outcome.
The poor foreign-speaking areas in large cities, where immigrants live
huddled together in squalor, should be broken up. As these people are
given new ideas of comfort, and as their children are educated in
American ways of living, there is every reason to expect a decline in
their birth-rate, similar to that which has taken place among the
native-born during the past generation.

This elevation of standards in the lower classes will be accomplished
without any particular exertion from eugenists; there are many agencies
at work in this field, although they rarely realize the result of their
work which we have just pointed out.

But to effect a discriminating change in the standards of the more
intelligent and better educated classes calls for a real effort on the
part of all those who have the welfare of society at heart. The
difficulties are great enough and the obstacles are evident enough; it
is more encouraging to look at the other side, and to see evidences that
the public is awakening. The events of every month show that the ideals
of eugenics are filtering through the public mind more rapidly than some
of us, a decade ago, felt justified in expecting. There is a growing
recognition of the danger of bad breeding; a growing recognition in some
quarters at least of the need for more children from the superior part
of the population; a growing outcry against the excessive standards of
luxury that are making children themselves luxuries. The number of those
who call themselves eugenists, or who are in sympathy with the aims of
eugenics, is increasing every year, as is evidenced by the growth of
such an organization as the American Genetic Association. Legislators
show an eager desire to pass measures that as they (too often wrongly)
believe will have a eugenic result. Most colleges and universities are
teaching the principles of heredity, and a great many of them add
definite instruction in the principles of eugenics. Although the
ultimate aim of eugenics--to raise the level of the whole human race--is
perhaps as great an undertaking as the human mind can conceive, the
American nation shows distinct signs of a willingness to grapple with
it. And this book will have failed in its purpose, if it has not
convinced the reader that means are available for attacking the problem
at many points, and that immediate progress is not a mere dream.

One of the first necessary steps is a change in educational methods to