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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/35417-8.txt b/35417-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..edd078a --- /dev/null +++ b/35417-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1869 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Super Race: An American Problem, by Scott Nearing + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Super Race: An American Problem + +Author: Scott Nearing + +Release Date: February 27, 2011 [EBook #35417] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SUPER RACE: AMERICAN PROBLEM *** + + + + +Produced by Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive.) + + + + + + + + + +The Art of Life Series + + +_The Super Race_ + + + + + THE ART OF LIFE SERIES + + _Edward Howard Griggs, Editor_ + + + The Super Race + + AN AMERICAN PROBLEM + + + BY SCOTT NEARING, Ph.D. + + WHARTON SCHOOL, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA + AUTHOR OF "SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT," ETC. + + + NEW YORK + B. W. HUEBSCH + 1919 + + + + + Copyright, 1912, by B. W. HUEBSCH + + First printing, May, 1912 + Second printing, May, 1919 + + + PRINTED IN U. S. A. + + + + +TO THE MOTHERS AND FATHERS OF THE SUPER RACE + + + + +FOREWORD + + +For ages men have sought to perpetuate their memories in enduring +monuments of brass and of stone. Yet, in their efforts to build lasting +memorials they have neglected the most enduring monument of all--the +Monument of Posterity. These farseeing ones have overlooked their real +opportunity; for in posterity--in the achievements of their children's +children, men may best hope to reflect a lasting greatness. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I THE CALL OF THE SUPER RACE 13 + + II EUGENICS--THE SCIENCE OF RACE CULTURE 26 + + III SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT--THE SCIENCE OF MOLDING INSTITUTIONS 44 + + IV EDUCATION--THE SCIENCE OF INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT 55 + + V THE AMERICAN OPPORTUNITY 75 + + + + +_The Super Race_ + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE CALL OF THE SUPER RACE + + +As a very small boy, I distinctly remember that stories of the discovery +of America and Australia, of the exploration of Central Africa and of the +invention of the locomotive, the steamboat, and the telegraph made a deep +impression on my childish mind; and I shall never forget going one day to +my mother and saying:-- + +"Oh, dear, I wish I had been born before everything was discovered and +invented. Now, there is nothing left for me to do." + +Brooding over it, and wondering why it should be so, my boyish soul felt +deeply the tragedy of being born into an uneventful age. I fully believed +that the great achievements of the world were in the past. Imagine then my +joy when, in the course of my later studies, it slowly dawned upon me +that the age in which I lived was, after all, an age of unparalleled +activity. I saw the much vaunted discoveries and inventions of by-gone +days in their true proportions. They no longer preëmpted the whole +world--present and future, as well as past, but, freed from romance, they +ranged themselves in the form of a foundation upon which the structure of +civilization is building. The successive steps in human achievement, from +the use of fire to the harnessing of electricity, constituted a process of +evolution creating "a stage where every man must play his part"--a part +expanding and broadening with each succeeding generation; and I saw that I +had a place among the actors in this play of progress. The forward steps +of the past need not, and would not prevent me from achieving in the +present--nay, they might even make a place, if I could but find it, for my +feet; they might hold up my hands, and place within my grasp the keen +tools with which I should do my work. + +The school boy, passing from an attitude of contemplation and wonder +before the things of the past into an attitude of active recognition of +the necessities of the present, passed through the evolutionary process of +the race. The savage, Sir Henry Maine tells us, lives in a state of abject +fear, bound hand and foot by the sayings and doings of his ancestors and +blinded by the terrors of nature. The lightning flashes, and the untutored +mind, trembling, bows before the wrath of a jealous God; the harvest +fails, and the savage humbly submits to the vengeance of an incensed +deity; pestilence destroys the people, and the primitive man sees in this +catastrophe a punishment inflicted on him for his failure to propitiate an +exacting spirit--in these and a thousand other ways uncivilized peoples +accept the phenomena in which nature displays her power, as the expressed +will of an omnipotent being. One course alone is open to them; they must +bow down before the unknown, accepting as inevitable those forces which +they neither can understand nor conquer. + +Civilization has meant enlightenment and achievement. In lightning, +Franklin saw a potent giant which he enslaved for the service of man; in +famine, Burbank discovered a lack of proper adjustment between the soil +and the crops that men were cultivating--thereupon he produced a wheat +that would thrive on an annual rainfall of twelve inches; in pestilence, +Pasteur recognized the ravages of an organism which he prepared to study +and destroy. Lightning, famine and pestilence are, to the primitive man, +the threatening of a wrathful god; but to the progressive thinker they are +merely forces which must be utilized or counteracted in the work of human +achievement. + +As a boy, I believed my opportunities to be limited by the achievements of +the past. As a man, I see in these past achievements not hindrances, but +the foundation stones which the past has laid down, upon which the present +must build, in order that the future may erect the perfected structure of +a higher civilization. I see all of this clearly, and I see one thing +more. In the old days which I had erstwhile envied, one event of world +import might have been chronicled for each decade, but in the nineteenth +and twentieth centuries, such an event may be chronicled for each year, or +month or even for each day. The achievements of the past were noteworthy: +these of the present are stupendous. + +The process of social evolution reveals itself in these progressive steps. +Because the past has built, the present is building--building in order +that the future may stand higher in its realization of potential life. The +past was an age of uncertain, hesitating advance. The present, an age of +dynamic achievement, leads on into the future of human development. + +In the twentieth century: + + 1. Knowledge provides a basis for activity. + + 2. The social atmosphere palpitates with enthusiastic resolve and + abounds in noble endeavor. + + 3. There is work for each one to perform. + +The despondent boy has thus evolved into the enthusiastic worker whose +watchword is "Forward!"--forward towards a new goal, whose very existence +is made attainable through the achievements of the past: a goal before +which the triumphs of bygone ages pale into insignificance. + +The past worked with things. Pyramids were built, cities constructed, +mountains tunneled, trade augmented, fortunes amassed. Hear Ruskin's +comment on this devotion to material wealth: "Nevertheless, it is open, I +repeat, to serious question, ... whether, among national manufactures, +that of souls of a good quality may not at last turn out a quite lucrative +one. Nay, in some far-away and yet undreamed of hour, I can even imagine +that England ... as a Christian mother, may at last attain to the virtues +and the treasures of a heathen one, and be able to lead forth her sons, +saying: 'These are my jewels.'"[1] + +The past worked with things: the future, rising higher in the scale of +civilization, must work with men--with the plastic, living clay of +humanity. As Solomon long ago said, "He that ruleth his own spirit is +greater than he that taketh a city." The men of the past built cities and +took them. They brought the forces of nature into subjection and remodeled +the world as a living place for humanity, yet, save for a shadow in Rome +and an echo from Greece, there is scarcely a trace in history of a +consistent attempt to evolve nobler men. + +Material objects have cost the nations untold effort, but human fiber--the +life blood of nations--has been overlooked or forgotten. The world is +weary of this emphasis on things and this forgetfulness of men; the ether +trembles with the clamor for manhood. The fields, white to harvest, are +awaiting the laborers who, building on the discoveries and inventions of +things in the past, will so mold the human clay of the present that the +future may boast a society of men and women possessing the qualities of +the Super Race. + +What is a Super Race? Nothing more nor less than a race representing, in +the aggregate, the qualities of the Super Man--the qualities which enable +one possessing them to live what Herbert Spencer described so luminously +as a "complete life," namely,-- + + 1. Physical normality. + 2. Mental capacity. + 3. Concentration. + 4. Aggressiveness. + 5. Sympathy. + 6. Vision. + +These characteristics of the Super Man express themselves in his activity: + + 1. Physical normality provides energy. + 2. Mental capacity gives mental grasp. + 3. Aggressiveness. } + } produce efficiency. + 4. Concentration. } + 5. Sympathy leads to harmony with things and coöperation with men. + 6. Vision shows itself in ideals. + +The energy to do; and the mental grasp to appreciate; together with the +capacity to choose efficiently, furnish the basis for achievement. +Achievement, however, is not in itself a guarantee of worth unless its +course is shaped by sympathy and directed toward a goal which is +determined by the prophetic power of vision. Such are the characteristics +which, combined in one individual, insure completeness of life. About +them, philosophers have reasoned and poets have sung. They are the acme of +human perfection--the ideal of individual attainment. + +Though they have been thus idealized, these qualities are not new. They +have existed for ages, as they exist to-day, occasionally combined in one +individual but usually appearing separately in members of the social +group. They form part of the heritage of the human race, and in spite of +neglect and lack of fostering, they are widespread in all sections of the +population. The production of a race of men and women, a great majority of +whom shall possess these qualities, will mean the next great step in human +achievement. + +The Super Man has lived for ages. The Greeks traced the descent of their +heroes and heroines--their Super Men--from the Gods. It was thus that +they explained exceptional ability. Exceptional men live to-day, as they +did in ancient Greece, directing the thought and work of the times. They +possess the qualities of the Super Man--physical normality, mental +capacity, aggressiveness, concentration, sympathy and vision; and, above +all, we now understand that they are not the offspring of the gods, but +the sons of men and women whose combined parental qualities inevitably +produced Super Men. The Super Man is not a theory, nor an accident, but a +natural product of natural conditions. + +Though the Super Man may be met with occasionally in modern society, and +though the qualities ascribed to him are manifest everywhere among those +who have had an opportunity for their development; opinions still differ +as to the possibility of producing a Super Race. An even greater +difference of opinion is encountered when an attempt is made to formulate +the means which should be adopted to secure such an end; yet there can be +little difference of opinion as to the desirability, from a national as +well as from an individual standpoint, of creating a race of Super Men. + +The call of the present age for a Super Race is thus voiced by Yeats,[2] + + "O Silver Trumpets! Be you lifted up, + And cry to the great race that is to come. + Long throated swans, amid the Waves of Time, + Sing loudly, for beyond the wall of the World + It waits, and it may hear and come to us." + +We long for the coming of the Super Race. We aim toward this goal. Can it +be compassed in finite time? Is Nietzsche right when he says,--"I teach +you beyond-man." "All beings hitherto have created something beyond +themselves." "What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal." +"Not whence ye come, be your honor in the future, but whither ye go!" "In +your children ye shall make amends for being your father's children. Thus +ye shall redeem all that is past."[3] + +Shall we make amends to the future? Come, then, let us reason together +concerning the measures which must be adopted to raise the standard of +succeeding generations. There are three means which lie ready at hand: +three sciences which lend themselves to our task: three tools with which +we may shape the Super Race. They are: + + 1. Eugenics--The science of race culture. + + 2. Social adjustment--The science of molding institutions. + + 3. Education--The science of individual development. + +The science of Eugenics treats of those forces which, through the biologic +processes of heredity, may be relied upon to provide the inherited +qualities of the Super Race. The science of Social Adjustment treats of +those forces which, through the modification of social institutions, may +be relied upon to provide a congenial environment for the Super Race. The +science of Education aims to assist the child in unfolding and developing +the hereditary qualities of the Super Man, provided through eugenic +guarantees. Hence, Eugenics, Social Adjustment and Education are sciences, +the mastery of which is a pre-requisite to the development of the Super +Race. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +EUGENICS--THE SCIENCE OF RACE CULTURE + + +The object of Eugenics is the conscious improvement of the human race by +the application of the laws of heredity to human mating. Eugenics is the +logical fruition of the progress in biologic science made during the +nineteenth century. + +The laws of heredity, studied in minute detail, have been applied with +marvelous success in the vegetable and animal kingdoms. "Is there any good +reason," demands the eugenist, "why the formulas which have operated to +re-combine the physical properties of plants and animals, should not in +like measure operate to modify the physical properties of men and women?" + +The studies which have been made of eye color, length of arm, head shape, +and other physical traits show that the same laws of heredity which apply +in the animal and vegetable kingdoms apply as well in the kingdom of man. +Since the species of plants and animals with which man has experimented +have been improved by selective breeding, there seems to be no good reason +why the human race should not be susceptible of similar improvement. What +intelligent farmer sows blighted potatoes? Where is the dog fancier who +would strive to rear a St. Bernard from a mongrel dam? Neither yesterday +nor yet to-morrow do men gather grapes of thorns. Those who have to do +with life in any form, aware of this fact, refuse to permit propagation +except among the best members of a species: hence with each succeeding +generation the ox increases in size and strength; the apple in color; the +sweet pea in perfume; and the horse in speed. Is this law of improving +species a universal law? Alas, no! it rarely if ever applies in the +selection of men and women for parenthood. The human species has not, +during historic times, improved either in physique, in mental capacity, in +aggressiveness, in concentration, in sympathy or in vision. Nay, there +are not wanting thoughtful students who affirm that in almost every one of +these respects the exact contrary holds true. + +There appears to be some question as to whether the best of the Greek +athletes exceeded in strength and skill the modern professional athlete, +but there is no doubt at all that the average citizen of Athens was a more +perfect specimen physically than the average citizen of twentieth century +America. + +Some students insist that the level of intellectual capacity has been +raised, yet Galton, after a careful survey of the field, concludes in his +_Hereditary Genius_ that the average citizen of Athens was at least two +degrees higher in the scale of intellectual attainment than the average +Englishman; Carl Snyder[4] boldly maintains that the intellectual ability +of scientific men is less to-day than it was in past centuries; while Mrs. +Martin,[5] in a study more novel than scientific, insists that the genius +of the modern world is on a level distinctly below that of the genius of +Greece. + +Perhaps American commercial aggressiveness is equal to the military +aggressiveness of the Romans, the early Germans, and the followers of +Attila. We have concentrated most of our efforts upon industry, yet even +here, our concentration is no greater than that of the poets of the +Elizabethan era, or the religious zealots of the Middle Ages. Our sympathy +with beauty is at so low an ebb that we fail even to approach the standard +of past ages. Neither in art, in sculpture, nor in poetry do our +achievements compare with those of the earlier Mediterranean +civilizations; while our knowledge of men as revealed in our literature is +not above that of the Romans or the Athenians. As for vision, we still +accept and strive to fulfill the commandments of the Prophet of Nazareth. +In all of these fields, twentieth century America is equaled, if not +outdone by the past. + +Thus the distinctive qualities of the Super Man appear in the past with an +intensity equal if not superior to that of the present. History records +the transmutation of vegetable and animal species, the revolution of +industry, the modification of social institutions, and the transformation +of governmental systems; but in all historic time, it affirms no +perceptible improvement in the qualities of man. "We must replace the man +by the Super Man," writes G. Bernard Shaw.[6] "It is frightful for the +citizen, as the years pass him, to see his own contemporaries so exactly +reproduced by the younger generation." + +Nevertheless, the possibility of race improvement exists. "What now +characterizes the exceptionally high may be expected eventually to +characterize all, for that which the best human nature is capable of is +within the reach of human nature at large."[7] After years of intensive +study, Spencer thus confidently expressed himself. Since he ceased to +work, each bit of scientific data along eugenic lines serves to confirm +his opinion. Armed with such a belief and with the assurance which +scientific research has afforded, we are preparing in this eleventh hour +to fulfill Spencer's predictions. + +There are two fields in which eugenics may be applied--the first, +Negative, the second, Positive. Through the establishment of Negative +Eugenics the unfit will be restrained from mating and perpetuating their +unfitness in the future. Through Positive Eugenics the fit may be induced +to mate, and by combining their fitness in their offspring, to raise up +each new generation out of the flower of the old. Negative Eugenics +eliminates the unfit; Positive Eugenics perpetuates the fit. + +The field of Negative Eugenics has been well explored. No question exists +as to the transmission through heredity of feeble mindedness, idiocy, +insanity and certain forms of criminality. "There is one way, only one +way, out of this difficulty. Modern society ... must declare that there +shall be no unfit and defective citizens in the State."[8] The Greeks +eliminated unfitness by the destruction of defective children; though we +may deplore such a practice in the light of our modern ethical codes, we +recognize the end as one essential to race progress. By denying the right +of parenthood to any who have transmissible disease or defect, our modern +knowledge enables us to accomplish the same end without recourse to the +destruction of human life. + +Sir Francis Galton, the founder of the science of Eugenics, writes, in his +last important work, "I think that stern compulsion ought to be exerted to +prevent the free propagation of the stock of those who are seriously +afflicted by lunacy, feeble-mindedness, habitual criminality and +pauperism."[9] Yet society, in dealing with hereditary defect, presents +some of its most grotesque inconsistencies. "It is a curious comment on +the artificiality of our social system that no stigma attaches to +preventable ill-health." An empty purse, or a ruined home may mean social +ostracism, but "break-down in person, whatever the cause, evokes +sympathy, subscription and silence."[10] + +Certain defects are known to be transmissible by heredity from parent to +child, until the _crétin_ of Balzac's _Country Doctor_ is reproduced for +centuries. The remedy for this form of social self-torture lies in the +denial of parenthood to those who have transmissible defects. +Individually, such a denial works hardships in this generation: socially, +and to the future generations, it means comparative freedom from +individual, and hence from social defect. + +The problem of Positive Eugenics presents an essentially different aspect. +As Ruskin so well observes--"It is a matter of no final concern, to any +parent, whether he shall have two children or four; but matter of quite +final concern whether those he has shall or shall not deserve to be +hanged." The quality is always the significant factor. Whether in family +or national progress, an effort must be made to insure against hanging, or +against any tendency that leads gallowsward. + +Positive Eugenics is the science of race building through wise mating. "As +long as ability marries ability, a large proportion of able offspring is a +certainty."