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Show . , COMMUNICATION In Defense of Eugenics. Sept. 10, 1915. Editor Tribune The twq articles in yesterday' Tribune about eugenics one a communication and the other an editorial. -To a Critic" were of great interest to me since 1 have just returned from the eugenics record office at Cold Spring Harbor, L. L, where I have been studying with Dr. Davenport himself. 1 should like to say a few words in reply to the editorial. edi-torial. In the first place, the two families referred' re-ferred' to in the 'communication were probably the .Jukes and Edwards families, fami-lies, which have so often been compared. It is an unfortunate comparison, because here it seems so hard to separate the relative effects of environment and hereditv, but let me recommend a study of the "Kalllkak family, published by Dr. Henry Godard ot" Vineland, N- ' "bis 1b a real family (though the name is fictitious', ficti-tious', and It presents the interesting spectacle of two distinct lines of descendants descend-ants from on common ancestor a certain cer-tain Martin Kalllkak who died In 18M.i, One line of descendants was through a feeble-minded woman and the other through a normal one. The environments of the two families were about the same, since thev lived In a healthy farming community. Vet here are the results: From the line descended from the feebleminded feeble-minded woman we have 40 known descendants, of whom 143 have been proved to be feeble-minded, eighty normal and the remaining doubtrul as to mentality. men-tality. There were also found thirty-three thirty-three sex offenders, twenty-four alcoholic, three epileptic, two died In Infancy, three criminal, eight prrfstltutes. From the normal union there were 495 descendants, all of whom were normal. In another paragraph the editorial stated that one part of the community had no right to pass Judgment on the rest of the community concerning the inheritance in-heritance of traits. Is tt fair that one part of the community should be made to contribute to the up-kecp and support of those of the community who are inherently in-herently unable to provide for themselvet. and who are not only a burden but a detriment and danger to society and then not have the right to take whatever what-ever measures seem best that this dependent de-pendent class shall not increase? No parallel should he sought, you say. between human and animal spheres in breeding. Physical characteristics can be inherited, you admit, but "there is a soul, a human Intellect." to be dealt with in the case of the former. Why separate physical, mental and spiritual characteristics charac-teristics into two classes physical, those which are Inherited; and spiritual and mental, those which are gained through environment ? Surely It is not necessary to poiht out Individual differences of disposition end temperament in a stngle family where the environment la the same In order to show how obviouslv these traits are inherited. One more point 1 should like briefly to touch upon. I grant that at present there seems to be among eugenlsts a growing underestimation of the Influence of Invlronment. The "heredity-environment circle" la a vicious one. What makes a child slack, shiftless and loose In his habits? "Environment." the sociologist so-ciologist sas. What makes his environment? environ-ment? R'-onomic conditions." And how did th familv happen to get into such economic conditions? Because In the beginning be-ginning they were not able to work up; their a ncestors were t inferior, and it Is this inherent inferiority which, passed down through generations, has made the weak stock which created had home conditions. con-ditions. Environment can bring out only what is already in the Individual : ft cannot create new qualities. Biological facta of heredity show this. Out of the thousands of cases of children with bad heredity placed early in good homes, comparatively few have turned out satisfactorily. -This , is well known by statistics of children's societies and In those few cases the suc-1 suc-1 cess was due to the fa-t that somewhere from some member of the ancestry good traits had ben inherited. SADIE R. MYERS. |
