The Dominion. TUESDAY, MARCH 28, 1911. RACE BETTERMENT.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1087, 28 March 1911, Page 4

The Dominion. TUESDAY, MARCH 28, 1911. RACE BETTERMENT.

The Dttncdin deputation which w-aitcd on the Minister for Education on Friday last and placed before him the urgent necessity of proceeding with the erection of a school •for defective girls will have strong support from one end of the Dominion to the other. The need is a pressing one and should be promptly and adequately met. To grudge the money for such an institution, when lavish, and at times unwarranted, expenditure is going on in other directions, is like the mother of a family refusing to buy bread becausc she wants the money for an opera cloak or the latest thing in bangles. The question raised by the deputation is a vital one to the community, for, as Professor Benhah so forcibly pointed out, the way in which feeblemindedness is allowed in the Old Country to permeate society is fraught with terrible danger to the race. It is very generally recognised that something must be done to check the multiplication of the unfit, and to provide special instruction and control for defective boys and girls. A modest programme on these lines is both practical and imperative. The question of social responsibility and heredity was dealt with recently by Mrs. Pinsent, a leading English authority on the subject, and one whose words have the support of wide experience and careful investigation. This lady pointed out that hitherto modern legislative efforts had been directed to improving _the_ environment, and this had the indirect effect of perpetuating the unfit. At the same time the reproduction of the higher types had been neglected, and so the average standard had been lowered. The report of Mrs. Pinsent's address proceeds as follows: 1

i' larger conception of corporate responsibility .had become neccssary, and ono which would prevent the disproportionate increase of our population from defective and degenerate stocks. Mrs. Pinscnt illustrated her argument from histories of mentally-defective families, in which mental defect and criminal propensities could be traced through three or four generations. The cost of such families tfo tho community was very large. Fourteen individuals in one family h<id been supported at public expense in industrial schools, reformatories, workhouses, asylums, and homes; they passed continually from one of these institutions to another, with short intervals of liberty during which they reproduced their kind. Five publicly-paid officials were continually visiting one other family, where a mentally-deficient mother had produced ten children, four of whom were mentally defective, and two physically defective, while three died in infancy. Tho whole of. the time and money spfcnt on improving the environment of this family was wasted, for, in spite of the united effort of these five officials, not one of these children could possiblv become a useful citizen. There was evidence to show that the birth-rate among defectives was unusually high, and the death-rate not correspondingly liigh, so that a large number of defectives survived.

It was further pointed out by Mrs. PiNSENT. that the Royal Commission which investigated the question had estimated that the number of mental defectives in England and Wales was 270,000, or nearly one in every hundred of the population. .The Commission had suggested a new Act of Parliament which would enable local authorities to place mentally-defective people under continuous and kindly control and would prevent them from reproducing themselves. No other measure at present before the country would have such far-reaching and beneficial results. Not only would it at once reduce crime, drunkenness, and pauperism, but it would be the first step towards a public recognition that the great facts of heredity could no longer be ignored by a nation, which in so many other ways had shown its deep sense of corporate responsibility. These vital social problems on which the future of the race so largely depends arc not being grappled with by public men in New Zealand with that whole-hearted courage and determination which their importance demands. It is true that legislation of this kind is not an attractive factor in the game of party politics, nor is it very useful as a means of catching and holding votes; but as regards the permanent welfare of the nation, most of the questions which claim the attention of Parliament are of very second-rate importance when compared with this duty of maintaining and improving the moral, mental, and physical standard of the race. As means towards this great end thc_ requests of the Dunedin deputation for the establishment of ft home for defective girls, and for facilities for investigating records and collecting data regarding the family history of the inmates of certain State institutions', of course, with proper safeguards, ought to receive the prompt and sympathetic attention of the Government. No one has urged more strongly the need of definite action to arrest the process of race deterioration than Mr. W. O. D. Whetham, F.R.S., Fellow and Tutor of Trinity College, Cambridge. Mr. Whetham is a distinguished scientist and has examined the problem from the statistical, Scientific, historical, and religious points of view. He writes:

Two things seem to bo necessary in order that the religion of a people should play its propor part: in their social evolution. First, it must bo able to keep its influence over tho best sections of the community, who come to the front by the forco of character and intellect'. Secondly, at this period of our evolution, for religion to havo its biological survival valtto it must teach that, for the sako of the future welfare of humanity, possibly for the ultimate welfare of eternity, large families are to be encouraged among sound and ablo stocks, of high moral and 'intellectual worth, but that where definite hereditary unsoundness exists, the selfish and irresponsible procreation of children means future misery for themselves and a lowering of the average quality of humanity, which is t.lio temporary homo of souls of eternal spiritual significance. The time has passed for blind denunciation of all voluntary restriction of (lie family. Consideration for the health both of mother and offspring, added to the need for conscious selection, make n ease for forethought and due self-restraint that is irresistible. But. honour must, be paid to those who, sound in mind and body, assume the heavy economic and social burden of rearing well a large family; and no less honour to those who, conscious of some overwhelming hereditary weakness, refrain, h their own low, from blinding on the taint tp future generations.