tion. Sex hygiene
must in some way become a part of the child's stock of information,
but knowledge alone does not fortify action. More important is it to
deal with the springs of action, to teach the equal standard of purity
for men and women, and the moral responsibility of parenthood to
adolescent youth, and at the same time to impress upon the whole
community its responsibility of oversight of morals for the good of
the next generation. Conviction of personal and social responsibility
as superior to individual preferences is the only safety of society in
all its relations, from eugenics through economics to ethics and
religion.

52. =Euthenics.=--Euthenics is the science of controlled environment,
as eugenics is the science of controlled heredity. The health and good
fortune of the child depend on his surroundings as well as on his
inheritance, and the gift of a perfect physique may be vitiated by an
unwholesome environment. Environment acts directly upon the physical
system of the individual through climate, home conditions, and
occupation; it acts indirectly by affecting the personal desires,
idiosyncrasies, and possible conduct. When the child of an early
settler was carried away from home on an Indian raid, and brought up
in the wigwam of the savage, he forgot his civilized heritage, and
love for his foster-parents sometimes proved stronger than his natural
affections. The child of the Russian Jew in Europe has little ambition
and rises to no high level, but in America he gains distinction in
school and success in business. A natural environment of forest or
plain may determine the occupation of a whole community; a fickle
climate vitally affects its prosperity. Whole races have entered upon
a new future by migration.

It is necessary to be cautious and not to ascribe to environment, as
some do, the sole influence. Every individual is the creature of
heredity plus environment plus his own will. But it is not possible to
overlook environment as some do, and expect by a miracle to make or
preserve character in the midst of conditions of spiritual
asphyxiation. If social life is to be pure and strong, communities and
families, through the official care of overseers of health and
industry and through the loving care of parents in the homes, must see
that children grow up with the advantages of nourishing food, pure
air, proper clothing, and means for cleanliness; that at the proper
age they be given mental and mo