[11] What prospective parent does not fondly imagine that his +children will be at least near-great? Yet how many individuals, in their +choice of a mate, set out with the deliberate intention of securing a life +partner whose qualities, when combined with his own, must produce +greatness? + +The Darwin-Galton-Wedgwood families boast sixteen men of world fame in +five generations; in the Bach family there were fifty-seven musicians of +note in eight generations; Wood's study of _Heredity in Royalty_ shows the +evident transmission of special ability; yet men and women of ability, +anxious for able offspring, mate without any rational effort to secure the +end which they desire. "Ninety-nine times out of a hundred our +mathematician marries a woman whose family did not count a single +astronomer, physicist or other mathematical mind among it members. The +result of such a union is what could be expected. Although genius does +not generally die out right away in the first generation, it decreases by +half, and further dilutions soon bring it down to nothingness."[12] + +This, in brief, is the problem of Negative and of Positive Eugenics. Both +defect and ability are transmitted by heredity; both are the product of +the mating process known as marriage; since society can and does control +marriage, it may, through this control, exercise a real influence upon the +character of future generations. + +The science of Eugenics is in its infancy, yet, widely established and +vigorously applied, it may revolutionize the human species. The Super Race +may come, because "looked at from the social standpoint, we see how +exceptional families, by careful marriages, can within even a few +generations, obtain an exceptional stock, and how directly this suggests +assortative mating as a moral duty for the highly endowed. On the other +hand, the exceptionally degenerate isolated in the slums of our modern +cities can easily produce permanent stock also: a stock which no change of +environment will permanently elevate, and which nothing but mixture with +better blood will improve. But this is an improvement of the bad by a +social waste of the better. We do not want to eliminate bad stock by +watering it with good, but by placing it under conditions where it is +relatively or absolutely infertile."[13] + +"But what of love?" wails the sentimentalist; "in your scheme Eugenics +outweighs Cupid!" Perhaps, but what of it? Cupid has proved in the past a +sad bungler, whose mistakes and failures grimace from every page of our +divorce court records. Far from hindering his activities, however, +Eugenics will assist Cupid by bringing together persons truly +congenial--hence capable of an enduring love. Too many men have married a +natty Easter bonnet, or a cleverly tailored suit. Too many women have +fallen a prey to a tempting bank account or a pair of glorious +mustachios. Blind Cupid limps but lamely over the rugged path of +matrimonial bliss. The questionable success of his best efforts proves his +sure need of a guide. + +Eugenics represents an effort to bring together those people who have +complementary qualities and complementary interests; who are capable of +maintaining congenial relationships in the present; and creating able +offspring in the future. Selection and parenthood are the cradle of the +future. Hence the individual who, in the exercise of his choice, overlooks +their significance overlooks one of his most important racial +responsibilities. + +Society is interested in Eugenics, because it is through Eugenics that the +hereditary traits of the Super Race are perpetuated and perfected. +Eugenics, rightly understood and applied, is a social asset of unexcelled +value. How long, then, shall our society continue to feed on the husks, +neglecting the grain which lies everywhere ready at hand? + +Eugenics is indeed one means of race salvation, yet what care do we take +to perfect eugenic measures? "If through sheer chance, some great +mathematician is evolved one day out of the crowd, the state--who should +be ever on the watch for such events and whose main care should be to +preserve and increase such sources of light, progress and national +glory--does nothing to protect the man of genius against care, disease or +anything likely to shorten life nor to multiply the splendid thinking +machine."[14] A great state must have for its component parts great men +and women. Did we truly seek greatness, how many measures for its +attainment lie neglected at our very doors! + +Every well regulated state of antiquity eliminated defectives in the +interest of the group, and of the future. What more effective means of +social preservation could be imagined than some measure through whose +operation the defective classes in society would be eliminated, and the +social structure, bulwarked by stalwart manhood and womanhood, made proof +against the ravages of time. How serious a thing is the propagation of +defect! Murder is a crime, punishable by death, yet a murderer merely +eliminates one unit from the social group. The destruction of this one +life may cause sorrow; it may deprive society of a valued member; but it +is, after all, a comparatively insignificant offense. The perpetuation of +hereditary defect is infinitely worse than murder. Consider, for example, +a marriage, sanctioned by church and state, between two persons both +having in their blood hereditary feeble-mindedness. + +Investigations of thousands of feeble-minded families show that, in such a +case, every one of the offspring may be and probably will be +feeble-minded--a curse to himself and a burden to society. Pauperism, +crime, social dependence, vice, all follow in the train of mental defect, +and the mentally defective parents hand on for untold generations their +taint--sometimes in more, sometimes in less virulent form, but always +bringing into the world beings not only incapable of caring for +themselves, but fatally capable of handing on their defect to the future. +The murderer robs society; the mentally defective parent curses society, +both in the present and in the future, with the taint of degeneracy. The +murderer takes away a life; but the feeble-minded parent passes on to the +future the seeds of racial decay. + +The first step in Eugenics progress--the elimination of defect by +preventing the procreation of defectives--is easily stated, and may be +almost as easily attained. The price of six battleships ($50,000,000) +would probably provide homes for all of the seriously defective men, women +and children now at large in the United States. Thus could the scum of +society be removed, and a source of social contamination be effectively +regulated. Yet with tens of thousands of defectives, freely propagating +their kind, we continue to build battleships, fondly believing that rifled +cannon and steel armor plate will prove sufficient for national defense. + +This is but a part, and by far the least important part, of the eugenic +programme. The elimination of defect prevents degeneracy, but does not +insure the physical normality, mental capacity, aggressiveness, +concentration, sympathy and vision of the Super Man. While the elimination +of defect is imperative, it is after all only the first step toward the +creation of positive qualities. + +Positive Eugenics may be as obvious as Negative Eugenics, but the +promulgation of its doctrines is not equally easy. A series of legislative +enactments will prevent the mating of the hereditarily defective; nothing +but the most painstaking education can be relied upon to secure the mating +of those eugenically fit. Nevertheless for that modern state which seeks +to persist and dominate, no lesser measure will suffice. After all, why +should not society educate its youth to a sense of wisdom in mating? The +United States spends each year some four hundred millions of dollars in +public education, teaching children to read, to spell, to sew, to draw. +The importance of these studies is obvious, yet, from a social standpoint, +they cannot compare in significance with such training in the laws of +heredity and biology as will insure wise choice in mating. The state, in +its efforts at self preservation, cannot lay too much emphasis on the +training for eugenic choice. + +Biology, through the laws of heredity, applied in the science of Eugenics, +holds out every hope for the coming of the Super Man and of the Super +Race. Not in our knowledge of its laws, but in the practice of its +precepts, are we lacking. + +Eugenics, it is true, in its negative and positive phases, holds out a +great hope for the future. But Eugenics alone will not suffice. The +science of Eugenics must be coupled with the science of Social Adjustment +to insure the production of a Super Race. The necessity of this union is +well recognized by the students of heredity, while the students of Social +Adjustment found their theories on premises essentially biologic in +origin. One of the most widely known writers on heredity concludes a +recent book with the statement that--"At present, we can only indicate +that the future of our race depends on Eugenics (in some form or other), +combined with the simultaneous evolution of eutechnics and eutopias. +'Brave words,' of course; but surely not 'Eutopian'!"[15] Thus the +knowledge and practice of the laws of heredity must be supplemented by a +knowledge and practice of the laws of Social Adjustment. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT--THE SCIENCE OF MOLDING INSTITUTIONS + + +After a gardener has produced his seed, guaranteeing a good heredity by +breeding together those individual plants which possess in the highest +degree the qualities he desires to secure, he turns his attention to the +seed bed. First of all, the location must be good--the bed must be on a +southern slope, where it will benefit by the first warm rays of the spring +sun; then the soil must be finely pulverized, in order that the tiny +rootlets may easily force their way downward, finding nourishment ready at +hand; when the seeds have been planted, in ground well prepared and +fertilized, they must be watered, cultivated, weeded; and as they develop +into larger plants, thinned, transplanted, pruned and sprayed. The wise +gardener considers environment as well as heredity. By sowing choice +seeds in well prepared soil, he ensures the excellence of his crop. + +Modern society may well be compared to a garden. The plants are living, +moving beings, with some freedom to act on their own initiative. Moreover, +it is they who make and tend the gardens in which they grow. Like the +gardener in the story, they must look to environment as well as to +heredity. The seed bed must be carefully prepared, and the young plants, +as they appear, must be given all the attention which science makes +possible. Modern society is a garden of which the products are men and +women. The sowing, weeding, cultivating--carried forward through social +institutions--determines by its character whether the race shall decay, as +other races have done, or progress toward the Super Man. + +The science of social gardening--Social Adjustment--has been given a great +impetus, in recent years, by the increased knowledge of the relative +influences of heredity and environment in determining the status of the +individual. This knowledge has led us to a belief in men. + +Earlier beliefs conceived of the majority of men as utterly depraved. Some +indeed were among the elect, but the remainder, born to the lowest depths +of the social gehenna, were outcasts and pariahs, helpless in this world +and hopeless in the next. This doctrine of total depravity set at nought +all progressive effort. Here stands a man--society has called him a +criminal. Last year he attempted to steal an automobile, less than three +weeks after his release from serving a two-year sentence for grand +larceny. To-day he is in court again, charged with entering a lodging +house and stealing three pairs of trousers and an overcoat. The man is on +trial for burglary--what shall be the social verdict regarding him? + +"Alas," mourns the advocate of total depravity, "God so made him. It is +not our right to interfere." + +"Wait," says the social scientist, "until I investigate the case." + +The case is held over while the scientist makes his investigation. After +careful inquiry, he reports that the young man's criminal record began at +the age of nine, when he was arrested for stealing bananas from a freight +car. Locked up with older criminals, he soon learned their tricks. He was +"nimble" and could "handle himself," so his prison mates taught him the +science of pocket picking, and initiated him into the gentle art of "shop +lifting." He was released, after two months of this schooling, and +slipping out into the big, black city, he tried an experiment. Succeeding, +he tried again, and yet again. Before the month was out, he was detected +stealing a silk handkerchief, and was back in prison. There his education +was perfected, and he entered the world to try once more. From the world +to jail, from jail to the world--this boy's life history from the age of +nine, had been one long attempt to learn his trade; fortunately or +unfortunately, he was somewhat of a bungler, and sooner or later he was +always caught. + +When he was a boy, he sneaked up a dingy court, and three pairs of dirty +stairs to a landing where, in the rear of a battered tenement, was an +abode which he had been taught to call home. His father, a dock laborer, +earned, on the average, about $300 a year. Sometimes he worked steadily, +day and night, for a week, and earned $25 or $30; then there would be no +work for ten days or perhaps two weeks; the money would run out; the +grocer would refuse credit; and the family would be hungry. It was during +one of these hungry intervals that the nine-year-old urchin made his +descent on the bananas in the freight car, and received his first jail +sentence. + +His mother, good hearted but woefully ignorant, made the best of things, +taking in washing, doing odd jobs here and there, tending to her children, +when opportunity offered, and at other times letting them run the streets. + +"There," concludes the social scientist, "is the story of that boy's life. +His only picture of manhood is an inefficient father who cannot earn +enough to support his family; his concept of a mother expresses itself in +good hearted ignorance; his view of society has been secured from the rear +of a shabby tenement, the curb of a narrow street and a cell in the county +jail. The seed bed has been neither prepared, watered, nor tended, and +the young shoot has grown wild." + +The social scientist has not been content with an analysis of social +maladjustment; going further, he has transplanted the young shoots from +the defective seed bed to better ground. Dr. Bernardo organized a system +for taking the boy criminals out of the slums of English cities, and +sending them to farms in Australia, South Africa and Canada. Nearly 50,000 +boys have been thus disposed of. Though in their home cities many of them +had already entered a criminal life, in their new surroundings less than +two per cent. of them showed any tendency to revert to their former +criminal practices. A little tending and transplanting into a congenial +environment, proved the salvation of these boys, who would otherwise have +thronged the jails of England. + +Careful analysis has convinced the social scientist that, in the absence +of malformation of the brain, or of some other physical defect, the +average man is largely made by his environment. As serious physical defect +is quite rare, being present in less than five per cent. of the +population; and as only a small percentage of the population, perhaps two +or three per cent., is above the average in ability, more than nine-tenths +of the people remain average--shaped by their environment; capable of good +or of evil, according as the good or evil forces of society influence +their youth and early maturity. + +The eighteenth century philosophers had embodied the same conclusion in +the doctrine that all men are created free and equal. Victor Hugo, in the +first half of the nineteenth century, based most of his inspiring novels +on the theory that in every man there is a divine spark--a +conscience--which will be developed by a good environment or crushed and +blackened by a bad one. + +Each year added new proofs of the theory of universal capacity, until Ward +was able to write his _Applied Sociology_, demonstrating that opportunity +is the key-note of social progress.[16] For, says he, up to the present +time nine-tenths of the men, and ten-tenths of the women (nineteen +twentieths of society) have been denied a legitimate opportunity for +development. Grant this opportunity, and at once, without any change in +hereditary characteristics, you can increase, nineteen fold, the +achievements of society. + +Ward's estimate may be or may not be exactly correct. His contention that +universalized opportunity would greatly augment social achievement is, +however, fundamentally sound. Social Adjustment aims, through the shaping +social institutions, to provide every individual with an opportunity to +secure a strong body, a trained mind, an aggressive attitude, the power of +concentration, and the vision of a goal toward which he is working.[17] In +short, the object of Social Adjustment is the provision of universal +opportunity. + +The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear many a gem of purest ray serene. +Even the most gifted individual, thrown into an adverse environment, will +either fail utterly to develop his powers, or else will develop them so +incompletely that they can never come to their full fruition. Thomas A. +Edison cast away on an island in the South Pacific would be useless to his +fellows. Abraham Lincoln, living among the Apache Indians, would have left +small impress on the world. A sculptor, to be really great, must go to +Rome, because it is in Rome that the great works of sculptured art are to +be found. It is in Rome, furthermore, that the great sculptors work and +teach. A lawyer can scarcely achieve distinction while practicing in a +backwoods county court, nor can a surgeon remain proficient in his science +unless he keep in constant touch with the world of surgery. "I must go to +the city," cried a woman with an unusual voice. "Here in the country I can +sing, but I cannot study music." She must, of necessity, go to the city +because in the city alone exists the stimulus and the example which are +necessary for the perfection of her art. + +A congenial environment is necessary for the perfection of any hereditary +talent. Lester F. Ward concludes, after an exhaustive analysis of +self-made men, that such men are the exception. That they exist he must +admit, but that their abilities would have come to a much more complete +development in a congenial environment he clearly demonstrates. + +The rigorous persecution of the Middle Ages eliminated any save the most +daring thinkers. Men of science, who presumed to assert facts in +contradiction of the accepted dogmas of the Church, were ruthlessly +silenced, hence the ages were very dark. The nineteenth century, on the +contrary, through its cultivation of science and scientific attainments, +has reaped a harvest of scientific achievement unparalleled in the history +of the world. Men to-day enter scientific pursuits for the same reason +that they formerly entered the military service--because every emphasis is +laid on scientific endeavor. The nineteenth century scientist is the +logical outcome of the nineteenth century desires for scientific progress. + +The environment shapes the man. Yet, equally, does the man shape the +environment. A high standard individual may be handicapped by social +tradition, but, in like manner, progressive social institutions are +inconceivable in the absence of high standard men and women. + +The institutions of a society--its homes, schools, government, +industry--are created by the past and shaped by the present. Institutions +are not subjected to sudden changes, yet one generation, animated by the +effort to realize a high ideal, may reshape the social structure. Can one +conceive of a paper strewn campus in a college where the spirit is strong? +Parisians believe in beauty, hence Paris is beautiful. Social institutions +combine the achievements of the past with the ethics of the present. + +"Let me see where you live and I will tell you what you are," is a true +saying. The social environment, moldable in each generation, is an +accurate index to the ideals and aspirations of the generation in which it +exists. