New-York tribune., 1921-10-30


mendous efforts, some of them high-minded
and some of them mere perverted meddling, to
uplift the human species as have occurred
about US and to us in the last few years, or
even in the last few centuries
But man, even if he had set out conscien-
tiously to deteriorate, could hardly have te-
vised methods moro certain to destroy the best
in the race than he is taking and has taken,
the anthropologists tell u.s.
Since the dawn of history men have fought,
and thus eliminated, in increasing numbers
with each conflict, whole armies of the most
virie. Then with the Christian era came a
wave of asceticism which caused host of the
noblest minded people of that age to forswear
forever the possibility of parenthood.
With it, too, came the monasteries and the
nunneries in which were immured the best
minds and most sincere hearts of the time so
that they were kept from succeeding genera
tions.
And now there is an avalanche of reforms,
philanthropic moral, every aimed at
making the race better by improving its en-
vironments. Major Darwin apparently views
this confident activity with some skepticism.
at may be said with only a microscopic d-
vergence from the truth" he points out, chat
all reforms since civilization began have been
based on attempts to improve human surround
ings; and we may ask those who found their
hopes for the future only on changes being
made in environment to consider how much
thus has been accomplished since history began.
How do we compare in intellect with the in
habtants of ancient Greece two thousand years
ago? Have any right to assume
that improvements of environment will do
more for mankind than they have done since
the days of Plato?"
And they go on, these leaders of eugenists,
with hardly dissenter in their exposition of
the mounting burden that is crushing the For
gotten Man, the struggling specimen of the
middle class, and threatening him with extinc-
ton in an economic mill in which everything
is being done for the very strong and the very
weak, while he foots the bills and decides it is
kinder not to bring children into world so
filled with difficulties.
AS to the remedies, they bring forward
little more concrete at this stage of the move
public with the dangers it is facing and in
stituting moral campaign to spur the middle
class to save itself. The farthest Major Dar-
win will go at present is to suggest the seq
regation of detectives and pathological Grim
inals.
Professor McDougal is the most explicit of
all, with plan for an endowment fund, pref
erably provided by the state, from which
o1<
bonus, say 10 per cent Of their earnings, for
each child during the period of its minority
and he is fully aware of the practical difficult
ties that confront his plan until there shall
have been a regeneration of the attitude of
our lawmakers. He admits the extreme un-
likelihood of any legislative body at the pres
ent time granting such a pension to any
classes except those that he considers have
too many children already, and expresses
hope that some Rockefeller or Carnegie, or a
group of them, establ sh such a fund them
selves, to become the nucleus of national
fund, and thus "achiave far more for the
enduring wei are Of mankind than can be ex-
oectel from all the institutions they have so
literally endowed" But Major Darwin en-
j ms exceeding caution in recommending
governmental interference, not only because
of the unlikelihood that such legislation
would be framed with intelligence but be-
cause governmental action nearly always pro-
duces unforeseen consequences.
One would think that in hese discussions
of economics, mentality charts End Mendelian
laws love and romance would shudder and
creep away, but Major Darwin saves the sit
uation for Cupid
Love- says Darwin, "is doubtless to a
large extent aroused by advantageous moral
and mental qualities, and in so far as that
is the case it forms the finest foundation on
which to base eugenic policy.
much be done to help lay this foun-
dation by promoting suitable opportunities
for the meeting of young men and madens;
by stimulating pride of family in so far as
dependent on character and performance, and,
above all, by fostering the growth of all that
IS noble IN the ideals of the adolescent.
Pure love between the sexes should be pro-
claimed the noblest f-ing on earth, and
the bearing and rearing Of children as among
the highest Of all human duties
"Those who imagine our sole aim is to
make man stronger animal or a better beast
of burden are utterly ignorant of the mean-