Not only is it true that college graduates as a group are scarcely reproducing themselves but the same is true of the foremost men of science. The completed family of the contemporary scientific man in the United States and Canada according to a very careful investigation by Professor Cattell is about two; the surviving family about one and eight-tenths. Twenty-two per cent of the families are childless; only one family in 75 is larger than six. As a rule the native-born inhabitants of Massachusetts rank fairly high as regards efication. During the 25 years from 1887 to 1911 the deaths among this class exceeded births in families where the parents were native born by 269,918. The eugenic importance of these declines in birth rates among educated persons depends entirely upon the question whether, as a matter of fact, the better educated are, on the average, pos sessed of better hereditary charactistics than other classes. Biologically considered the train ing that a man receives cannot be held to in crease in any way the probability of his having children of higher talent than if he had not had any training whatsoever. It may well be, however, that, on the average, those who pos sess better hereditary traits have succeeded in obtaining a good education more frequently than have persons less well endowed by nature. On the other hand it may well be that, on the average, educated and successful persons have merely been more fortunate than others. The question as to whether or not success is an evidence of hereditary superiority has been long debated but is yet far from solution. Gal ton believed that if the eminent men of any period had been changelings when babies a very fair proportion of those who survived and re tained their health up to 50 years of age would, notwithstanding their altered circumstances, have equally risen to eminence. If a man is gifted with vast intellectual ability, eagerness to work and power of working, Galton could not com prehend how such a man could be repressed. If this belief proves to correspond with fact, it is easy to see that the more successful mem bers of society, including the better educated, must be the carriers of hereditary traits higher than the average. A low birth rate in such classes would be correspondingly serious from the eugenic point of view. It is, however, very doubtful if the argument can legitimately be pushed as far as Galton carried it. Prof. Lester F. Ward was never weary of contending that natural ability is distributed fairly evenly throughout the various classes in society. Naturally he did not contend that all individuals are equally endowed at birth — such a conten tion would have been absurd. He did hold, however, that in all probability the percentage of individuals highly endowed by nature with desirable hereditary qualities in all nations and in all social classes does not materially differ. If the question here presented could be scien tifically solved it would carry with it the solu tion of the vexed question as to whether some races are by nature superior to others. Galton was consistent in holding that the ancient Greeks were much more highly endowed with desirable hereditary qualities than are modern Europeans, and that the African negro of to-day ranks about as far below the present European as the ancient Greeks ranked above. The anthropol ogist Boas on the other hand agrees with the °egalitarian" view held by Ward.
Because of the differences of opinion held concerning many of the biological questions in volved it is evident that no careful thinker is likely to give unqualified approval to the more extreme practical measures advocated by rad ical eugenists. It is probably in part at least for this reason that advocates of the °steriliza tion of the unfit° have not as yet succeeded very fully in having their ideas carried over into leg islation. It is true that 12 commonwealths of the United States have enacted sterilization laws, but only two appear to have attempted any enforcement and only a few operations have actually been performed. On the other hand the increasing adoption of the idea that custodial care is necessary for the feeble minded reflects the increasing willingness of public authorities to carry out measures advo cated by those more moderate eugenists who base their practical plans upon established bio logical facts.
Possibly the most hopeful fact in the field 'of eugenics at the present time is the growing interest in the subject itself and the increasing number of trained investigators who are at work upon the various phases of the problems which lie within the field. One has only to glance over the reviews of books and articles on eu genic topics commented on or listed in the Eugenics Review to be convinced of the tre mendous popular literature that is accumulat ing. On the other hand one needs but to scan a few of the numerous strictly scientific jour nals in the field of biology to realize what a vast amount of accurate research is going on within the general field of heredity. To be convinced that much valuable work in the specialized in vestigation of strictly eugenic problems is being done one need but turn to publications -embody ing from time to time the results reached at the biometric and eugenic laboratories in England and, in America, the bulletin of the Eugenics Record Office. The work of this American of fice according to its own prospectus is : (1) To serve eugeniial interests in the capacity of re pository and clearing house. (2) To build up an analytical index of the traits of American families. (3) To train field workers to gather data of eugenical import. (4) To maintain a field force actually engaged in gathering such data. (5) To co-operate with other institutions and with persons concerned with eugenical study. (6) To investigate the manner of in heritance of specific human traits. (7) To ad vise concerning the eugenical fitness of pro posed marriages. (8) To publish results of researches. To such persons as will undertake to fill them out it furnishes free in duplicate (one copy to be retained by the applicant) the following blank schedules : (1) Record of Family Traits; (2) Index to Germ-plasm —a Parallel Family Record of Prospective Marriage Mates; (3) Musical Talent; (4) Mathematical Talent; (5) Tuberculosis; (6) Special Trait Chart; (7) Hare-lip and Cleft-palate.
The foregoing is sufficient evidence that the modern eugenic movement is very much alive. To what extent it will suffer from the present war is difficult to predict. Undoubtedly it will lose the services of many brilliant minds that, had peace continued, would have made notable contributions to the subject. It will thus, with all the other sciences, feel the "disgenie effect of war. On the other hand the various psycho logical investigations now being attempted on a very large scale with army men as subjects may throw such light on various phases of the eugenic problem that the science will advance even more rapidly than it has in the past. Fur thermore the war may itself produce such po tent demonstrations of various contentions now merely debated that the net result for the sci ence, if not for the race, will be advantaseous.
Consult BIOLOGY; HEREDITY; MENTAL, TESTS; STERILIZATION.
Bibliography.—Galton, Francis, 'Hereditary Genius> (London 1869) ; 'Natural Inher itance> (New York 1889); id., 'English Men of Science: Their Nature and Nurture' (New York 1895) ; id., 'Inquiries into Human Fac ulty and Its Development' (New York 1883) ; Pearson, Karl, 'National Life From the Stand point of Science' (London 1901) ; Conklin, E. G., 'Heredity and Environment in the Devel opment of Men' (Princeton 1916); Davenport, C. B., 'Heredity in Relation to Eugenics' (New York 1911) ; Dugdale, R. L., 'The Jukes' (4th ed., New York 1910) ; Goddard, H. H., 'Feeblemindedness' (New York 1914); id., 'The Kallikak Family' (New York 1912); Castle, Wm. E.; Coulter, J. M.; Davenport, C. B.; East, E. M.; Tower, W. L., 'Heredity and Eugenics' (Chicago 1912) ; Doncaster, L, 'Heredity in the Light of Recent (Cambridge, England 1911) ; Guyer, M. F., 'Being Well (Indianapolis 1916) ; Ten ney, A. A., 'Social Democracy and Population' (in Columbia University Studies in History, Economics and Public Law, Vol. XXVI, No. 4, New York 1907); Kellicott„ W. E., 'The Social Direction of Human (New York 1911) ; 'Eugenics Laboratory Memoirs' (Lon don 1901- ) ; 'Record Office Memoirs' (Cold Spring Harbor, N. Y., 1912- ).
Journals: Biometrikia (London 1902- ); The Eugenics Review (published by Eugenics Education Society, London 1909- ) ; Archie fur Rassen — land Gesellschafts Biologie (Berlin ) ; The Journal of Heredity (Washington, D. C., 1910).