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +EDUCATION--THE SCIENCE OF INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT + + +Eugenics provides the hereditary qualities of the Super Man; Social +Adjustment furnishes the environment in which these qualities are to +develop; there still remains the development of the individual through +Education, a word which means, for our purposes, all phases of character +shaping from birth-day to death-day. + +The individual has been rediscovered during the past three centuries. He +was known in some of the earlier civilizations, but during the Middle Ages +the place that had seen him knew him no more. He was submerged in the +group and forced to subordinate his interests to the demands of group +welfare. The distinctive work of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries +has been a reversal of this enforced individual oblivion and the +formulation of a demand for individual initiative and activity. The +individual, pushed forward in politics, in religion, and in commerce has +freely asserted and successfully maintained his right to consideration, +until the opportunities of the twentieth century free citizen far exceed +those of the convention-bound citizen of the middle ages. The twentieth +century citizen is free because he makes efficient choices. The +continuance of his freedom depends upon the continued wisdom of his +choice. + +The chief objective point of modern endeavor has been individual freedom +of choice. The _laissez-faire_ doctrine in commercial relations, democracy +in politics, the natural philosophy and natural theology of the eighteenth +century are all expressions of a belief in equality. When men are made +free to choose, they are placed on a basis of equality, since they have a +like opportunity to succeed or fail. The man who chooses rightly wins +success--the man who chooses wrongly fails. + +Thus the freedom to choose is for the average man a right of inestimable +value, because it places in his hands the opportunity to achieve. Rights +do not, however, come alone. The freeman is bound in his choices to +recognize the law that rights are always accompanied by duties. + +Each right is accompanied by a proportionate responsibility--there is no +dinner without its dishwashing. To be sure, you may shift the burden of +dishwashing to the maid, and the burden of voting to the "other fellow," +but the responsibility is none the less present. Garbage is still garbage, +even when thrown into the well, and your responsibilities, shifted to the +maid and the other voter, return to plague you in the form of a servant +problem and of vicious politics. Men who have a right to choose have also +a duty to fulfill, and this right and this duty are inseparable. + +The eighteenth century began the discovery of the individual man; the +nineteenth century--at least the latter half of it--was responsible for +the discovery of the individual woman. Even to-day in many civilized +lands, the woman is merely an appendage. Men innumerable write in the +hotel register "John Edwards and Wife," yet if the truth were told they +should often write "Jane Edwards and John Edwards," and perhaps sometimes +"Jane Edwards and husband." + +Western civilization, a good unthinking creature, has insisted bravely on +the development of the individual man, while largely overlooking the +existence of the individual woman; yet the studies of heredity show very +clearly that at least as many qualities are inherited from the female as +from the male. Nay, further, since the female is less specialized, the +distinctive race qualities are inherited from her, rather than from the +more specialized male. In short, the Super Man will have a mother as well +as a father. + +The fact that the average man has as many female as he had male ancestors +is very frequently overlooked. Yet it is a fact that inevitably carries +with it the imputation, that if his ancestors were thus equally +apportioned, he must have inherited his qualities from both sexes. +Therefore, in the production of the Super Man, the qualities of the woman +are of equal importance with the qualities of the man. + +The individual is the goal and Education the means, since Education is +the science of individual development. Through Education, we shall enable +the individual to live completely. But what is complete life? How shall we +compass or define it? + +Two laws are laid down as fundamental in nature--the laws of self +preservation and of self perpetuation. With the development of society, +and social relations, the individual must recognize himself, not as an +individual only, but likewise as a unit in a social group. Hence, for him, +self preservation and self perpetuation necessarily involve group +preservation and group perpetuation. His code of life must therefore +formulate itself in this wise-- + +THE OBJECTS OF ENDEAVOR + + _Immediate_ _Ultimate_ + ---- ---- + INDIVIDUAL Self Expression Super Man + + { Eugenics + SOCIAL { Social Adjustment Super Race + { Education + +The individual, for self preservation, demands self expression; for self +perpetuation he demands that the standard of his children be higher than +his own. As a member of the social group, he looks to Eugenics, Social +Adjustment, and Education as the immediate means of raising social +standards, and the ultimate means of providing a Super Race. + +Such are the abstract ideals--how may they be practically applied? How +shall the individual express, through Eugenics, Social Adjustment, and +Education his desire for the development of a Super Race? + +Do you, sir, enjoy living in the neighborhood of vandals and thieves? +Well, hardly. One could not be expected to take so frivolous a view of +life, therefore you will in self defense take every possible precaution to +suppress vandalism and thievery? Never, my dear sir, never! You must take +every possible precaution to reduce the spirit of vandalism and of +thievery. The acts are in themselves unconsequential--they are but the +product of a diseased mind or an indifferent training. The spirit, here as +elsewhere, is all important. + +Are you a scientist? Do you admire Pasteur and Herbert Spencer? You are a +"practical" man--see what Edison has done for you. As a statesman, you +revere Lincoln and Daniel Webster. You cannot, as an artist, overlook the +portraits of Rembrandt or the water scenes of Ruysdael. You must agree +with me that these and a thousand others that I might mention--men called +geniuses by their contemporaries or their descendants--have contributed +untold worth to the society of which they were a part. They chose rightly. +They are looked upon, and justly, as the salt of the earth. You admit the +value of geniuses, in civilization, and you would, of course, do anything +to increase their number? Then, let me say to you that the first thing for +you to decide is that your own children shall be neither vandals nor +thieves. The second thing for you to decide is that they shall, in so far +as you are able to determine the matter, possess all of your good +qualities, coupled with the good qualities which you lack, supplied by an +able mate. In short, you must choose your life partner with a view to the +elimination of anti-social tendencies, on the one hand, and on the other +to the development of the qualities which distinguish the Super Man. + +How obvious is this statement, yet how haphazard has been the production +of greatness. Only once in a generation does a man, in his choice of a +wife, follow the example of John Newcomb. In a truly scientific spirit he +enumerated on paper the qualities which he possessed; placed opposite them +the qualities in which he was lacking; and then set out to find the woman +who should supply his deficiencies. When he had located his future +helpmeet, playing hymn tunes on an organ in a little red school house, and +upon further acquaintance, had assured himself that she really possessed +the needed qualities, he married her, with the determination that their +first child should be a great mathematician. Their first child was Simon +Newcomb, one of the leading astronomers of the nineteenth century. + +John Newcomb was a village school master, and his wife a village maiden, +but in their choice they combined two sets of qualities which would +inevitably produce a Super Man. John Newcomb was a pioneer eugenist. He +chose a mate with the thought of the future foremost in his mind. + +Too often, however, the men of parts follow the example of the brilliant +professor who married a "social butterfly." "Why in the world did you do +it?" asked an old friend. "Oh, well," answered the professor, "I felt that +I had brains enough for both." + +True, professor, but according to the Mendelian law of heredity, those +brains of yours will be halved in each of your children, and quartered in +each of your grandchildren. Why should not the future be at least as +brilliant as your own generation? + +Human marriage is ordinarily a hit or miss affair. Men and women, inspired +by the loftiest motives, and animated in most matters by supreme good +sense, not infrequently grope blindly toward matrimony; often marry +uncongenially; and finally bring disgrace upon their own heads, and misery +upon their families. Stevenson, with such marriages in mind, writes to +the average prospective bridegroom-- + +"What! you have had one life to manage, and have failed so strangely, and +now can see nothing wiser than to conjoin with it the management of some +one else's? Because you have been unfaithful in a very little, you propose +yourself to be a ruler over ten cities. You are no longer content to be +your own enemy; you must be your wife's also. God made you, but you marry +yourself; no one is responsible but you. You have eternally missed your +way in life, with consequences that you still deplore, and yet you +masterfully seize your wife's hand, and blindfold, drag her after you to +ruin. And it is your wife, you observe, whom you select. She, whose +happiness you most desire, you choose to be your victim. You would +earnestly warn her from a tottering bridge or bad investment. If she were +to marry some one else, how you would tremble for her fate! If she were +only your sister and you thought half as much of her, how doubtfully would +you entrust her future to a man no better than yourself!"[18] + +Here, then, lies the path of eugenic activity for the individual--clear, +straight, unmistakable. In the first place, he must never transmit to the +future any defect. If he has a transmissible defect, he must have no +offspring. This seems but reasonable--an obligation to bring no +unnecessary misery into a world where so much already exists. But the +individual--free to choose--must go one step further, and in his +selection, must seek a mate with the qualities which are complementary to +his own. + +Looked at from the standpoint of society, there is no single choice which +compares in importance to the choice of a mate; for on that choice depend +the qualities which this generation will transmit to the next, and from +which the next generation must create its follower. Furthermore, there is +no choice which, in modern society, is more completely individual--more +freed from social interference, than the choice of a life mate. The man in +choosing his life partner, chooses the future. Civilization hangs +expectant on his decision. The Super Race, dim and indistinct, may be +made a living reality by a eugenic choice in the present--a choice for +which each man and woman who marries is in part responsible. With the +advance of woman's emancipation, with the increasing range of her +activity, comes an ever increasing opportunity to exercise such a choice. +She, as well as the man, may now assist in the determination of the +future. She as well as the man may now be held accountable for the +non-appearance of the Super Race. + +Does the burden of Eugenic Choice rest heavily upon the shoulders of the +individual? Does he hesitate to assume the responsibility of the future +race? The burden of shaping Social Adjustments is no less onerous. + +Briefly, then, what changes may the individual make in institutions to +develop the qualities of the Super Man? The social institutions with which +the average man comes into the most intimate contact are: + + 1. The Home. + 2. The School. + 3. The Government. + +The home as an institution must provide for the Super Man enough food, +clothing and shelter to guarantee him a good physique; enough training in +coöperation and mutual helpfulness to give him the vision of a Super Race; +and a supply of enthusiasm sufficient to enable him to work with +increasing energy for the fulfillment of those things in which he +believes. In order that the home may supply these things, it must have an +income sufficient to provide all of the necessaries and some of the +comforts of life. It must further be dominated by a spirit of sympathetic +democracy. + +While the present system of wealth distribution is so grotesquely +unscientific that men are forced to rear families on incomes that will not +provide the necessaries, to say nothing of the comforts, of life, no true +home can be established nor can a Super Race be produced. If the child is +an asset to the state, the state should support the child, guaranteeing to +it an income sufficient to provide for its material welfare. + +Why prate of home virtue? Why discourse learnedly on the possibilities of +a developed manhood to a father earning nine dollars a week? If you can +guarantee such a man an income of three dollars a week for each child, in +addition to the nine dollars for his wife and himself, you may well air +your views regarding a Super Race; but until your lowest income is high +enough to guarantee the necessaries of life to a family of five; or until +the state guarantees an income to each child in its early life, "You may +as well go stand upon the beach and bid the main flood bate his usual +height," as to demand that a man, working for starvation wages, provide a +home in which Super Men can be reared. + +When income has been provided; when there is food for every mouth, warm +clothing for every back, enough fuel for winter, and a few pennies each +week for recreation, then indeed you may begin to speak in terms of social +improvement. Then, and then only, you may tell the father and the mother +that upon their efforts during the first seven years of their children's +lives depends the attitude which those children will assume when they go +out into the world; that the home in which tyranny is unknown, in which +the family rules the family, will produce the noblest citizens for the +noblest state; that the home is still the most fundamental institution in +civilization, the conservator of our ideals, and visions of the better +things that are to come in the future--these things you may say, +emphasizing the fact, that without a well rounded home-training in youth, +even the noblest talents cannot come to their full fruition. + +The school is a specialized form of home. In early days, when life was +simple, and specialization was unknown, education was given almost wholly +in the home; but with the growth of specialized tasks, the home could no +longer fulfill its function as educator and the school was introduced. +Education, whether given in the home or in the school, has as its object a +complete life. The purpose of education is to enable the pupil to live +completely--to be a rounded being, in whatever station he may be called +upon to fill. + +Would you mold the school to fit the needs of the children? Then, the +system of education must be so shaped that children are prepared to live +their lives completely. They must understand themselves. "Know thyself" is +a command worthy of their attention. The child's body, in the period of +change from childhood to adulthood, is an organism of the most delicate +nature, barely reaching adjustment under the most auspicious conditions, +and more than frequently failing signally from a lack of knowledge, or +from the absence of sympathetic understanding. The child--the father of +the man--must be taught to appreciate the human machine of which he is +given charge. It is in the school, with its corps of specialists, that +this work can be most effectively done. + +Then, one by one, the school may take up and foster the qualities of the +Super Man. Physique must come first. It is blatant mockery to speak of +educating minds that dwell in anĉmic bodies. Every boy and girl has a +right to a strong, well knit frame, and the school must teach the best +methods of securing it. Mental grasp--the power to see and judge a +situation or combination of facts, may also come through the school. In +fact, the school course, as at present organized, aims to secure that and +little else. As the science of education advances, the same material which +now comprises the entire course will be taught in less time and in wiser +ways, so that the child shall be free to learn some of those other things +so important to his soul's welfare. Aggressiveness and concentration are +methods rather than ends, and can be made a part of every game, every +competition, and every study, so that the child absorbs them as he absorbs +the atmosphere, without knowing that they become a part of his being. +Whether the school can instill sympathy and inspire vision is a question +that the future alone must decide. Both may be given by individual +teachers, and both may be possible to the school, though, if the home is +doing its work, these things will come more effectively there than through +the school. Most or all of the essential qualities of the Super Man can +and will come through a well organized and properly directed educational +system. + +The government--providing the machinery of state administration, +furnishing the school, the playground, and the library; affording an +opportunity for the exercise of citizenship and the expression of those +advancing ideas which must gradually remold the social institutions of +each age in response to the demands of the new generation--affords one of +the most potent forces for the development of the Super Man. + +The school is the big home; the government is the big school. The child +leaves the home, and enters the school; leaves the school and enters the +state. In the home he is acted upon; in the school he, himself, begins to +act; but in the government he is the sole actor--he is the state. A home +must be higher than the children; the school must be more advanced than +the pupils; but the state reflects exactly the character of its citizens. +It is in the state that the Super Man, crystallizing his convictions and +beliefs into the form of legislative enactments, must prepare the way for +the Super Race. + +The Super Race is the produce of heredity, of social environment, and of +individual development. Heredity supplies the raw material--the +individual human being, while education and social environment, operating +upon this raw stuff, determine the course of its development. Steel is not +made from bee's wax, nor is the Super Man created out of a defective +heredity. In like manner, since those who are in Rome do as the Romans do, +the raw material, no matter what its quality, is shaped by its +surroundings. The old saying "as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined," +should be modified in this one particular--the force which bends the twig +must continue in the tree, else the latter will turn and grow toward the +sky. + +The stock of the Super Man will be secured by the mating of persons +possessing the Super-Race qualities; yet, reared in an unfavorable +environment, these qualities cannot produce the highest result. + +Neither biologic nor social forces are alone adequate to develop the Super +Race. Physique, mental capacity, aggressiveness, concentration, sympathy +and vision are the products of heredity, social environment and training. +The system of human mating must be perfected and the status of social +institutions must be raised in order that the individuals produced in each +generation may attain an additional increment of the qualities which will, +in the end, produce the Super Race. