ID# 1720:
Eugenics: The Science of Human Improvement by Better Breeding, by Charles B. Davenport
Date:
1910
Pages: (1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|10|11|12|13|14|15|16|17|18|19|20|21)
Source:
Cold Spring Harbor, ERO,

<i>Eugenics: The Science of Human Improvement by Better Breeding</i>, by Charles B. Davenport

[left side] Eugenics ceived back. These are being studied to determine the laws of incidence of disease and the inheritance of various other characteristics. This sort of work might be taken up by genealogists who wish to incorporate more biological data in their family histories. The limitations to this work are set only by lack of means for carrying on correspondence. It seems possible that data of this sort might be collected by the national Bureau of the Census for limited registration areas. While the acquisition of new data is desirable, much can be done by studying the extant records of institutions. The amount of such data is enormous. They lie hidden in records of our numerous charity organizations, our 42 institutions for the feeble-minded, our 115 schools and homes for the deaf and blind, our 350 hospitals for the insane, our 1200 refuge homes, our 1300 prisons, our 1500 hospitals and our 2500 almshouses. Our great insurance companies and our college gymnasiums have tens of thousands of records of the characters of human blood lines. These records should be studied, their hereditary 30 [right side] A Plan for Further Work data sifted out and properly recorded on cards and the cards sent to a central bureau for study in order that data should be placed in their proper relations in the great strains of human protoplasm that are coursing through the country. Thus could be learned not only the method of heredity of human characteristics but we shall identify those lines which supply our families of great men: our Adamses, our Abbotts, our Beechers, our Blairs, and so on through the alphabet. We shall also learn whence come our 300,000 insane and feeble-minded, our 160,000 blind or deaf, the 2,000,000 that are annually cared for by our hospitals and Homes, our 80,000 prisoners and the thousands of criminals that are not in prison, and our 100,000 paupers in almshouses and out. This three or four percent of our population is a fearful drag on our civilization. Shall we as an intelligent people, proud of our control of nature in other respects, do nothing but vote more taxes or be satisfied with the great gifts and bequests that philanthropists have made for the support of the delinquent, defective and de- 31 [end]

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