essions or the sense of achievement. The only
really scientific basis for a national system of education would be a
full knowledge of the family history of each child. With more perfect
classification of family talent the need of scholarships of
transplantation would become less, for each of them was the confession
of an initial error in placing the child. Then there would be more money
to be spared for industrial research, travelling and art studentships,
and other aids to those who had the rare gift of original thought"
(_British Medical Journal_, November 18, 1911).

[153] I should add that there is one obstacle, viz. expense. When the
present chapter was first published in its preliminary form as an
article in the _Nineteenth Century and After_ (May, 1906), Galton,
always alive to everything bearing on the study of Eugenics, wrote to me
that he had been impressed by the generally sympathetic reception my
paper had received, and that he felt encouraged to consider whether it
was possible to begin giving such certificates at once. He asked for my
views, among others, as to the ground which should be covered by such
certificates. The programme I set forth was somewhat extensive, as I
considered that the applicant must not only bring evidence of a sound
ancestry, but also submit to anthropological, psychological, and medical
examination. Galton eventually came to the conclusion that the expenses
involved by the scheme rendered it for the present impracticable. My
opinion was, and is, that though the charge for such a certificate might
in the first place be prohibitive for most people, a few persons might
find it desirable to seek, and advantageous to possess, such
certificates, and that it is worth while at all events to make a
beginning.

[154] Mannhardt, _Wald-und Feldkulte_, 1875, Vol. I, pp. 422 _et seq._ I
have discussed seasonal erotic festivals in a study of "The Phenomena of
Sexual Periodicity," _Studies in the Psychology of Sex_, Vol. I.

[155] Thus we read in a small popular periodical: "I am prepared to back
human nature against all the cranks in Christendom. Human nature will
endure a faddist so long as he does not interfere with things it prizes.
One of these things is the right to select its partner for life. If a
man loves a girl he is not going to give her up because she happens to
have an aunt in a lunatic asylum or an uncle who has epileptic fits,"
etc. In the same way it may be said that a man will