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE AMERICAN OPPORTUNITY + + +Here, in brief compass, are laid down the general principles upon which a +nation must rely for the raising of its standard of human excellence. In +general, we are convinced that the Super Race is possible. +Specifically--and here is the next point--there are more possibilities for +the development of the Super Race in the United States to-day than there +have been in any nation of the past; or than there are in any nation of +the present. The Super Race is America's distinctive opportunity. + +The factors which may play so significant a part in establishing a Super +Race in the United States are here set down in an order which permits of +sequential treatment-- + + 1. Natural resources. + 2. The stock of the dominant races. + 3. Leisure. + 4. The emancipation of women. + 5. The abandonment of war. + 6. A knowledge of race making. + 7. A knowledge of Social Adjustment. + 8. A widespread educational machinery. + +Natural resources are an indispensable element in national progress. A +congenial climate is a pre-requisite to social development. No permanently +successful civilization can be erected on the shores of Hudson Bay, or in +the torrid heat of the Amazon Valley. The temperate zones, with their +variable climate, and their wide range of vegetable products, seem to +provide the foundation for the successful civilizations of the immediate +future. No less necessary to civilization are harbors for the maintenance +of commerce; and an abundance of minerals, the sinews of industry; and +most important of all, fertile agricultural land. + +In its possession of these natural resources, the United States is +unexcelled. Its climate, while generally temperate, varies sufficiently to +give an excellent range of products; harbors and rivers are abundant; +forests and minerals are scattered everywhere; and the agricultural land, +rich and well watered, is as extensive and as potentially productive as +any equivalent area in the world. So far as natural resources provide a +basis for a Super Race, the United States occupies a position of almost +unique prominence. + +The stock of the dominant races may or may not be a cant phrase. +Notwithstanding the effective work done by Ripley in his _Races of +Europe_,[19] an impression still prevails that certain races are, from +their racial characteristics, specially fitted to dominate others. +Woodruff, in his _Expansion of Races_,[20] takes this view, strongly +urging the claim of the northwestern European to the distinction of world +ruler. Whether race be a matter of supreme or of little concern, in +determining the development of a Super Race, the United States possesses +an admirable blending of the western European peoples who now occupy the +dominant position in the commercial and military affairs of the world. If +racial stock be a matter of no importance, it requires no emphasis; if, on +the other hand, it be a significant factor in the creation of the Super +Race, then the United States holds an enviable position in its racial +qualities. + +Thus the raw materials of nation building--the natural resources and the +racial qualities, are possessed by the United States in generous +abundance. Has our use of them tended toward the development of the Super +Race? + +Leisure is an opportunity for the pursuit of a congenial avocation. It +must be carefully differentiated from the idleness with which it is so +often considered synonymous. Satan still finds mischief for idle hands. +The man who idles in leisure time is as likely now as ever in the past to +find himself breaking several of the commandments. Leisure merely provides +an opportunity for free choice. Unwisely used, it leads to individual +dissipation and social degeneracy. Wisely employed, it is a most +important means for the promotion of social progress. + +Most of the great things of the world have been done in leisure time. A +poet cannot create, nor can a mechanic devise, if he is forced during +twelve hours each day to struggle for the bare necessities of life. A +study of the lives of those who have made notable achievements in art, +science, literature, and diplomacy shows that they were free, for the most +part, from the bread and butter struggle. They had estates, they were the +recipients of pensions, but they did not submit to the soul-destroying +monotony of repeating the same task endlessly through the long reaches of +a twelve hour day. + +Primitive society demands the service of even its immature members. +Children are adults before their childhood is well begun. Civilization, +recognizing the possibility of self preservation through lengthened youth, +has said to the child "Play." + +Long youth means long life. Play time--leisure--for the youth is the bone +and sinew of a high standard maturity. Leisure in youth for play, leisure +in mature life for reflection and creation--these are two of the most +precious gifts of civilization to social progress. + +The United States has led the nations in providing opportunity for leisure +time. Labor saving devices have been brought to a higher perfection there +than in any other part of the world. Nowhere are children kept longer from +assuming the responsibilities of adult life; in few countries is the +workday shorter for adults. + +Probably no other people in the world can supply themselves with the +necessaries of life in so short a working time as can the inhabitants of +the United States. If every able bodied adult engaged for five hours each +day in gainful activity, enough economic goods could be created to provide +all the necessaries and many of the comforts of life. The leisure obtained +through American industry, if rightly directed, may provide for every +child born a thorough education--an ample opportunity to express the +qualities which are latent in him--and a thorough preparation for life. + +The emancipation of women is another force which may be directed toward +the improvement of race qualities. Women bear the race in their bodies; at +least half of the qualities of the offspring are inherited from them; as +mothers, they educate the children during the first six years of their +lives, and then, as school teachers and mothers they play the leading part +in education until the children reach the age of twelve or fourteen. The +youth of the race is in women's keeping. They shape the child clay. The +twig is bent, the tree is inclined by women's hands. + +The emancipation of woman means her individualization. Both in primitive +custom and in early law her individuality is merged in that of the man. +"Wives," wrote Paul, "be obedient unto your husbands, for this is the +law." Mohammedan women wear veils that they may not be seen; Chinese women +bind their feet that they may not escape; the women of continental Europe +spend their lives in ministering to the comfort of their liege lords. They +are dependent--almost abject. From such a sowing, what must be the +reaping? Into the hands of these subject creatures, men have committed +the training of their sons. + +Can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit? If women are inferior to men, +can they be worthy to train their future superiors--their sons? If they +are of a lower mentality than men, how is it that, in the school as well +as in the home, men have given into their hands the power to shape the +destinies of the race? + +Would you have your sons trained by a free man or by a slave? Do noble +civic ideals flow from a citizen of a free commonwealth, or from the +subjects of a despot? Only the woman who is a human being, with power and +freedom to choose, may teach the son of a free man. Emancipation has given +to women the power of choice. + +The women of America have been partially emancipated. In some states, they +may vote, sue for divorce, collect their own wages, hold property, and +transact business. Everywhere they are filling the high schools and +colleges; participating in industry and entering the professions. American +women are independent beings--distinctive units in a great organic +society. + +In so far as the qualities of the Super Man are developed and perfected by +the teachings of women, they will be more effectually rounded by the +emancipated woman than by the serf. The mothers of America are prepared to +teach their sons and daughters because they have been taught to think the +noblest thoughts and do the strongest things. + +The abandonment of war removes one of the most destructive forces of the +past, because war has always tended to eliminate the best of every race. +In the flower of their manhood, the noblest died on the field of +battle--their lives uncompleted; their tasks unfinished--leaving, perhaps, +no offspring to bear their qualities in the succeeding generation. +Although the law of nature is the survival of the fittest, "In the red +field of human history the natural process of selection is often +reversed."[21] The best perish in war, leaving the less fit to carry +forward the affairs of state, and to propagate. "The man who is left +holds in his grasp the history of the future,"[22] and if, as is +frequently the case, he is the one least fitted to survive, the race is +constantly breeding from the unfit rather than from the fit. Where the +human harvest is bad, the nation must perish. So long as war persisted, so +long as the best left their bones on the battle field, while the worst +left their descendants to man the state, a bad human harvest was +inevitable. War ate into the heart of national vitality by destroying the +nation's best blood. + +War, however, has practically ceased. The movement for peace, in which the +United States, both by precept and practice, is a leader, stands as one of +the signal achievements of the new century. The abandonment of war has +laid a basis for the Super Race by permitting the most fit to live and to +hand on their special qualities to coming generations. + +In the United States, as elsewhere in the civilized world, the science of +race making has recently undergone great development. While the movement +began in England, it has spread rapidly, until at the present time its +significance is universally recognized by scientists. The principles of +artificial selection have been applied in the creation of vegetable and +animal prodigies; the knowledge of biologic and selective principles is +wide-spread; and the educated men and women of the United States generally +understand the potency of these forces. + +Important steps have already been taken to prevent the propagation of the +unfit. Born criminals are in some states deprived of the power of +reproduction; in most of the states, the marriage of diseased persons is +prohibited; here and there attempts have been made to prohibit the +marriage of any suffering from a transmissible defect. On the other hand, +mentally defective persons are being segregated in institutions--guarded +against the dangers which beset the men and particularly the women of weak +mind. During the past two decades great strides have been made in +educating the American public to a higher standard of health and +efficiency. Though the science of race making, as such, has not been +given a prominent place in public discussion, the principles on which race +making is based have formed an important element in public education. The +desire to make a Super Race in America is as yet in its infancy, but the +ground has been thoroughly prepared, and a foundation laid upon which such +a super-structure of desire for race making can be speedily and +effectively erected. + +Meanwhile, the science of Social Adjustment has occupied the most +prominent place in American thought. If the American people have +under-emphasized Eugenics they have over-emphasized Social Adjustment. +From ocean to ocean, the country has been swept, during the past three +decades, by a whirlwind of legislation directed toward the adjustment of +social institutions to human needs. Trusts, factories, food, railroads, +liquor selling and a hundred other subjects have been kept in the +foreground of public attention. The American people might almost plead +guilty to adjustment madness. + +From the foundation of the earliest colonies, the basis, in theory at +least, was laid for the development of the individual. The colonists +believed in the worth-whileness of men, they lived in an age of natural +philosophy; they were the products of an effort to secure religious and +political freedom; they therefore emphasized the individual conscience, +and the right of the individual to think and act for himself. Each +individual was a man, to be so regarded, and so honored. Their new life +was a hard one. Nature presented an aspect on the rocky, untilled New +England coast different from that in the civilized countries of the old +world. There was but one way to meet these new conditions--the individual +must carve out his own future. + +Throughout the United States, the watchword of the people has been +opportunity. Without opportunity, the people perish--hence opportunity +must stand waiting for each succeeding generation. In the turmoil of +commercial life, in the ebb and flow of the immigrant tide, the reality +has been frequently lost; yet the ideal of opportunity remains as firmly +rooted as ever. + +The worth-whileness of men, the social control of the environment, and a +free opportunity for the development of the individual constitute the +basis for social advance in the United States. The ideal is firmly rooted; +the possibility of its realization is an everpresent reality. + +With a boundless wealth of natural resources; bulwarked by the stock of +the dominant races; with abundant leisure; granting freedom and +individuality to women; foregoing war; cognizant of the principles of race +making; Social Adjustment and of Education, the American nation is thrown +into the foreground, as the land for the development of the Super Race. +The American people have within their grasp the torch of social progress. +Can they carry it in the van, lighting the dark caverns of the future? Can +they develop a race of men who shall set a standard for the world--men of +physical and mental power, efficient, broadly sympathetic, actuated by the +highest ideals, striving toward a vision of human nobleness? + +The answer rests with this and the succeeding generations. Given ten +talents of opportunity, are we as a nation worthy to be made the rulers +over ten cities? Provided with the raw stuff of a Super Race, can we mold +it into "A mightier race than any that has been?" The past worked with +things: the present works with men. "We stand at the verge of a state of +culture, which will be that of the depths, not, as heretofore, of the +surface alone; a stage which will not be merely a culture through mankind, +but a culture of mankind. For the first time the great fashioners of +culture will be able to work in marble instead of, as heretofore, being +forced to work in snow."[23] Bulwarked by this pregnant thought, and +assured by Ruskin that, "There is as yet no ascertained limit to the +noblesse of person and mind which the human creature may attain," we press +forward confidently, advocating and practicing those measures which will +create the energy, mental grasp, efficiency, sympathy and vision of the +Super Man and the Super Race. + + + + +Footnotes: + +[1] JOHN RUSKIN, _Unto this Last_--Essay II. + +[2] WILLIAM B. YEATS, _Poetic Works_, Vol. II, p. 407. Macmillan Co., N. Y. + +[3] FREDERICK NIETZSCHE, _Thus Spoke Zarathustra_, pp. 5-296. Macmillan +Co., N. Y. + +[4] CARL SNYDER, _The World Machine_. New York, Longmans, Green & Co., +1907. + +[5] PRESTONIA MANN MARTIN, _Is Mankind Advancing?_ New York, Baker & +Taylor Co., 1911. + +[6] G. BERNARD SHAW, _Man and Super Man_, p. 218-219. N. Y., Brentano's. + +[7] HERBERT SPENCER, _The Data of Ethics_. Para. 97. N. Y., D. Appleton & +Co., 1893. + +[8] SAML. Z. BATTEN, _The Redemption of the Unfit_, American Journal of +Sociology, Vol. 14, p. 242 (1909). + +[9] FRANCIS GALTON, _Memoirs of My Life_, p. 311. N. Y., E. P. Dutton, +1909. + +[10] ARNOLD WHITE, _Efficiency and Empire_, p. 97. London, Methuen & Co., +1901. + +[11] W. C. & C. D. WHETHAM, _The Family and the Nations_, p. 85. N. Y., +Longmans, 1909. + +[12] GUSTAVE MICHAUD, _Shall We Improve Our Race_, The Popular Science +Monthly, Vol. 72, p. 77 (1908). + +[13] J. A. THOMPSON, _Heredity_, p. 331. N. Y., G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1908. + +[14] GUSTAVE MICHAUD, _Shall We Improve Our Race?_ Popular Science +Monthly, Vol. 72, p. 77 (1908). + +[15] J. ARTHUR THOMPSON, _Heredity_, p. 308. N. Y., G. P. Putnam's Sons, +1908. + +[16] LESTER F. WARD, _Applied Sociology_, pp. 224-282. Boston, Ginn & Co., +1906. + +[17] For a more complete statement of the problem, see _Social +Adjustment_, SCOTT NEARING, New York: Macmillan Company, 1911. + +[18] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, _Virginibus Puerisque_. + +[19] WM. Z. RIPLEY, _Races of Europe_. N. Y., D. Appleton & Co., 1899. + +[20] C. E. WOODRUFF, _The Expansion of Races_. N. Y., Rebman, 1909. + +[21] D. S. JORDAN, _The Human Harvest_, p. 54. Boston, American Unitarian +Association, 1907. + +[22] _Ibid_, p. 48. + +[23] ELLEN KEY, _Love and Marriage_, p. 53. N. Y., Putnam, 1911. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Super Race: An American Problem, by +Scott Nearing + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SUPER RACE: AMERICAN PROBLEM *** + +***** This file should be named 35417-8.txt or 35417-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/4/1/35417/ + +Produced by Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Super Race: An American Problem + +Author: Scott Nearing + +Release Date: February 27, 2011 [EBook #35417] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SUPER RACE: AMERICAN PROBLEM *** + + + + +Produced by Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p class="center"><span class="giant">The Art of Life Series</span></p> +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p class="center"><span class="huge"><i>The Super Race</i></span></p> +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p class="center"><span class="giant">THE ART OF LIFE SERIES</span><br /> +<i>Edward Howard Griggs, Editor</i></p> +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><span class="giant">The Super Race</span><br /><br /> +<span class="big">AN AMERICAN PROBLEM</span></p> +<p> </p> +<p class="center">BY<br /> +<span class="big">SCOTT NEARING, Ph.D.</span><br /> +<small>WHARTON SCHOOL, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA<br />AUTHOR OF “SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT,” ETC.</small></p> +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/printer.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p> </p> +<p class="center">NEW YORK<br />B. W. HUEBSCH<br />1919</p> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p class="center">Copyright, 1912, by<br /> +B. W. HUEBSCH</p> +<p> </p> +<p class="center">First printing, May, 1912<br /> +Second printing, May, 1919</p> +<p> </p> +<p class="center">PRINTED IN U. S. A.</p> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p class="center">TO THE<br />MOTHERS AND FATHERS<br />OF THE<br />SUPER RACE</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p class="center"><span class="huge">FOREWORD</span></p> + +<p class="note">For ages men have sought to perpetuate their memories in enduring +monuments of brass and of stone. Yet, in their efforts to build lasting +memorials they have neglected the most enduring monument of all—the +Monument of Posterity. These farseeing ones have overlooked their real +opportunity; for in posterity—in the achievements of their children’s +children, men may best hope to reflect a lasting greatness.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p class="center"><span class="huge">CONTENTS</span></p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="table"> +<tr><td><small>CHAPTER</small></td><td> </td><td align="right"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">I</a></td><td><span class="smcap">The Call of the Super Race</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_13">13</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">II</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Eugenics—The Science of Race Culture</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_26">26</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">III</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Social Adjustment—The Science of Molding Institutions</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_44">44</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Education—The Science of Individual Development</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_55">55</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">V</a></td><td><span class="smcap">The American Opportunity</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_75">75</a></td></tr></table> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p> +<p class="center"><span class="giant"><i>The Super Race</i></span></p> +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><span class="huge"><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</span></p> +<p class="center"><span class="big">THE CALL OF THE SUPER RACE</span></p> + +<p>As a very small boy, I distinctly remember that stories of the discovery +of America and Australia, of the exploration of Central Africa and of the +invention of the locomotive, the steamboat, and the telegraph made a deep +impression on my childish mind; and I shall never forget going one day to +my mother and saying:—</p> + +<p>“Oh, dear, I wish I had been born before everything was discovered and +invented. Now, there is nothing left for me to do.”</p> + +<p>Brooding over it, and wondering why it should be so, my boyish soul felt +deeply the tragedy of being born into an uneventful age. I fully believed +that the great achievements of the world were in the past. Imagine then my +joy when, in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> course of my later studies, it slowly dawned upon me +that the age in which I lived was, after all, an age of unparalleled +activity. I saw the much vaunted discoveries and inventions of by-gone +days in their true proportions. They no longer preëmpted the whole +world—present and future, as well as past, but, freed from romance, they +ranged themselves in the form of a foundation upon which the structure of +civilization is building. The successive steps in human achievement, from +the use of fire to the harnessing of electricity, constituted a process of +evolution creating “a stage where every man must play his part”—a part +expanding and broadening with each succeeding generation; and I saw that I +had a place among the actors in this play of progress. The forward steps +of the past need not, and would not prevent me from achieving in the +present—nay, they might even make a place, if I could but find it, for my +feet; they might hold up my hands, and place within my grasp the keen +tools with which I should do my work.</p> + +<p>The school boy, passing from an <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>attitude of contemplation and wonder +before the things of the past into an attitude of active recognition of +the necessities of the present, passed through the evolutionary process of +the race. The savage, Sir Henry Maine tells us, lives in a state of abject +fear, bound hand and foot by the sayings and doings of his ancestors and +blinded by the terrors of nature. The lightning flashes, and the untutored +mind, trembling, bows before the wrath of a jealous God; the harvest +fails, and the savage humbly submits to the vengeance of an incensed +deity; pestilence destroys the people, and the primitive man sees in this +catastrophe a punishment inflicted on him for his failure to propitiate an +exacting spirit—in these and a thousand other ways uncivilized peoples +accept the phenomena in which nature displays her power, as the expressed +will of an omnipotent being. One course alone is open to them; they must +bow down before the unknown, accepting as inevitable those forces which +they neither can understand nor conquer.</p> + +<p>Civilization has meant enlightenment<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> and achievement. In lightning, +Franklin saw a potent giant which he enslaved for the service of man; in +famine, Burbank discovered a lack of proper adjustment between the soil +and the crops that men were cultivating—thereupon he produced a wheat +that would thrive on an annual rainfall of twelve inches; in pestilence, +Pasteur recognized the ravages of an organism which he prepared to study +and destroy. Lightning, famine and pestilence are, to the primitive man, +the threatening of a wrathful god; but to the progressive thinker they are +merely forces which must be utilized or counteracted in the work of human +achievement.