life. The
cost would be large for a generation, but would rapidly diminish and
eventually become small. It certainly would be the humane way. These
people in good institutions are by no means unhappy. Within the limit
of their capacities they can do many things. Wise management usually
will secure from them labor enough of wholesome and simple kind nearly
to pay for their own support. Nothing could be better for them than to
till the soil, care for the cattle, tend the chickens, and, in this
way, provide very largely the materials on which they are fed. How
this problem shall work out, time only can decide. With it once worked
out, there is no doubt that the level of humanity will be distinctly
raised. No other one feature in the program of eugenics seems more
absolutely hopeful than this.

In several of the states of the Union it has recently become the
practice to remove the possibilities of parenthood from certain
classes of criminals. The purpose of this is clear and benevolent.
Society has a right to prevent the oncoming of new generations of
foreordained criminals. Underlying the practice is the theory that the
children of criminals are born criminals. It is far from likely that
this is the case. Criminality may be due to a wide range of causes. If
the criminal is one of those actual born degenerates whose whole
mental and physical make-up is so defective that nothing but
criminality can be expected of him, then we have a case in which it is
clear that society may, and should, remove the possibility of having
more generations of the same kind. Probably only a moderate proportion
of the criminals in our jails and penitentiaries belong to this class.
Doubtless a distinct majority are criminals more through environment
than through heredity. Born of average ability, or more, these people
have been criminals simply because they were reared among criminals,
because their surroundings were such as to lead them away from habits
of industry, while they must live. These people were not bolstered by
society, or the church, into a life of self-respect and self-help.
Under these circumstances they fell into evil ways. There is nothing
defective in their mental or physical make-up, that need appear in
their children. If these children are removed from contact with the
criminal class they stand every chance of being as vigorous, as
intelligent, as upright as the average of the community.

At the recent Eugenics Congress in L