ren 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 place 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 far-sighted 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? 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 sex