</p> + +<p>As a boy, I believed my opportunities to be limited by the achievements of +the past. As a man, I see in these past achievements not hindrances, but +the foundation stones which the past has laid down, upon which the present +must build, in order that the future may erect the perfected structure of +a higher civilization. I see all of this clearly, and I see one thing +more. In the old days which I had erstwhile envied, one event of world +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>import might have been chronicled for each decade, but in the nineteenth +and twentieth centuries, such an event may be chronicled for each year, or +month or even for each day. The achievements of the past were noteworthy: +these of the present are stupendous.</p> + +<p>The process of social evolution reveals itself in these progressive steps. +Because the past has built, the present is building—building in order +that the future may stand higher in its realization of potential life. The +past was an age of uncertain, hesitating advance. The present, an age of +dynamic achievement, leads on into the future of human development.</p> + +<p>In the twentieth century:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>1. Knowledge provides a basis for activity.</p> + +<p>2. The social atmosphere palpitates with enthusiastic resolve and abounds in noble endeavor.</p> + +<p>3. There is work for each one to perform.</p></div> + +<p>The despondent boy has thus evolved<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> into the enthusiastic worker whose +watchword is “Forward!”—forward towards a new goal, whose very existence +is made attainable through the achievements of the past: a goal before +which the triumphs of bygone ages pale into insignificance.</p> + +<p>The past worked with things. Pyramids were built, cities constructed, +mountains tunneled, trade augmented, fortunes amassed. Hear Ruskin’s +comment on this devotion to material wealth: “Nevertheless, it is open, I +repeat, to serious question, ... whether, among national manufactures, +that of souls of a good quality may not at last turn out a quite lucrative +one. Nay, in some far-away and yet undreamed of hour, I can even imagine +that England ... as a Christian mother, may at last attain to the virtues +and the treasures of a heathen one, and be able to lead forth her sons, +saying: ‘These are my jewels.’”<small><a name="f1.1" id="f1.1" href="#f1">[1]</a></small></p> + +<p>The past worked with things: the future, rising higher in the scale of +civilization, must work with men—with the plastic,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> living clay of +humanity. As Solomon long ago said, “He that ruleth his own spirit is +greater than he that taketh a city.” The men of the past built cities and +took them. They brought the forces of nature into subjection and remodeled +the world as a living place for humanity, yet, save for a shadow in Rome +and an echo from Greece, there is scarcely a trace in history of a +consistent attempt to evolve nobler men.</p> + +<p>Material objects have cost the nations untold effort, but human fiber—the +life blood of nations—has been overlooked or forgotten. The world is +weary of this emphasis on things and this forgetfulness of men; the ether +trembles with the clamor for manhood. The fields, white to harvest, are +awaiting the laborers who, building on the discoveries and inventions of +things in the past, will so mold the human clay of the present that the +future may boast a society of men and women possessing the qualities of +the Super Race.</p> + +<p>What is a Super Race? Nothing more nor less than a race representing, in +the aggregate, the qualities of the Super <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>Man—the qualities which enable +one possessing them to live what Herbert Spencer described so luminously +as a “complete life,” namely,—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">1. Physical normality.<br /> +2. Mental capacity.<br /> +3. Concentration.<br /> +4. Aggressiveness.<br /> +5. Sympathy.<br /> +6. Vision.</p> + +<p>These characteristics of the Super Man express themselves in his activity:</p> + +<p class="blockquot">1. Physical normality provides energy.<br /> +2. Mental capacity gives mental grasp.<br /> +3. Aggressiveness.<span class="spacer2"> </span>}<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 7em;"><span class="spacer2"> </span>}produce efficiency.</span><br /> +4. Concentration.<span class="spacer2"> </span>}<br /> +5. Sympathy leads to harmony with things and coöperation with men.<br /> +6. Vision shows itself in ideals.</p> + +<p>The energy to do; and the mental grasp to appreciate; together with the +capacity to choose efficiently, furnish the basis for achievement. +Achievement, however, is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> not in itself a guarantee of worth unless its +course is shaped by sympathy and directed toward a goal which is +determined by the prophetic power of vision. Such are the characteristics +which, combined in one individual, insure completeness of life. About +them, philosophers have reasoned and poets have sung. They are the acme of +human perfection—the ideal of individual attainment.</p> + +<p>Though they have been thus idealized, these qualities are not new. They +have existed for ages, as they exist to-day, occasionally combined in one +individual but usually appearing separately in members of the social +group. They form part of the heritage of the human race, and in spite of +neglect and lack of fostering, they are widespread in all sections of the +population. The production of a race of men and women, a great majority of +whom shall possess these qualities, will mean the next great step in human +achievement.</p> + +<p>The Super Man has lived for ages. The Greeks traced the descent of their +heroes and heroines—their Super Men—from the Gods. It was thus that +they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> explained exceptional ability. Exceptional men live to-day, as they +did in ancient Greece, directing the thought and work of the times. They +possess the qualities of the Super Man—physical normality, mental +capacity, aggressiveness, concentration, sympathy and vision; and, above +all, we now understand that they are not the offspring of the gods, but +the sons of men and women whose combined parental qualities inevitably +produced Super Men. The Super Man is not a theory, nor an accident, but a +natural product of natural conditions.</p> + +<p>Though the Super Man may be met with occasionally in modern society, and +though the qualities ascribed to him are manifest everywhere among those +who have had an opportunity for their development; opinions still differ +as to the possibility of producing a Super Race. An even greater +difference of opinion is encountered when an attempt is made to formulate +the means which should be adopted to secure such an end; yet there can be +little difference of opinion as to the desirability, from a national as +well as from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> an individual standpoint, of creating a race of Super Men.</p> + +<p>The call of the present age for a Super Race is thus voiced by Yeats,<small><a name="f2.1" id="f2.1" href="#f2">[2]</a></small></p> + +<p class="poem">“O Silver Trumpets! Be you lifted up,<br /> +And cry to the great race that is to come.<br /> +Long throated swans, amid the Waves of Time,<br /> +Sing loudly, for beyond the wall of the World<br /> +It waits, and it may hear and come to us.”</p> + +<p>We long for the coming of the Super Race. We aim toward this goal. Can it +be compassed in finite time? Is Nietzsche right when he says,—“I teach +you beyond-man.” “All beings hitherto have created something beyond +themselves.” “What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal.” +“Not whence ye come, be your honor in the future, but whither ye go!” “In +your children ye shall make amends for being your father’s children. Thus +ye shall redeem all that is past.”<small><a name="f3.1" id="f3.1" href="#f3">[3]</a></small></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>Shall we make amends to the future? Come, then, let us reason together +concerning the measures which must be adopted to raise the standard of +succeeding generations. There are three means which lie ready at hand: +three sciences which lend themselves to our task: three tools with which +we may shape the Super Race. They are:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>1. Eugenics—The science of race culture.</p> + +<p>2. Social adjustment—The science of molding institutions.</p> + +<p>3. Education—The science of individual development.</p></div> + +<p>The science of Eugenics treats of those forces which, through the biologic +processes of heredity, may be relied upon to provide the inherited +qualities of the Super Race. The science of Social Adjustment treats of +those forces which, through the modification of social institutions, may +be relied upon to provide a congenial environment for the Super Race. The +science of Education aims to assist the child<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> in unfolding and developing +the hereditary qualities of the Super Man, provided through eugenic +guarantees. Hence, Eugenics, Social Adjustment and Education are sciences, +the mastery of which is a pre-requisite to the development of the Super Race.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p> +<p class="center"><span class="huge"><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</span></p> +<p class="center"><span class="big">EUGENICS—THE SCIENCE OF RACE CULTURE</span></p> + +<p>The object of Eugenics is the conscious improvement of the human race by +the application of the laws of heredity to human mating. Eugenics is the +logical fruition of the progress in biologic science made during the +nineteenth century.</p> + +<p>The laws of heredity, studied in minute detail, have been applied with +marvelous success in the vegetable and animal kingdoms. “Is there any good +reason,” demands the eugenist, “why the formulas which have operated to +re-combine the physical properties of plants and animals, should not in +like measure operate to modify the physical properties of men and women?”</p> + +<p>The studies which have been made of eye color, length of arm, head shape, +and other physical traits show that the same<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> laws of heredity which apply +in the animal and vegetable kingdoms apply as well in the kingdom of man. +Since the species of plants and animals with which man has experimented +have been improved by selective breeding, there seems to be no good reason +why the human race should not be susceptible of similar improvement. What +intelligent farmer sows blighted potatoes? Where is the dog fancier who +would strive to rear a St. Bernard from a mongrel dam? Neither yesterday +nor yet to-morrow do men gather grapes of thorns. Those who have to do +with life in any form, aware of this fact, refuse to permit propagation +except among the best members of a species: hence with each succeeding +generation the ox increases in size and strength; the apple in color; the +sweet pea in perfume; and the horse in speed. Is this law of improving +species a universal law? Alas, no! it rarely if ever applies in the +selection of men and women for parenthood. The human species has not, +during historic times, improved either in physique, in mental capacity, in +aggressiveness, in concentration, in sympathy or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> in vision. Nay, there +are not wanting thoughtful students who affirm that in almost every one of +these respects the exact contrary holds true.</p> + +<p>There appears to be some question as to whether the best of the Greek +athletes exceeded in strength and skill the modern professional athlete, +but there is no doubt at all that the average citizen of Athens was a more +perfect specimen physically than the average citizen of twentieth century +America.</p> + +<p>Some students insist that the level of intellectual capacity has been +raised, yet Galton, after a careful survey of the field, concludes in his +<i>Hereditary Genius</i> that the average citizen of Athens was at least two +degrees higher in the scale of intellectual attainment than the average +Englishman; Carl Snyder<small><a name="f4.1" id="f4.1" href="#f4">[4]</a></small> boldly maintains that the intellectual ability +of scientific men is less to-day than it was in past centuries; while Mrs. +Martin,<small><a name="f5.1" id="f5.1" href="#f5">[5]</a></small> in a study more novel<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> than scientific, insists that the genius +of the modern world is on a level distinctly below that of the genius of +Greece.</p> + +<p>Perhaps American commercial aggressiveness is equal to the military +aggressiveness of the Romans, the early Germans, and the followers of +Attila. We have concentrated most of our efforts upon industry, yet even +here, our concentration is no greater than that of the poets of the +Elizabethan era, or the religious zealots of the Middle Ages. Our sympathy +with beauty is at so low an ebb that we fail even to approach the standard +of past ages. Neither in art, in sculpture, nor in poetry do our +achievements compare with those of the earlier Mediterranean +civilizations; while our knowledge of men as revealed in our literature is +not above that of the Romans or the Athenians. As for vision, we still +accept and strive to fulfill the commandments of the Prophet of Nazareth. +In all of these fields, twentieth century America is equaled, if not +outdone by the past.</p> + +<p>Thus the distinctive qualities of the Super Man appear in the past with an +intensity<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> equal if not superior to that of the present. History records +the transmutation of vegetable and animal species, the revolution of +industry, the modification of social institutions, and the transformation +of governmental systems; but in all historic time, it affirms no +perceptible improvement in the qualities of man. “We must replace the man +by the Super Man,” writes G. Bernard Shaw.<small><a name="f6.1" id="f6.1" href="#f6">[6]</a></small> “It is frightful for the +citizen, as the years pass him, to see his own contemporaries so exactly +reproduced by the younger generation.”</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, the possibility of race improvement exists. “What now +characterizes the exceptionally high may be expected eventually to +characterize all, for that which the best human nature is capable of is +within the reach of human nature at large.”<small><a name="f7.1" id="f7.1" href="#f7">[7]</a></small> After years of intensive +study, Spencer thus confidently expressed himself. Since he ceased to +work, each bit of scientific data along eugenic lines serves to confirm +his opinion. Armed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> with such a belief and with the assurance which +scientific research has afforded, we are preparing in this eleventh hour +to fulfill Spencer’s predictions.</p> + +<p>There are two fields in which eugenics may be applied—the first, +Negative, the second, Positive. Through the establishment of Negative +Eugenics the unfit will be restrained from mating and perpetuating their +unfitness in the future. Through Positive Eugenics the fit may be induced +to mate, and by combining their fitness in their offspring, to raise up +each new generation out of the flower of the old. Negative Eugenics +eliminates the unfit; Positive Eugenics perpetuates the fit.</p> + +<p>The field of Negative Eugenics has been well explored. No question exists +as to the transmission through heredity of feeble mindedness, idiocy, +insanity and certain forms of criminality. “There is one way, only one +way, out of this difficulty. Modern society ... must declare that there +shall be no unfit and defective citizens in the State.”<small><a name="f8.1" id="f8.1" href="#f8">[8]</a></small> The Greeks +eliminated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> unfitness by the destruction of defective children; though we +may deplore such a practice in the light of our modern ethical codes, we +recognize the end as one essential to race progress. By denying the right +of parenthood to any who have transmissible disease or defect, our modern +knowledge enables us to accomplish the same end without recourse to the +destruction of human life.</p> + +<p>Sir Francis Galton, the founder of the science of Eugenics, writes, in his +last important work, “I think that stern compulsion ought to be exerted to +prevent the free propagation of the stock of those who are seriously +afflicted by lunacy, feeble-mindedness, habitual criminality and +pauperism.”<small><a name="f9.1" id="f9.1" href="#f9">[9]</a></small> Yet society, in dealing with hereditary defect, presents +some of its most grotesque inconsistencies. “It is a curious comment on +the artificiality of our social system that no stigma attaches to +preventable ill-health.” An empty purse, or a ruined home may mean social +ostracism, but “break-down in person, whatever the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> cause, evokes +sympathy, subscription and silence.”<small><a name="f10.1" id="f10.1" href="#f10">[10]</a></small></p> + +<p>Certain defects are known to be transmissible by heredity from parent to +child, until the <i>crétin</i> of Balzac’s <i>Country Doctor</i> is reproduced for +centuries. The remedy for this form of social self-torture lies in the +denial of parenthood to those who have transmissible defects. +Individually, such a denial works hardships in this generation: socially, +and to the future generations, it means comparative freedom from +individual, and hence from social defect.</p> + +<p>The problem of Positive Eugenics presents an essentially different aspect. +As Ruskin so well observes—“It is a matter of no final concern, to any +parent, whether he shall have two children or four; but matter of quite +final concern whether those he has shall or shall not deserve to be +hanged.” The quality is always the significant factor. Whether in family +or national progress, an effort must be made to insure against hanging, or +against any tendency that leads gallowsward.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>Positive Eugenics is the science of race building through wise mating. “As +long as ability marries ability, a large proportion of able offspring is a +certainty.”<small><a name="f11.1" id="f11.1" href="#f11">[11]</a></small> What prospective parent does not fondly imagine that his +children will be at least near-great? Yet how many individuals, in their +choice of a mate, set out with the deliberate intention of securing a life +partner whose qualities, when combined with his own, must produce +greatness?</p> + +<p>The Darwin-Galton-Wedgwood families boast sixteen men of world fame in +five generations; in the Bach family there were fifty-seven musicians of +note in eight generations; Wood’s study of <i>Heredity in Royalty</i> shows the +evident transmission of special ability; yet men and women of ability, +anxious for able offspring, mate without any rational effort to secure the +end which they desire. “Ninety-nine times out of a hundred our +mathematician marries a woman whose family did not count a single +astronomer, physicist or other mathematical mind among it members. The +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>result of such a union is what could be expected. Although genius does +not generally die out right away in the first generation, it decreases by +half, and further dilutions soon bring it down to nothingness.”<small><a name="f12.1" id="f12.1" href="#f12">[12]</a></small></p> + +<p>This, in brief, is the problem of Negative and of Positive Eugenics. Both +defect and ability are transmitted by heredity; both are the product of +the mating process known as marriage; since society can and does control +marriage, it may, through this control, exercise a real influence upon the +character of future generations.</p> + +<p>The science of Eugenics is in its infancy, yet, widely established and +vigorously applied, it may revolutionize the human species. The Super Race +may come, because “looked at from the social standpoint, we see how +exceptional families, by careful marriages, can within even a few +generations, obtain an exceptional stock, and how directly this suggests +assortative mating as a moral duty for the highly endowed. On the other +hand, the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>exceptionally degenerate isolated in the slums of our modern +cities can easily produce permanent stock also: a stock which no change of +environment will permanently elevate, and which nothing but mixture with +better blood will improve. But this is an improvement of the bad by a +social waste of the better. We do not want to eliminate bad stock by +watering it with good, but by placing it under conditions where it is +relatively or absolutely infertile.”<small><a name="f13.1" id="f13.1" href="#f13">[13]</a></small></p> + +<p>“But what of love?” wails the sentimentalist; “in your scheme Eugenics +outweighs Cupid!” Perhaps, but what of it? Cupid has proved in the past a +sad bungler, whose mistakes and failures grimace from every page of our +divorce court records. Far from hindering his activities, however, +Eugenics will assist Cupid by bringing together persons truly +congenial—hence capable of an enduring love. Too many men have married a +natty Easter bonnet, or a cleverly tailored suit. Too many women have +fallen a prey<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> to a tempting bank account or a pair of glorious +mustachios. Blind Cupid limps but lamely over the rugged path of +matrimonial bliss. The questionable success of his best efforts proves his +sure need of a guide.