The Washington herald., 1915-09-26

bred, and all in less than 200 years.
Abundant, we'll balanced nourish-
ment and thorough culture of plants or
animals" said Luther Burbank, will al
ways produce good results in holding any
species or variety up to its best heredi-
tary possibilities, beyond which it can
not carry them, and lacking which. max
tmum development can never be realized
But the sharp line must always be drawn
between the transient results, temporari-
ly attained through favorable environ
ment and the permanent results of Sc
lection of the best individuals for con-
tinuing the race.
What would be the result If all
apple, plum, corn, melon or petunia seed
was indiscriminately planted? Soon
worthless mongrels only, having no char
acter and no value for any purpose.
"OnIy by constant selection of the best
can any race ever be improved. No ed
ucation. no environment of any nature
can ever make any appreciable progress,
even though these same favorable sur
roundings may produce through ages a
definite but infinitely slow increment,
which by constant repetition becomes
slowly available in heredity, but by no
means fixed, so that reproduction true to
the better type can be depended upon.
at is becoming increasingly necessary
to impress the fact that there are two
distinct lines in the Improvement of any
race; one by favorable environment
which brings individuals up to their best
possibilities; the other ten thousand
times more important and effective-se-
lection of the best individuals through
series of generations BY this means and
by this only can any race of plants. ami
mails or man be permanently or radically
improved. When these two lines of ac-
ton are combined, all the best qualities
of any type are brought forth and fixed
and the field for improvement is lin
itless."
DR.. J. H kellogg, of Battle Creek.
Mich. held the world needed new aris-
tocracy-'a real aristocracy made up
of Apollos and Venuses and their for
tunate progeny"
Instead of such an aristocracy." he
continued, I'VE are actually building up
an arstocracy of lunatics, idiots, pau
pers and criminals. These unfit persons
already have reached the proportions of
vast multitude: 100000 lunatics. So
900 criminals. 1000 paupers. 10000
epileptics. and we are supporting these
detectives In idleness like real aristo-
Gratis, at an expense of 500. 100000
ysar, and this mighty host of mental and
moral cripples is increasingly due to un-
restricted marriage and other degenera-
tive influences at a more rapid rate than
the sounder part of the population so
that they are bound in time to constitute
the majority unless some check is put
upon the increase. Every one OF these
lunatics possesses the right to vote. even
in states where women are not given the
right of franchise
DR.. Kellogg proposes Scheme for
Race Betterment." which he thought
should be set in operation as speedily as
possible. This included the establish
ment of health registry" on which
should be recorded the results of an an
nual health inspection of individuals
made by a bureau maintained by the
state for the purpose and of "eugenics ,
registry to accomplish in behalf of race
hygiene what the health registry would
seek to do for personal health"
The feud between eusenics experts as
to whether persons should marry early
or late in life and as to whether the Off
spring of old parents is superior intel
lectually to the children of younger ones
was famed to white heat at the Inter
national Purity conference. Mr.. Red
field leader Of one faction of scientists,
held the view that the marriage OF young
persons should be avoided He main
tained that rapid breeding inevitably led
to the production of inferior stock, no
matter what the original stock may be.
He said slow breeding was an essen
tial to the production of superior stock.
and when properly used inferior stock
could be transformed into superior stock
in about a single century. The breeding
of real eminence requires an additional
century.
After a study of the births of 1.s0o
children made from the genealogles OF
New England families of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries. he has reached