279. Memorandum on the general principle of bonding applicants for marriage licence against production of offspring who would become public charges. 1. Dr. Lucien Howe, founder of the Howe Laboratory of Ophthalmology of Harvard University, and President of the Eugenics Research Association, has made studies on the [illegible] and cost of public charges due to blindness in certain families. In order to prevent hereditary blindness he proposes in certain cases, and in accordance with certain procedure, to bond certain persons against the production of offspring who would be more likely than the average in the whole population, to suffer from hereditary blindness. Because the investigation has been made in reference to the blind, and appropriate data in reference of this class are in hand, it seems sound, both eugenically and legally. (the blind constituting a "natural class" in the eyes of the law) to initiate the general principle by bonding potential parents against the production of socially inadequate offspring by first bonding parents against the production of children with defective sight, by requiring of each applicant for marriage license, who is a member of a family strain which is characterized by a high incidence of hereditary blindness, to accompany his or her application by a bond for fourteen thousand dollars, specifically against the production of offspring becoming public charges through defective vision. The sum of fourteen thousand dollars has been computed by Dr. Howe as a fair estimate of the average present cost to the state of public charges who become such through blindness or defective sight.