</p> + +<p>Eugenics represents an effort to bring together those people who have +complementary qualities and complementary interests; who are capable of +maintaining congenial relationships in the present; and creating able +offspring in the future. Selection and parenthood are the cradle of the +future. Hence the individual who, in the exercise of his choice, overlooks +their significance overlooks one of his most important racial +responsibilities.</p> + +<p>Society is interested in Eugenics, because it is through Eugenics that the +hereditary traits of the Super Race are perpetuated and perfected. +Eugenics, rightly understood and applied, is a social asset of unexcelled +value. How long, then, shall our society continue to feed on the husks, +neglecting the grain which lies everywhere ready at hand?</p> + +<p>Eugenics is indeed one means of race<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> salvation, yet what care do we take +to perfect eugenic measures? “If through sheer chance, some great +mathematician is evolved one day out of the crowd, the state—who should +be ever on the watch for such events and whose main care should be to +preserve and increase such sources of light, progress and national +glory—does nothing to protect the man of genius against care, disease or +anything likely to shorten life nor to multiply the splendid thinking +machine.”<small><a name="f14.1" id="f14.1" href="#f14">[14]</a></small> A great state must have for its component parts great men +and women. Did we truly seek greatness, how many measures for its +attainment lie neglected at our very doors!</p> + +<p>Every well regulated state of antiquity eliminated defectives in the +interest of the group, and of the future. What more effective means of +social preservation could be imagined than some measure through whose +operation the defective classes in society would be eliminated, and the +social structure, bulwarked by stalwart manhood and womanhood, made proof<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> +against the ravages of time. How serious a thing is the propagation of +defect! Murder is a crime, punishable by death, yet a murderer merely +eliminates one unit from the social group. The destruction of this one +life may cause sorrow; it may deprive society of a valued member; but it +is, after all, a comparatively insignificant offense. The perpetuation of +hereditary defect is infinitely worse than murder. Consider, for example, +a marriage, sanctioned by church and state, between two persons both +having in their blood hereditary feeble-mindedness.</p> + +<p>Investigations of thousands of feeble-minded families show that, in such a +case, every one of the offspring may be and probably will be +feeble-minded—a curse to himself and a burden to society. Pauperism, +crime, social dependence, vice, all follow in the train of mental defect, +and the mentally defective parents hand on for untold generations their +taint—sometimes in more, sometimes in less virulent form, but always +bringing into the world beings not only incapable of caring for +themselves, but fatally capable of handing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> on their defect to the future. +The murderer robs society; the mentally defective parent curses society, +both in the present and in the future, with the taint of degeneracy. The +murderer takes away a life; but the feeble-minded parent passes on to the +future the seeds of racial decay.</p> + +<p>The first step in Eugenics progress—the elimination of defect by +preventing the procreation of defectives—is easily stated, and may be +almost as easily attained. The price of six battleships ($50,000,000) +would probably provide homes for all of the seriously defective men, women +and children now at large in the United States. Thus could the scum of +society be removed, and a source of social contamination be effectively +regulated. Yet with tens of thousands of defectives, freely propagating +their kind, we continue to build battleships, fondly believing that rifled +cannon and steel armor plate will prove sufficient for national defense.</p> + +<p>This is but a part, and by far the least important part, of the eugenic +programme. The elimination of defect prevents degeneracy, but does not +insure the physical <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>normality, mental capacity, aggressiveness, +concentration, sympathy and vision of the Super Man. While the elimination +of defect is imperative, it is after all only the first step toward the +creation of positive qualities.</p> + +<p>Positive Eugenics may be as obvious as Negative Eugenics, but the +promulgation of its doctrines is not equally easy. A series of legislative +enactments will prevent the mating of the hereditarily defective; nothing +but the most painstaking education can be relied upon to secure the mating +of those eugenically fit. Nevertheless for that modern state which seeks +to persist and dominate, no lesser measure will suffice. After all, why +should not society educate its youth to a sense of wisdom in mating? The +United States spends each year some four hundred millions of dollars in +public education, teaching children to read, to spell, to sew, to draw. +The importance of these studies is obvious, yet, from a social standpoint, +they cannot compare in significance with such training in the laws of +heredity and biology as will insure wise choice in mating.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> The state, in +its efforts at self preservation, cannot lay too much emphasis on the +training for eugenic choice.</p> + +<p>Biology, through the laws of heredity, applied in the science of Eugenics, +holds out every hope for the coming of the Super Man and of the Super +Race. Not in our knowledge of its laws, but in the practice of its +precepts, are we lacking.</p> + +<p>Eugenics, it is true, in its negative and positive phases, holds out a +great hope for the future. But Eugenics alone will not suffice. The +science of Eugenics must be coupled with the science of Social Adjustment +to insure the production of a Super Race. The necessity of this union is +well recognized by the students of heredity, while the students of Social +Adjustment found their theories on premises essentially biologic in +origin. One of the most widely known writers on heredity concludes a +recent book with the statement that—“At present, we can only indicate +that the future of our race depends on Eugenics (in some form or other), +combined with the simultaneous evolution of eutechnics and eutopias. +‘Brave words,’ of course; but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> surely not ‘Eutopian’!”<small><a name="f15.1" id="f15.1" href="#f15">[15]</a></small> Thus the +knowledge and practice of the laws of heredity must be supplemented by a +knowledge and practice of the laws of Social Adjustment.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p> +<p class="center"><span class="huge"><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</span></p> +<p class="center"><span class="big">SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT—THE SCIENCE OF MOLDING INSTITUTIONS</span></p> + +<p>After a gardener has produced his seed, guaranteeing a good heredity by +breeding together those individual plants which possess in the highest +degree the qualities he desires to secure, he turns his attention to the +seed bed. First of all, the location must be good—the bed must be on a +southern slope, where it will benefit by the first warm rays of the spring +sun; then the soil must be finely pulverized, in order that the tiny +rootlets may easily force their way downward, finding nourishment ready at +hand; when the seeds have been planted, in ground well prepared and +fertilized, they must be watered, cultivated, weeded; and as they develop +into larger plants, thinned, transplanted, pruned and sprayed. The wise +gardener considers environment as well as heredity. By sowing choice<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> +seeds in well prepared soil, he ensures the excellence of his crop.</p> + +<p>Modern society may well be compared to a garden. The plants are living, +moving beings, with some freedom to act on their own initiative. Moreover, +it is they who make and tend the gardens in which they grow. Like the +gardener in the story, they must look to environment as well as to +heredity. The seed bed must be carefully prepared, and the young plants, +as they appear, must be given all the attention which science makes +possible. Modern society is a garden of which the products are men and +women. The sowing, weeding, cultivating—carried forward through social +institutions—determines by its character whether the race shall decay, as +other races have done, or progress toward the Super Man.</p> + +<p>The science of social gardening—Social Adjustment—has been given a great +impetus, in recent years, by the increased knowledge of the relative +influences of heredity and environment in determining the status of the +individual. This knowledge has led us to a belief in men.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>Earlier beliefs conceived of the majority of men as utterly depraved. Some +indeed were among the elect, but the remainder, born to the lowest depths +of the social gehenna, were outcasts and pariahs, helpless in this world +and hopeless in the next. This doctrine of total depravity set at nought +all progressive effort. Here stands a man—society has called him a +criminal. Last year he attempted to steal an automobile, less than three +weeks after his release from serving a two-year sentence for grand +larceny. To-day he is in court again, charged with entering a lodging +house and stealing three pairs of trousers and an overcoat. The man is on +trial for burglary—what shall be the social verdict regarding him?</p> + +<p>“Alas,” mourns the advocate of total depravity, “God so made him. It is +not our right to interfere.”</p> + +<p>“Wait,” says the social scientist, “until I investigate the case.”</p> + +<p>The case is held over while the scientist makes his investigation. After +careful inquiry, he reports that the young man’s criminal record began at +the age of nine,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> when he was arrested for stealing bananas from a freight +car. Locked up with older criminals, he soon learned their tricks. He was +“nimble” and could “handle himself,” so his prison mates taught him the +science of pocket picking, and initiated him into the gentle art of “shop +lifting.” He was released, after two months of this schooling, and +slipping out into the big, black city, he tried an experiment. Succeeding, +he tried again, and yet again. Before the month was out, he was detected +stealing a silk handkerchief, and was back in prison. There his education +was perfected, and he entered the world to try once more. From the world +to jail, from jail to the world—this boy’s life history from the age of +nine, had been one long attempt to learn his trade; fortunately or +unfortunately, he was somewhat of a bungler, and sooner or later he was +always caught.</p> + +<p>When he was a boy, he sneaked up a dingy court, and three pairs of dirty +stairs to a landing where, in the rear of a battered tenement, was an +abode which he had been taught to call home. His father, a dock laborer, +earned, on the average,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> about $300 a year. Sometimes he worked steadily, +day and night, for a week, and earned $25 or $30; then there would be no +work for ten days or perhaps two weeks; the money would run out; the +grocer would refuse credit; and the family would be hungry. It was during +one of these hungry intervals that the nine-year-old urchin made his +descent on the bananas in the freight car, and received his first jail +sentence.</p> + +<p>His mother, good hearted but woefully ignorant, made the best of things, +taking in washing, doing odd jobs here and there, tending to her children, +when opportunity offered, and at other times letting them run the streets.</p> + +<p>“There,” concludes the social scientist, “is the story of that boy’s life. +His only picture of manhood is an inefficient father who cannot earn +enough to support his family; his concept of a mother expresses itself in +good hearted ignorance; his view of society has been secured from the rear +of a shabby tenement, the curb of a narrow street and a cell in the county +jail. The seed bed has been neither prepared,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> watered, nor tended, and +the young shoot has grown wild.”</p> + +<p>The social scientist has not been content with an analysis of social +maladjustment; going further, he has transplanted the young shoots from +the defective seed bed to better ground. Dr. Bernardo organized a system +for taking the boy criminals out of the slums of English cities, and +sending them to farms in Australia, South Africa and Canada. Nearly 50,000 +boys have been thus disposed of. Though in their home cities many of them +had already entered a criminal life, in their new surroundings less than +two per cent. of them showed any tendency to revert to their former +criminal practices. A little tending and transplanting into a congenial +environment, proved the salvation of these boys, who would otherwise have +thronged the jails of England.</p> + +<p>Careful analysis has convinced the social scientist that, in the absence +of malformation of the brain, or of some other physical defect, the +average man is largely made by his environment. As serious physical defect +is quite rare, being present<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> in less than five per cent. of the +population; and as only a small percentage of the population, perhaps two +or three per cent., is above the average in ability, more than nine-tenths +of the people remain average—shaped by their environment; capable of good +or of evil, according as the good or evil forces of society influence +their youth and early maturity.</p> + +<p>The eighteenth century philosophers had embodied the same conclusion in +the doctrine that all men are created free and equal. Victor Hugo, in the +first half of the nineteenth century, based most of his inspiring novels +on the theory that in every man there is a divine spark—a +conscience—which will be developed by a good environment or crushed and +blackened by a bad one.</p> + +<p>Each year added new proofs of the theory of universal capacity, until Ward +was able to write his <i>Applied Sociology</i>, demonstrating that opportunity +is the key-note of social progress.<small><a name="f16.1" id="f16.1" href="#f16">[16]</a></small> For, says he, up to the present +time nine-tenths of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> men, and ten-tenths of the women (nineteen +twentieths of society) have been denied a legitimate opportunity for +development. Grant this opportunity, and at once, without any change in +hereditary characteristics, you can increase, nineteen fold, the +achievements of society.</p> + +<p>Ward’s estimate may be or may not be exactly correct. His contention that +universalized opportunity would greatly augment social achievement is, +however, fundamentally sound. Social Adjustment aims, through the shaping +social institutions, to provide every individual with an opportunity to +secure a strong body, a trained mind, an aggressive attitude, the power of +concentration, and the vision of a goal toward which he is working.<small><a name="f17.1" id="f17.1" href="#f17">[17]</a></small> In +short, the object of Social Adjustment is the provision of universal +opportunity.</p> + +<p>The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear many a gem of purest ray serene. +Even the most gifted individual, thrown into an adverse environment, will +either<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> fail utterly to develop his powers, or else will develop them so +incompletely that they can never come to their full fruition. Thomas A. +Edison cast away on an island in the South Pacific would be useless to his +fellows. Abraham Lincoln, living among the Apache Indians, would have left +small impress on the world. A sculptor, to be really great, must go to +Rome, because it is in Rome that the great works of sculptured art are to +be found. It is in Rome, furthermore, that the great sculptors work and +teach. A lawyer can scarcely achieve distinction while practicing in a +backwoods county court, nor can a surgeon remain proficient in his science +unless he keep in constant touch with the world of surgery. “I must go to +the city,” cried a woman with an unusual voice. “Here in the country I can +sing, but I cannot study music.” She must, of necessity, go to the city +because in the city alone exists the stimulus and the example which are +necessary for the perfection of her art.</p> + +<p>A congenial environment is necessary for the perfection of any hereditary +talent. Lester F. Ward concludes, after an <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>exhaustive analysis of +self-made men, that such men are the exception. That they exist he must +admit, but that their abilities would have come to a much more complete +development in a congenial environment he clearly demonstrates.</p> + +<p>The rigorous persecution of the Middle Ages eliminated any save the most +daring thinkers. Men of science, who presumed to assert facts in +contradiction of the accepted dogmas of the Church, were ruthlessly +silenced, hence the ages were very dark. The nineteenth century, on the +contrary, through its cultivation of science and scientific attainments, +has reaped a harvest of scientific achievement unparalleled in the history +of the world. Men to-day enter scientific pursuits for the same reason +that they formerly entered the military service—because every emphasis is +laid on scientific endeavor. The nineteenth century scientist is the +logical outcome of the nineteenth century desires for scientific progress.</p> + +<p>The environment shapes the man. Yet, equally, does the man shape the +environment. A high standard individual may<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> be handicapped by social +tradition, but, in like manner, progressive social institutions are +inconceivable in the absence of high standard men and women.</p> + +<p>The institutions of a society—its homes, schools, government, +industry—are created by the past and shaped by the present. Institutions +are not subjected to sudden changes, yet one generation, animated by the +effort to realize a high ideal, may reshape the social structure. Can one +conceive of a paper strewn campus in a college where the spirit is strong? +Parisians believe in beauty, hence Paris is beautiful. Social institutions +combine the achievements of the past with the ethics of the present.</p> + +<p>“Let me see where you live and I will tell you what you are,” is a true +saying. The social environment, moldable in each generation, is an +accurate index to the ideals and aspirations of the generation in which it +exists.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p> +<p class="center"><span class="huge"><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</span></p> +<p class="center"><span class="big">EDUCATION—THE SCIENCE OF INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT</span></p> + +<p>Eugenics provides the hereditary qualities of the Super Man; Social +Adjustment furnishes the environment in which these qualities are to +develop; there still remains the development of the individual through +Education, a word which means, for our purposes, all phases of character +shaping from birth-day to death-day.</p> + +<p>The individual has been rediscovered during the past three centuries. He +was known in some of the earlier civilizations, but during the Middle Ages +the place that had seen him knew him no more. He was submerged in the +group and forced to subordinate his interests to the demands of group +welfare. The distinctive work of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries +has been a reversal of this enforced individual oblivion and the +formulation of a demand<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> for individual initiative and activity. The +individual, pushed forward in politics, in religion, and in commerce has +freely asserted and successfully maintained his right to consideration, +until the opportunities of the twentieth century free citizen far exceed +those of the convention-bound citizen of the middle ages. The twentieth +century citizen is free because he makes efficient choices. The +continuance of his freedom depends upon the continued wisdom of his +choice.</p> + +<p>The chief objective point of modern endeavor has been individual freedom +of choice. The <i>laissez-faire</i> doctrine in commercial relations, democracy +in politics, the natural philosophy and natural theology of the eighteenth +century are all expressions of a belief in equality. When men are made +free to choose, they are placed on a basis of equality, since they have a +like opportunity to succeed or fail. The man who chooses rightly wins +success—the man who chooses wrongly fails.</p> + +<p>Thus the freedom to choose is for the average man a right of inestimable +value, because it places in his hands the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>opportunity to achieve. Rights +do not, however, come alone. The freeman is bound in his choices to +recognize the law that rights are always accompanied by duties.</p> + +<p>Each right is accompanied by a proportionate responsibility—there is no +dinner without its dishwashing. To be sure, you may shift the burden of +dishwashing to the maid, and the burden of voting to the “other fellow,” +but the responsibility is none the less present. Garbage is still garbage, +even when thrown into the well, and your responsibilities, shifted to the +maid and the other voter, return to plague you in the form of a servant +problem and of vicious politics. Men who have a right to choose have also +a duty to fulfill, and this right and this duty are inseparable.