TO IMPROVE THE RACE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 112, 13 May 1911, Page 4

TO IMPROVE THE RACE.

1 ». It is „»- pity for the purposes of popular propaganda that the name in "Eugenics." To the man in the street the word conveys nothing save an id«a of some abstruse department of science^ — something like " dynamics" or "hydrostatics." He doee not know that the prefix "eu " means " good," and that " genics " is a first cousin to "generation," and that, to pot it in plain English, the two together in " eugenics " constitute a scientific name for "the breeding of good offspring." Not understanding he doea not care. Yet nothing can be of greater importance to the race than the improvement of each generation. If we could be sure that the improvement would go on naturally, and that each generation in body and mind would be better than, or even equal to, ite predecessor, then there would b» no occasion ' for the formation of such a •ociety as was formed in Wellington on Thursday night, to consider the problem of race-culture and race-improve-ment. Not only, however, is there no certainty of improvement on the present lines of social development, but there is even,, in the opinion of many investigators, a mass of evidence that tho tendency i» really in the other direction— that the race is deteriorating. In the past the weak and the unfit were allowed to go to the wall, so that the survival of the fittest was something much more than a name. Then canto a revulsion against the cruelty of such a proceae, and the weak, the insane, and the unfit were protected, and rightly so, bat very wtiongly permitted to leave behind them a legacy of offspring equally as deficient as themselves. And so the process has gone . on with increasing <«flfect, for the unfit tend to propagate at .a far greater rate than, the fit. "For the last forty years," ssya one- student of the problem, " the intellectual classes of the nation, enervated by wealth or by love of pleasure, or following an erroneous standard of life, have ceased to give us a due proportion ot the men we want to carry on the ever-growing work of oor Empire, to battle in the foreranks- of the ever-intensified struggle of nations. On the other hand, the degenerates, the feeble, the hangers-on of the strong, fostered by false sentiment, are adding more than their d-ue share, thus intensifying the discrepancy. The ultimate result i» in no doubt. We have two groups of the community, one parasitic to the other. The latter thinkß of to-morrow and is childless, the former takes no thought and multiplies. It can only end as the case so often ends; the parasite will kill its host, and so ends the tale for both alike." Such in brief is the prospect the eugenist of to-day contemplates ; such the problem he calls on his fellowcountrymen to face. He has no pnnaceas to offer just now ; he is merely a. student ofUhe problem, and ho asks his fellows to joia with him in study and investigation. Note that his society is a " Eugenics Education Society," its object is to educate the people; first before taking dciimte action. It is & delicate, difficult problem before him. 1 §2<i the. data so far acc,umulated, axe JbuJ^

small compared with the' magnitude of tho subject. He does not advocate tho simplicity of the stud farm ; ho wishes to preserve society. He is simply studying "the agencies under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of thei future generations, either physically or mentally." What a wide field there as for study and investigation ! It would be impossible even to sketch it here. But every member of the community can add something "to the store of knowledge on the subject, and by and by the laws of heredity, now vaguely and controversially shadowed forth, may bo clearly laid down. It will bo a great task, but before the working of heredity is properly understood it seems to us it would be dangerous to tinker with the problem. Something might be don©, perhaps, towards the completer segregation of tho hereditarily diseased and insane, but that ia all. In the meantime, the doctor, the teacher, the minister of religion, and the man of science, might lead the way in the calmer regions of scientific investigation and study.