discussion, the following
considerations may be named as among those which should govern a policy
of military preparedness that will safeguard, as far as possible, the
eugenic interests:

1. If the army is a standing one, composed of men serving long terms of
enlistment, they should be of as advanced an age as is compatible with
military efficiency. If a man of 35 has not married, it is probable that
he will never marry, and therefore there is less loss to the race in
enrolling him for military service, than is the case with a man of
20-25.

2. The army (except in so far as composed of inferior men) should not
foster celibacy. Short enlistments are probably the most valuable means
of avoiding this evil.

3. Universal conscription is much better than voluntary service, since
the latter is highly selective, the former much less so. Those in
regular attendance in college should receive their military training in
their course as is now done.

4. Officers' families should be given an additional allowance for each
child. This would aid in increasing the birth-rate, which appears to be
very low among army and navy officers in the United States service, and
probably in that of all civilized countries.

5. Every citizen owes service to his nation, in time of need, but
fighting service should not be exacted if some one else could perform it
better than he where he is expert in some other needed field. The recent
action of England in sending to the front as subaltern officers, who
were speedily killed, many highly trained technicians and young
scientists and medical men who would have been much more valuable at
home in connection with war measures, is an example of this mistake.
Carrying the idea farther, one sees that in many nations there are
certain races which are more valuable on the firing line than in
industries at the rear; and it appears that they should play the part
for which they are best fitted. From this point of view, the Entente
allies were wholly justified in employing their Asiatic and African
subjects in war. In the United States are millions of negroes who are of
less value than white men in organized industry but almost as valuable
as the whites, when properly led, at the front. It would appear to be
sound statesmanship to enlist as many Negroes as possible in the active
forces, in case of war, thus releasing a corresponding number of more
skilled white workers for the industrial machine on whose efficie