</p> + +<p>The eighteenth century began the discovery of the individual man; the +nineteenth century—at least the latter half of it—was responsible for +the discovery of the individual woman. Even to-day in many civilized +lands, the woman is merely an appendage. Men innumerable write in the +hotel register “John Edwards and Wife,” yet if the truth were told they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> +should often write “Jane Edwards and John Edwards,” and perhaps sometimes +“Jane Edwards and husband.”</p> + +<p>Western civilization, a good unthinking creature, has insisted bravely on +the development of the individual man, while largely overlooking the +existence of the individual woman; yet the studies of heredity show very +clearly that at least as many qualities are inherited from the female as +from the male. Nay, further, since the female is less specialized, the +distinctive race qualities are inherited from her, rather than from the +more specialized male. In short, the Super Man will have a mother as well +as a father.</p> + +<p>The fact that the average man has as many female as he had male ancestors +is very frequently overlooked. Yet it is a fact that inevitably carries +with it the imputation, that if his ancestors were thus equally +apportioned, he must have inherited his qualities from both sexes. +Therefore, in the production of the Super Man, the qualities of the woman +are of equal importance with the qualities of the man.</p> + +<p>The individual is the goal and Education<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> the means, since Education is +the science of individual development. Through Education, we shall enable +the individual to live completely. But what is complete life? How shall we +compass or define it?</p> + +<p>Two laws are laid down as fundamental in nature—the laws of self +preservation and of self perpetuation. With the development of society, +and social relations, the individual must recognize himself, not as an +individual only, but likewise as a unit in a social group. Hence, for him, +self preservation and self perpetuation necessarily involve group +preservation and group perpetuation. His code of life must therefore +formulate itself in this wise—</p> + +<p class="center"><br />THE OBJECTS OF ENDEAVOR</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="table"> +<tr><td> </td> + <td> </td> + <td align="center" class="botbor"><i>Immediate</i></td> + <td> </td> + <td align="center" class="botbor"><i>Ultimate</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Individual</span></td> + <td> </td> + <td>Self Expression</td> + <td> </td> + <td>Super Man</td></tr> +<tr><td valign="middle"><span class="smcap">Social</span></td> + <td valign="middle"><span class="bracket">{</span></td> + <td>Eugenics<br />Social Adjustment<br />Education</td> + <td> </td> + <td valign="middle">Super Race</td></tr></table> + +<p>The individual, for self preservation,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> demands self expression; for self +perpetuation he demands that the standard of his children be higher than +his own. As a member of the social group, he looks to Eugenics, Social +Adjustment, and Education as the immediate means of raising social +standards, and the ultimate means of providing a Super Race.</p> + +<p>Such are the abstract ideals—how may they be practically applied? How +shall the individual express, through Eugenics, Social Adjustment, and +Education his desire for the development of a Super Race?</p> + +<p>Do you, sir, enjoy living in the neighborhood of vandals and thieves? +Well, hardly. One could not be expected to take so frivolous a view of +life, therefore you will in self defense take every possible precaution to +suppress vandalism and thievery? Never, my dear sir, never! You must take +every possible precaution to reduce the spirit of vandalism and of +thievery. The acts are in themselves unconsequential—they are but the +product of a diseased mind or an indifferent training. The spirit, here as +elsewhere, is all important.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>Are you a scientist? Do you admire Pasteur and Herbert Spencer? You are a +“practical” man—see what Edison has done for you. As a statesman, you +revere Lincoln and Daniel Webster. You cannot, as an artist, overlook the +portraits of Rembrandt or the water scenes of Ruysdael. You must agree +with me that these and a thousand others that I might mention—men called +geniuses by their contemporaries or their descendants—have contributed +untold worth to the society of which they were a part. They chose rightly. +They are looked upon, and justly, as the salt of the earth. You admit the +value of geniuses, in civilization, and you would, of course, do anything +to increase their number? Then, let me say to you that the first thing for +you to decide is that your own children shall be neither vandals nor +thieves. The second thing for you to decide is that they shall, in so far +as you are able to determine the matter, possess all of your good +qualities, coupled with the good qualities which you lack, supplied by an +able mate. In short, you must choose your life partner with a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> view to the +elimination of anti-social tendencies, on the one hand, and on the other +to the development of the qualities which distinguish the Super Man.</p> + +<p>How obvious is this statement, yet how haphazard has been the production +of greatness. Only once in a generation does a man, in his choice of a +wife, follow the example of John Newcomb. In a truly scientific spirit he +enumerated on paper the qualities which he possessed; placed opposite them +the qualities in which he was lacking; and then set out to find the woman +who should supply his deficiencies. When he had located his future +helpmeet, playing hymn tunes on an organ in a little red school house, and +upon further acquaintance, had assured himself that she really possessed +the needed qualities, he married her, with the determination that their +first child should be a great mathematician. Their first child was Simon +Newcomb, one of the leading astronomers of the nineteenth century.</p> + +<p>John Newcomb was a village school master, and his wife a village maiden, +but in their choice they combined two sets of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> qualities which would +inevitably produce a Super Man. John Newcomb was a pioneer eugenist. He +chose a mate with the thought of the future foremost in his mind.</p> + +<p>Too often, however, the men of parts follow the example of the brilliant +professor who married a “social butterfly.” “Why in the world did you do +it?” asked an old friend. “Oh, well,” answered the professor, “I felt that +I had brains enough for both.”</p> + +<p>True, professor, but according to the Mendelian law of heredity, those +brains of yours will be halved in each of your children, and quartered in +each of your grandchildren. Why should not the future be at least as +brilliant as your own generation?</p> + +<p>Human marriage is ordinarily a hit or miss affair. Men and women, inspired +by the loftiest motives, and animated in most matters by supreme good +sense, not infrequently grope blindly toward matrimony; often marry +uncongenially; and finally bring disgrace upon their own heads, and misery +upon their families. Stevenson, with such marriages in mind, writes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> to +the average prospective bridegroom—</p> + +<p>“What! you have had one life to manage, and have failed so strangely, and +now can see nothing wiser than to conjoin with it the management of some +one else’s? Because you have been unfaithful in a very little, you propose +yourself to be a ruler over ten cities. You are no longer content to be +your own enemy; you must be your wife’s also. God made you, but you marry +yourself; no one is responsible but you. You have eternally missed your +way in life, with consequences that you still deplore, and yet you +masterfully seize your wife’s hand, and blindfold, drag her after you to +ruin. And it is your wife, you observe, whom you select. She, whose +happiness you most desire, you choose to be your victim. You would +earnestly warn her from a tottering bridge or bad investment. If she were +to marry some one else, how you would tremble for her fate! If she were +only your sister and you thought half as much of her, how doubtfully would +you entrust her future to a man no better than yourself!”<small><a name="f18.1" id="f18.1" href="#f18">[18]</a></small></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>Here, then, lies the path of eugenic activity for the individual—clear, +straight, unmistakable. In the first place, he must never transmit to the +future any defect. If he has a transmissible defect, he must have no +offspring. This seems but reasonable—an obligation to bring no +unnecessary misery into a world where so much already exists. But the +individual—free to choose—must go one step further, and in his +selection, must seek a mate with the qualities which are complementary to +his own.</p> + +<p>Looked at from the standpoint of society, there is no single choice which +compares in importance to the choice of a mate; for on that choice depend +the qualities which this generation will transmit to the next, and from +which the next generation must create its follower. Furthermore, there is +no choice which, in modern society, is more completely individual—more +freed from social interference, than the choice of a life mate. The man in +choosing his life partner, chooses the future. Civilization hangs +expectant on his decision. The Super Race, dim and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>indistinct, may be +made a living reality by a eugenic choice in the present—a choice for +which each man and woman who marries is in part responsible. With the +advance of woman’s emancipation, with the increasing range of her +activity, comes an ever increasing opportunity to exercise such a choice. +She, as well as the man, may now assist in the determination of the +future. She as well as the man may now be held accountable for the +non-appearance of the Super Race.</p> + +<p>Does the burden of Eugenic Choice rest heavily upon the shoulders of the +individual? Does he hesitate to assume the responsibility of the future +race? The burden of shaping Social Adjustments is no less onerous.</p> + +<p>Briefly, then, what changes may the individual make in institutions to +develop the qualities of the Super Man? The social institutions with which +the average man comes into the most intimate contact are:</p> + +<p class="blockquot">1. The Home.<br /> +2. The School.<br /> +3. The Government.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>The home as an institution must provide for the Super Man enough food, +clothing and shelter to guarantee him a good physique; enough training in +coöperation and mutual helpfulness to give him the vision of a Super Race; +and a supply of enthusiasm sufficient to enable him to work with +increasing energy for the fulfillment of those things in which he +believes. In order that the home may supply these things, it must have an +income sufficient to provide all of the necessaries and some of the +comforts of life. It must further be dominated by a spirit of sympathetic +democracy.</p> + +<p>While the present system of wealth distribution is so grotesquely +unscientific that men are forced to rear families on incomes that will not +provide the necessaries, to say nothing of the comforts, of life, no true +home can be established nor can a Super Race be produced. If the child is +an asset to the state, the state should support the child, guaranteeing to +it an income sufficient to provide for its material welfare.</p> + +<p>Why prate of home virtue? Why discourse learnedly on the possibilities of +a <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>developed manhood to a father earning nine dollars a week? If you can +guarantee such a man an income of three dollars a week for each child, in +addition to the nine dollars for his wife and himself, you may well air +your views regarding a Super Race; but until your lowest income is high +enough to guarantee the necessaries of life to a family of five; or until +the state guarantees an income to each child in its early life, “You may +as well go stand upon the beach and bid the main flood bate his usual +height,” as to demand that a man, working for starvation wages, provide a +home in which Super Men can be reared.</p> + +<p>When income has been provided; when there is food for every mouth, warm +clothing for every back, enough fuel for winter, and a few pennies each +week for recreation, then indeed you may begin to speak in terms of social +improvement. Then, and then only, you may tell the father and the mother +that upon their efforts during the first seven years of their children’s +lives depends the attitude which those children will assume when they go +out into the world; that the home in which tyranny is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> unknown, in which +the family rules the family, will produce the noblest citizens for the +noblest state; that the home is still the most fundamental institution in +civilization, the conservator of our ideals, and visions of the better +things that are to come in the future—these things you may say, +emphasizing the fact, that without a well rounded home-training in youth, +even the noblest talents cannot come to their full fruition.</p> + +<p>The school is a specialized form of home. In early days, when life was +simple, and specialization was unknown, education was given almost wholly +in the home; but with the growth of specialized tasks, the home could no +longer fulfill its function as educator and the school was introduced. +Education, whether given in the home or in the school, has as its object a +complete life. The purpose of education is to enable the pupil to live +completely—to be a rounded being, in whatever station he may be called +upon to fill.</p> + +<p>Would you mold the school to fit the needs of the children? Then, the +system of education must be so shaped that <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>children are prepared to live +their lives completely. They must understand themselves. “Know thyself” is +a command worthy of their attention. The child’s body, in the period of +change from childhood to adulthood, is an organism of the most delicate +nature, barely reaching adjustment under the most auspicious conditions, +and more than frequently failing signally from a lack of knowledge, or +from the absence of sympathetic understanding. The child—the father of +the man—must be taught to appreciate the human machine of which he is +given charge. It is in the school, with its corps of specialists, that +this work can be most effectively done.</p> + +<p>Then, one by one, the school may take up and foster the qualities of the +Super Man. Physique must come first. It is blatant mockery to speak of +educating minds that dwell in anæmic bodies. Every boy and girl has a +right to a strong, well knit frame, and the school must teach the best +methods of securing it. Mental grasp—the power to see and judge a +situation or combination of facts, may also come through the school. In +fact, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> school course, as at present organized, aims to secure that and +little else. As the science of education advances, the same material which +now comprises the entire course will be taught in less time and in wiser +ways, so that the child shall be free to learn some of those other things +so important to his soul’s welfare. Aggressiveness and concentration are +methods rather than ends, and can be made a part of every game, every +competition, and every study, so that the child absorbs them as he absorbs +the atmosphere, without knowing that they become a part of his being. +Whether the school can instill sympathy and inspire vision is a question +that the future alone must decide. Both may be given by individual +teachers, and both may be possible to the school, though, if the home is +doing its work, these things will come more effectively there than through +the school. Most or all of the essential qualities of the Super Man can +and will come through a well organized and properly directed educational +system.</p> + +<p>The government—providing the machinery of state administration, +furnishing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> the school, the playground, and the library; affording an +opportunity for the exercise of citizenship and the expression of those +advancing ideas which must gradually remold the social institutions of +each age in response to the demands of the new generation—affords one of +the most potent forces for the development of the Super Man.</p> + +<p>The school is the big home; the government is the big school. The child +leaves the home, and enters the school; leaves the school and enters the +state. In the home he is acted upon; in the school he, himself, begins to +act; but in the government he is the sole actor—he is the state. A home +must be higher than the children; the school must be more advanced than +the pupils; but the state reflects exactly the character of its citizens. +It is in the state that the Super Man, crystallizing his convictions and +beliefs into the form of legislative enactments, must prepare the way for +the Super Race.</p> + +<p>The Super Race is the produce of heredity, of social environment, and of +individual development. Heredity supplies the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> raw material—the +individual human being, while education and social environment, operating +upon this raw stuff, determine the course of its development. Steel is not +made from bee’s wax, nor is the Super Man created out of a defective +heredity. In like manner, since those who are in Rome do as the Romans do, +the raw material, no matter what its quality, is shaped by its +surroundings. The old saying “as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined,” +should be modified in this one particular—the force which bends the twig +must continue in the tree, else the latter will turn and grow toward the +sky.</p> + +<p>The stock of the Super Man will be secured by the mating of persons +possessing the Super-Race qualities; yet, reared in an unfavorable +environment, these qualities cannot produce the highest result.</p> + +<p>Neither biologic nor social forces are alone adequate to develop the Super +Race. Physique, mental capacity, aggressiveness, concentration, sympathy +and vision are the products of heredity, social environment and training. +The system of human mating must be perfected and the status of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> social +institutions must be raised in order that the individuals produced in each +generation may attain an additional increment of the qualities which will, +in the end, produce the Super Race.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p> +<p class="center"><span class="huge"><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</span></p> +<p class="center"><span class="big">THE AMERICAN OPPORTUNITY</span></p> + +<p>Here, in brief compass, are laid down the general principles upon which a +nation must rely for the raising of its standard of human excellence. In +general, we are convinced that the Super Race is possible. +Specifically—and here is the next point—there are more possibilities for +the development of the Super Race in the United States to-day than there +have been in any nation of the past; or than there are in any nation of +the present. The Super Race is America’s distinctive opportunity.</p> + +<p>The factors which may play so significant a part in establishing a Super +Race in the United States are here set down in an order which permits of +sequential treatment—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">1. Natural resources.<br /> +2. The stock of the dominant races.<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>3. Leisure.<br /> +4. The emancipation of women.<br /> +5. The abandonment of war.<br /> +6. A knowledge of race making.<br /> +7. A knowledge of Social Adjustment.<br /> +8. A widespread educational machinery.</p> + +<p>Natural resources are an indispensable element in national progress. A +congenial climate is a pre-requisite to social development. No permanently +successful civilization can be erected on the shores of Hudson Bay, or in +the torrid heat of the Amazon Valley. The temperate zones, with their +variable climate, and their wide range of vegetable products, seem to +provide the foundation for the successful civilizations of the immediate +future. No less necessary to civilization are harbors for the maintenance +of commerce; and an abundance of minerals, the sinews of industry; and +most important of all, fertile agricultural land.</p> + +<p>In its possession of these natural resources, the United States is +unexcelled. Its climate, while generally temperate, varies sufficiently to +give an excellent range<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> of products; harbors and rivers are abundant; +forests and minerals are scattered everywhere; and the agricultural land, +rich and well watered, is as extensive and as potentially productive as +any equivalent area in the world. So far as natural resources provide a +basis for a Super Race, the United States occupies a position of almost +unique prominence.