Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1913-07-02
Importance of Field Workers
Studying Heridity in
Charity Work.

of organized charity is the need of
knowledge. We arc continually
told that to give money to beggars
on the street is almost a crime, be-
cause we do not know anything
about the character of the person
to whom we give, and, instead OF
relieving poverty, we are only IN
creasiug it.
1t is Just as fundamentally true
that we need to know the ancestry
of the people that we are trying to
help, az it is that we need to
know the kind of house they live
in.
A considerable percentage of the
persons who come before the char
ity organization societies are people
of bad ancestry. The people them
selves may look well and may pre-
sent, even to the skilled social
worker, every outward appearance
of being needy and deserving, of be-
ing cases where little help would
tide them over and enable them to
come out all right and yet who are
so handicapped by inherited traits
that they never can live a normal
life. The Society may spend hun
dreds of dollars in improving their
condition for the time being, and a
few weeks later they would be
found in the same desolation, be-
cause they have not intelligence
enough to make good use of what
is done for them.
Recent studies in human heredlty
have shown that there are whole
families that are so defective IN
mentality that they are constantly
needing care and attention. They
are wards of society. All attempts
to rescue these people by the usual
mears are merely palliative. The
money is as thoroughly wasted as is
that which is given fakir on the
street. The only rational way of
meeting this problem is to study the
ancestry of these people and learn
the condition of the entire family,
and then act in accordance with
that knowledge.
Field workers who are trained to
recognize mental deficiency, either
in the individual that they observe
oriu others concerning whose lives
! they are able to learn from living
representatives. can solve many of
these problems and furnish infor-
nation that will result in untold
good.
DR.. Davenport says: This three
or four per cent. of our population
| IS fearful drag on our civilization.
Shall we, as intelligent people,
proud of our control of nature in
other respects do nothing but vote
more taxes or be satisfied with great
gifts and bequests that philanthrop-
lists have made for the support of
the delinquent, defective and de,
pendent classes? Shall we not
rather take the steps that scientific
study dictates as necessary to dry
up the springs that feed the torrent
Of defective degenerate protolasm?
If one-half of one per cent. Of the
thirty million dollars annually spent
on hospitals, twenty millions on in
sane asylums, twenty millions for
almsb ouses, thirteen millions on
prisons, and five millions on the
feeble-minded, deaf and blind were
spent on the study of the bad germ
plasm that makes necessary the an
nual expenditure of nearly one hun
dred millions in the care of its
product. we might hope to learn
just how it is being reproduced and
the best way to diminish its further
spread.
A new plague that rendered four
per cent. of our population, chiefly
at the most productive age, not on
ly incompetent but burden cost
ing one hundred million dollars
yearly to support, would instantly
attract universal attention and mil
lions would be forthcoming for it's
study as they have been for the
study of cancer. But we have be-
come so used to crime, disease and
degeneracy that we take them as
necessary evils. That they were, in
the worlds ignorance, is granted;
but that they must remain so, is de-
MED. y
That organization or that indi-
vidu.l who shall take up the study
of this phase of our social and char
table problems will be one of the
! orrootoot hapofa ctors of tho a0a Tho