H.—3la.

6

can be considered " talented." " Still more alarming," the author continues, "is the prospect of the future. The overwhelming weight of evidence indicates that the A and B elements in America are barely reproducing themselves, while the other elements are increasing at rates proportionate to their decreasing intellectual capacity; in other words, that intelligence is to-day being steadily bred out of the American population." The biologist Davenport calculated that at present rates of reproduction 1,000 Harvard graduates of to-day would have only fifty descendants two centuries hence, whereas 1,000 Roumanians to-day in Boston, at their present rate of breeding, would have 100,000 descendants in the same space of time. Mr. Lothrop Stoddart emphatically scouts the view which is occasionally put forward to the effect that genius is a form of insanity, and that therefore one ought to be careful about discouraging the marriage even of epileptics and mentally unbalanced persons for fear a possible Napoleon or Julius Cresar or Beethoven should be lost to the world. " Careful scientific investigation," he says, " has clearly disproved this notion. For one thing, elaborate statistical studies of eminent persons have shown them to be less liable to insanity than the general population. Of course, a considerable number of eminent men ca.n be listed who unquestionably suffered from various neuropathic traits. But it was not those traits that made them eminent; on the contrary, these were handicaps. Somewhere back in their ancestry a, taint was introduced into a sound superior strain, and produced this disharmonic combination of qualities." Section 2.—Heredity ?;. Environment. The Committee feel bound to refer to the great strides made during the last half-century towards establishing laws and theories of genetics and heredity. Unfortunately, terms such as the " integrity of the germ plasm " and " the Mendelian law," while marking great advances in biological thought and science, have become too much associated in the public mind with a depressing and fatalistic notion that heredity determines everything and that environment can play but a very insignificant part in human evolution, development, and progress —physical, mental, or moral. Such, of course, is not the case. In ultimate origin all evolution and all heredity are the outcome, summation, and expression of the effects of environmental influences, acting on the whole organism under certain laws of transmission. The laws of heredity, though as yet only partially determined, are already sufficiently ascertained to prove for practical purposes that, in order to promote integration and further progress in human evolution—not disintegration and degeneration—two things are essential and complementary. On the one hand, we must do everything possible in the direction of improving the nutrition, health, conditions of life, and habits of the community; and, on the other hand, we must promote and encourage parenthood on the part of the best and stablest stocks, and do everything in our power to discourage, or in the extreme cases even to prevent, proliferation of unfit and degenerate strains. For the purpose of the present inquiry we need merely state as a practical preliminary regarding heredity that it has been proved beyond question that if two feeble-minded persons marry they will most probably produce abundant off-spring, of whom all may be subnormal, and a large proportion will become a burden on the State ; and that if one such person is mated with a healthy individual an undue proportion of their children are likely to prove degenerate or defective, and the unsoundness will continue to make its appearance in succeeding generations. While local evidence confirmatory of this came before the Committee, first pla.ce will be given to certain classic and exhaustive investigations and life-histories of degenerate families, going back many generations, such as no young country could possibly supply. However, the forcible and farsighted report of the late Dr. Duncan Macgregor (originally Professor of Mental Science at Otago University, and subsequently Inspector-General of Asylums, Hospitals, and Charitable Aid), quoted in the Appendix, shows clearly that some very degenerate stocks imported into this country under the active immigration policy of the " seventies " and " eighties " were already threatening, thirty-five years ago, to become a serious tax on the country, as well as tending to lower the high physical, mental, and moral standard established by the original pioneers and settlers. We shall now revert for the moment to the environmental factor. The first most pressing and immediate practical duty of the Government and the community is to spare no pains to improve the status and environment of the family so as to promote the highest attainable standard of physical, mental, and moral health for the new generation —already in our midst or bound to arrive in the course of the next few years. It is becoming more and more widely recognized that by due attention to the pre-natal and post-natal care of mother and child an infinity of good can be done —indeed, a great deal is already under way in this direction throughout the Dominion. But the Committee are satisfied that much more ought to be done to ensure for children of the pre-school and school ages more generally favourable home conditions, and healthier environment and habits outside the home. In the meantime it is obvious that very little can be effected in the way of bettering the average heredity ; but are we taking adequate measures in the direction of improving the environment of mother and child 1 The housing problem is still far from satisfactory ; help in the home can scarcely be procured, and the rearing and care of children throughout the pre-school and school periods, in a large proportion of cases, is neither conducive to a high standard of nutrition, growth, and moral development, nor to the establishment of normal self-control, especially as regards sexual habits and manifestations. The Committee cannot ignore the fact that the leading medical and psychological authorities lay it down as an axiom that the power of self-control is at its highest when the individual