUTIONARY.
The proposals which have been set out
! can hardly be described as revolutionary.
! No violent interference with social customs
! is contemplated. and once the public under
stood the scheme clearly there would prob
/ ably be much less opposition TO it than
many might suppose.
"Of course when one talks in general
way of health certificates before marriage,
| people Immediately jump to the conclusion
that the idea is to divide society into two
classes, the fit and the unfit, and permit
| only the iii to marry. No one is at present
| competent to say who Is fit to marry and
who is not. 1t is doubtful whether it will
| ever be humanity possible to draw a hard
and fast line. The fit man and the un-
| fit" man, as two separate species, are just
as much pigments of the Imagination as the
| good man and the bad man, or that
extraordinary person whom no one has ever
yet identified in the flesh, the average man.
1t is easy TO pick out extreme cases-the
| thoroughly sound and clean bred youth,
and the lunauc descended of lunatics-but
between these lies great mass Of popula-
ton, neither especially fit nor especially un-
! nit Who is there that would dare TO say
Just where the line was TO be drawn?
"a writer in The Edinburgh Review for
January touched on this point. and said
! the answer usually comes prompt as TO who
are to be eliminated. No one, it is declared
can object TO elimination OF the feeble
minded. of maniacs, of cpileptics, of
rachites. Of monstrosites. To this the re-
| viewer replied that Julius Cesar and Ma
homet were epileptics, so also very prob
ably were Alexander the Great, Napoleon
and st. Paul. Rousseau was nervous de-
generate Comte was insane; Schumann
Nietsche and Guy de Mdupassant were vic
tins OF a vile disease. eliminating i'm gen
eral paralysis and insanity. tuberculosis
wrought its effect on Chopin, Rachel,
Henc Robert Louis Stevenson and John
Stuart Mill Even Shakespeare. We are told
by some writer's, may at times have suf-
fered from sucn form of insanity as
melanchOlia. and was very probably man
with a tainted heredity. Citing these
cases, the reviewer asks, If the heredity
of these famous men had been examined
| by an enlightened eugenist, and their birth
been at his mercy, how many of them, we
should like 10 know, would have been al
lowed TO be born?" This question is not
the poser 1t seems.
The answer 10 It is that the heredity Of
these persons never was scientifically ex-
amined by anybody, and their cases mere
ly emphasize the need for a systematic ex-
animation of the whole population as a pre-
lminary TO any further step in the practi-
cal application of eugenic principles.
Such an examination is worth striving for
as an end in itself 1t would make people
think for themselves on this most important
matter. 1t would offer a direct incentive
10 eood health. particularly If the highest
grade certificates were refused to persons
who. though free from disease, were not
physically well developed. II would enable
the state medical service 10 watch over
the children of degenerate parents. and see
that they were given the best chance pos
sible. And, finally IT should tend 10 dis
courage experimenting before scientific
knowledge is ripe for application.
If the society saw fit 10 take this matter
up. IT should not be difficult TO direct con-
siderable attention TO it throughout New
Zealand, and in time 10 make it question