</p> + +<p>The stock of the dominant races may or may not be a cant phrase. +Notwithstanding the effective work done by Ripley in his <i>Races of +Europe</i>,<small><a name="f19.1" id="f19.1" href="#f19">[19]</a></small> an impression still prevails that certain races are, from +their racial characteristics, specially fitted to dominate others. +Woodruff, in his <i>Expansion of Races</i>,<small><a name="f20.1" id="f20.1" href="#f20">[20]</a></small> takes this view, strongly +urging the claim of the northwestern European to the distinction of world +ruler. Whether race be a matter of supreme or of little concern, in +determining the development of a Super Race, the United States possesses +an admirable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> blending of the western European peoples who now occupy the +dominant position in the commercial and military affairs of the world. If +racial stock be a matter of no importance, it requires no emphasis; if, on +the other hand, it be a significant factor in the creation of the Super +Race, then the United States holds an enviable position in its racial +qualities.</p> + +<p>Thus the raw materials of nation building—the natural resources and the +racial qualities, are possessed by the United States in generous +abundance. Has our use of them tended toward the development of the Super +Race?</p> + +<p>Leisure is an opportunity for the pursuit of a congenial avocation. It +must be carefully differentiated from the idleness with which it is so +often considered synonymous. Satan still finds mischief for idle hands. +The man who idles in leisure time is as likely now as ever in the past to +find himself breaking several of the commandments. Leisure merely provides +an opportunity for free choice. Unwisely used, it leads to individual +dissipation and social degeneracy. Wisely employed, it is a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> most +important means for the promotion of social progress.</p> + +<p>Most of the great things of the world have been done in leisure time. A +poet cannot create, nor can a mechanic devise, if he is forced during +twelve hours each day to struggle for the bare necessities of life. A +study of the lives of those who have made notable achievements in art, +science, literature, and diplomacy shows that they were free, for the most +part, from the bread and butter struggle. They had estates, they were the +recipients of pensions, but they did not submit to the soul-destroying +monotony of repeating the same task endlessly through the long reaches of +a twelve hour day.</p> + +<p>Primitive society demands the service of even its immature members. +Children are adults before their childhood is well begun. Civilization, +recognizing the possibility of self preservation through lengthened youth, +has said to the child “Play.”</p> + +<p>Long youth means long life. Play time—leisure—for the youth is the bone +and sinew of a high standard maturity. Leisure in youth for play, leisure +in mature<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> life for reflection and creation—these are two of the most +precious gifts of civilization to social progress.</p> + +<p>The United States has led the nations in providing opportunity for leisure +time. Labor saving devices have been brought to a higher perfection there +than in any other part of the world. Nowhere are children kept longer from +assuming the responsibilities of adult life; in few countries is the +workday shorter for adults.</p> + +<p>Probably no other people in the world can supply themselves with the +necessaries of life in so short a working time as can the inhabitants of +the United States. If every able bodied adult engaged for five hours each +day in gainful activity, enough economic goods could be created to provide +all the necessaries and many of the comforts of life. The leisure obtained +through American industry, if rightly directed, may provide for every +child born a thorough education—an ample opportunity to express the +qualities which are latent in him—and a thorough preparation for life.</p> + +<p>The emancipation of women is another<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> force which may be directed toward +the improvement of race qualities. Women bear the race in their bodies; at +least half of the qualities of the offspring are inherited from them; as +mothers, they educate the children during the first six years of their +lives, and then, as school teachers and mothers they play the leading part +in education until the children reach the age of twelve or fourteen. The +youth of the race is in women’s keeping. They shape the child clay. The +twig is bent, the tree is inclined by women’s hands.</p> + +<p>The emancipation of woman means her individualization. Both in primitive +custom and in early law her individuality is merged in that of the man. +“Wives,” wrote Paul, “be obedient unto your husbands, for this is the +law.” Mohammedan women wear veils that they may not be seen; Chinese women +bind their feet that they may not escape; the women of continental Europe +spend their lives in ministering to the comfort of their liege lords. They +are dependent—almost abject. From such a sowing, what must be the +reaping? Into the hands of these subject<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> creatures, men have committed +the training of their sons.</p> + +<p>Can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit? If women are inferior to men, +can they be worthy to train their future superiors—their sons? If they +are of a lower mentality than men, how is it that, in the school as well +as in the home, men have given into their hands the power to shape the +destinies of the race?</p> + +<p>Would you have your sons trained by a free man or by a slave? Do noble +civic ideals flow from a citizen of a free commonwealth, or from the +subjects of a despot? Only the woman who is a human being, with power and +freedom to choose, may teach the son of a free man. Emancipation has given +to women the power of choice.</p> + +<p>The women of America have been partially emancipated. In some states, they +may vote, sue for divorce, collect their own wages, hold property, and +transact business. Everywhere they are filling the high schools and +colleges; participating in industry and entering the professions. American +women are independent <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>beings—distinctive units in a great organic +society.</p> + +<p>In so far as the qualities of the Super Man are developed and perfected by +the teachings of women, they will be more effectually rounded by the +emancipated woman than by the serf. The mothers of America are prepared to +teach their sons and daughters because they have been taught to think the +noblest thoughts and do the strongest things.</p> + +<p>The abandonment of war removes one of the most destructive forces of the +past, because war has always tended to eliminate the best of every race. +In the flower of their manhood, the noblest died on the field of +battle—their lives uncompleted; their tasks unfinished—leaving, perhaps, +no offspring to bear their qualities in the succeeding generation. +Although the law of nature is the survival of the fittest, “In the red +field of human history the natural process of selection is often +reversed.”<small><a name="f21.1" id="f21.1" href="#f21">[21]</a></small> The best perish in war, leaving the less fit to carry +forward the affairs of state, and to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> propagate. “The man who is left +holds in his grasp the history of the future,”<small><a name="f22.1" id="f22.1" href="#f22">[22]</a></small> and if, as is +frequently the case, he is the one least fitted to survive, the race is +constantly breeding from the unfit rather than from the fit. Where the +human harvest is bad, the nation must perish. So long as war persisted, so +long as the best left their bones on the battle field, while the worst +left their descendants to man the state, a bad human harvest was +inevitable. War ate into the heart of national vitality by destroying the +nation’s best blood.</p> + +<p>War, however, has practically ceased. The movement for peace, in which the +United States, both by precept and practice, is a leader, stands as one of +the signal achievements of the new century. The abandonment of war has +laid a basis for the Super Race by permitting the most fit to live and to +hand on their special qualities to coming generations.</p> + +<p>In the United States, as elsewhere in the civilized world, the science of +race making has recently undergone great development. While the movement +began in England, it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> has spread rapidly, until at the present time its +significance is universally recognized by scientists. The principles of +artificial selection have been applied in the creation of vegetable and +animal prodigies; the knowledge of biologic and selective principles is +wide-spread; and the educated men and women of the United States generally +understand the potency of these forces.</p> + +<p>Important steps have already been taken to prevent the propagation of the +unfit. Born criminals are in some states deprived of the power of +reproduction; in most of the states, the marriage of diseased persons is +prohibited; here and there attempts have been made to prohibit the +marriage of any suffering from a transmissible defect. On the other hand, +mentally defective persons are being segregated in institutions—guarded +against the dangers which beset the men and particularly the women of weak +mind. During the past two decades great strides have been made in +educating the American public to a higher standard of health and +efficiency. Though the science of race making, as such,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> has not been +given a prominent place in public discussion, the principles on which race +making is based have formed an important element in public education. The +desire to make a Super Race in America is as yet in its infancy, but the +ground has been thoroughly prepared, and a foundation laid upon which such +a super-structure of desire for race making can be speedily and +effectively erected.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, the science of Social Adjustment has occupied the most +prominent place in American thought. If the American people have +under-emphasized Eugenics they have over-emphasized Social Adjustment. +From ocean to ocean, the country has been swept, during the past three +decades, by a whirlwind of legislation directed toward the adjustment of +social institutions to human needs. Trusts, factories, food, railroads, +liquor selling and a hundred other subjects have been kept in the +foreground of public attention. The American people might almost plead +guilty to adjustment madness.</p> + +<p>From the foundation of the earliest colonies, the basis, in theory at +least, was laid<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> for the development of the individual. The colonists +believed in the worth-whileness of men, they lived in an age of natural +philosophy; they were the products of an effort to secure religious and +political freedom; they therefore emphasized the individual conscience, +and the right of the individual to think and act for himself. Each +individual was a man, to be so regarded, and so honored. Their new life +was a hard one. Nature presented an aspect on the rocky, untilled New +England coast different from that in the civilized countries of the old +world. There was but one way to meet these new conditions—the individual +must carve out his own future.</p> + +<p>Throughout the United States, the watchword of the people has been +opportunity. Without opportunity, the people perish—hence opportunity +must stand waiting for each succeeding generation. In the turmoil of +commercial life, in the ebb and flow of the immigrant tide, the reality +has been frequently lost; yet the ideal of opportunity remains as firmly +rooted as ever.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>The worth-whileness of men, the social control of the environment, and a +free opportunity for the development of the individual constitute the +basis for social advance in the United States. The ideal is firmly rooted; +the possibility of its realization is an everpresent reality.</p> + +<p>With a boundless wealth of natural resources; bulwarked by the stock of +the dominant races; with abundant leisure; granting freedom and +individuality to women; foregoing war; cognizant of the principles of race +making; Social Adjustment and of Education, the American nation is thrown +into the foreground, as the land for the development of the Super Race. +The American people have within their grasp the torch of social progress. +Can they carry it in the van, lighting the dark caverns of the future? Can +they develop a race of men who shall set a standard for the world—men of +physical and mental power, efficient, broadly sympathetic, actuated by the +highest ideals, striving toward a vision of human nobleness?</p> + +<p>The answer rests with this and the succeeding generations. Given ten +talents of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> opportunity, are we as a nation worthy to be made the rulers +over ten cities? Provided with the raw stuff of a Super Race, can we mold +it into “A mightier race than any that has been?” The past worked with +things: the present works with men. “We stand at the verge of a state of +culture, which will be that of the depths, not, as heretofore, of the +surface alone; a stage which will not be merely a culture through mankind, +but a culture of mankind. For the first time the great fashioners of +culture will be able to work in marble instead of, as heretofore, being +forced to work in snow.”<small><a name="f23.1" id="f23.1" href="#f23">[23]</a></small> Bulwarked by this pregnant thought, and +assured by Ruskin that, “There is as yet no ascertained limit to the +noblesse of person and mind which the human creature may attain,” we press +forward confidently, advocating and practicing those measures which will +create the energy, mental grasp, efficiency, sympathy and vision of the +Super Man and the Super Race.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><strong>Footnotes:</strong></p> + +<p><a name="f1" id="f1" href="#f1.1">[1]</a> <span class="smcap">John Ruskin</span>, <i>Unto this Last</i>—Essay II.</p> + +<p><a name="f2" id="f2" href="#f2.1">[2]</a> <span class="smcap">William B. Yeats</span>, <i>Poetic Works</i>, Vol. II, p. 407. Macmillan Co., N. Y.</p> + +<p><a name="f3" id="f3" href="#f3.1">[3]</a> <span class="smcap">Frederick Nietzsche</span>, <i>Thus Spoke Zarathustra</i>, pp. 5-296. Macmillan Co., N. Y.</p> + +<p><a name="f4" id="f4" href="#f4.1">[4]</a> <span class="smcap">Carl Snyder</span>, <i>The World Machine</i>. New York, Longmans, Green & Co., 1907.</p> + +<p><a name="f5" id="f5" href="#f5.1">[5]</a> <span class="smcap">Prestonia Mann Martin</span>, <i>Is Mankind Advancing?</i> New York, Baker & Taylor Co., 1911.</p> + +<p><a name="f6" id="f6" href="#f6.1">[6]</a> <span class="smcap">G. Bernard Shaw</span>, <i>Man and Super Man</i>, p. 218-219. N. Y., Brentano’s.</p> + +<p><a name="f7" id="f7" href="#f7.1">[7]</a> <span class="smcap">Herbert Spencer</span>, <i>The Data of Ethics</i>. Para. 97. N. Y., D. Appleton & Co., 1893.</p> + +<p><a name="f8" id="f8" href="#f8.1">[8]</a> <span class="smcap">Saml. Z. Batten</span>, <i>The Redemption of the Unfit</i>, American Journal of Sociology, +Vol. 14, p. 242 (1909).</p> + +<p><a name="f9" id="f9" href="#f9.1">[9]</a> <span class="smcap">Francis Galton</span>, <i>Memoirs of My Life</i>, p. 311. N. Y., E. P. Dutton, 1909.</p> + +<p><a name="f10" id="f10" href="#f10.1">[10]</a> <span class="smcap">Arnold White</span>, <i>Efficiency and Empire</i>, p. 97. London, Methuen & Co., 1901.</p> + +<p><a name="f11" id="f11" href="#f11.1">[11]</a> <span class="smcap">W. C. & C. D. Whetham</span>, <i>The Family and the Nations</i>, p. 85. N. Y., Longmans, 1909.</p> + +<p><a name="f12" id="f12" href="#f12.1">[12]</a> <span class="smcap">Gustave Michaud</span>, <i>Shall We Improve Our Race</i>, The Popular Science Monthly, +Vol. 72, p. 77 (1908).</p> + +<p><a name="f13" id="f13" href="#f13.1">[13]</a> <span class="smcap">J. A. Thompson</span>, <i>Heredity</i>, p. 331. N. Y., G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1908.</p> + +<p><a name="f14" id="f14" href="#f14.1">[14]</a> <span class="smcap">Gustave Michaud</span>, <i>Shall We Improve Our Race?</i> Popular Science +Monthly, Vol. 72, p. 77 (1908).</p> + +<p><a name="f15" id="f15" href="#f15.1">[15]</a> <span class="smcap">J. Arthur Thompson</span>, <i>Heredity</i>, p. 308. N. Y., G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1908.</p> + +<p><a name="f16" id="f16" href="#f16.1">[16]</a> <span class="smcap">Lester F. Ward</span>, <i>Applied Sociology</i>, pp. 224-282. Boston, Ginn & Co., 1906.</p> + +<p><a name="f17" id="f17" href="#f17.1">[17]</a> For a more complete statement of the problem, see <i>Social +Adjustment</i>, <span class="smcap">Scott Nearing</span>, New York: Macmillan Company, 1911.</p> + +<p><a name="f18" id="f18" href="#f18.1">[18]</a> <span class="smcap">Robert Louis Stevenson</span>, <i>Virginibus Puerisque</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="f19" id="f19" href="#f19.1">[19]</a> <span class="smcap">Wm. Z. Ripley</span>, <i>Races of Europe</i>. N. Y., D. Appleton & Co., 1899.</p> + +<p><a name="f20" id="f20" href="#f20.1">[20]</a> <span class="smcap">C. E. Woodruff</span>, <i>The Expansion of Races</i>. N. Y., Rebman, 1909.</p> + +<p><a name="f21" id="f21" href="#f21.1">[21]</a> <span class="smcap">D. S. Jordan</span>, <i>The Human Harvest</i>, p. 54. Boston, American Unitarian Association, 1907.</p> + +<p><a name="f22" id="f22" href="#f22.1">[22]</a> <i>Ibid</i>, p. 48.</p> + +<p><a name="f23" id="f23" href="#f23.1">[23]</a> <span class="smcap">Ellen Key</span>, <i>Love and Marriage</i>, p. 53. N. Y., Putnam, 1911.</p> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Super Race: An American Problem, by +Scott Nearing + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SUPER RACE: AMERICAN PROBLEM *** + +***** This file should be named 35417-h.htm or 35417-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/4/1/35417/ + +Produced by Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Super Race: An American Problem + +Author: Scott Nearing + +Release Date: February 27, 2011 [EBook #35417] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SUPER RACE: AMERICAN PROBLEM *** + + + + +Produced by Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive.) + + + + + + + + + +The Art of Life Series + + +_The Super Race_ + + + + + THE ART OF LIFE SERIES + + _Edward Howard Griggs, Editor_ + + + The Super Race + + AN AMERICAN PROBLEM + + + BY SCOTT NEARING, Ph.D. + + WHARTON SCHOOL, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA + AUTHOR OF "SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT," ETC. + + + NEW YORK + B. W. HUEBSCH + 1919 + + + + + Copyright, 1912, by B. W. HUEBSCH + + First printing, May, 1912 + Second printing, May, 1919 + + + PRINTED IN U. S. A. + + + + +TO THE MOTHERS AND FATHERS OF THE SUPER RACE + + + + +FOREWORD + + +For ages men have sought to perpetuate their memories in enduring +monuments of brass and of stone. Yet, in their efforts to build lasting +memorials they have neglected the most enduring monument of all--the +Monument of Posterity. These farseeing ones have overlooked their real +opportunity; for in posterity--in the achievements of their children's +children, men may best hope to reflect a lasting greatness. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I THE CALL OF THE SUPER RACE 13 + + II EUGENICS--THE SCIENCE OF RACE CULTURE 26 + + III SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT--THE SCIENCE OF MOLDING INSTITUTIONS 44 + + IV EDUCATION--THE SCIENCE OF INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT 55 + + V THE AMERICAN OPPORTUNITY 75 + + + + +_The Super Race_ + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE CALL OF THE SUPER RACE + + +As a very small boy, I distinctly remember that stories of the discovery +of America and Australia, of the exploration of Central Africa and of the +invention of the locomotive, the steamboat, and the telegraph made a deep +impression on my childish mind; and I shall never forget going one day to +my mother and saying:-- + +"Oh, dear, I wish I had been born before everything was discovered and +invented. Now, there is nothing left for me to do." + +Brooding over it, and wondering why it should be so, my boyish soul felt +deeply the tragedy of being born into an uneventful age. I fully believed +that the great achievements of the world were in the past. Imagine then my +joy when, in the course of my later studies, it slowly dawned upon me +that the age in which I lived was, after all, an age of unparalleled +activity. I saw the much vaunted discoveries and inventions of by-gone +days in their true proportions. They no longer preempted the whole +world--present and future, as well as past, but, freed from romance, they +ranged themselves in the form of a foundation upon which the structure of +civilization is building. The successive steps in human achievement, from +the use of fire to the harnessing of electricity, constituted a process of +evolution creating "a stage where every man must play his part"--a part +expanding and broadening with each succeeding generation; and I saw that I +had a place among the actors in this play of progress. The forward steps +of the past need not, and would not prevent me from achieving in the +present--nay, they might even make a place, if I could but find it, for my +feet; they might hold up my hands, and place within my grasp the keen +tools with which I should do my work. + +The school boy, passing from an attitude of contemplation and wonder +before the things of the past into an attitude of active recognition of +the necessities of the present, passed through the evolutionary process of +the race. The savage, Sir Henry Maine tells us, lives in a state of abject +fear, bound hand and foot by the sayings and doings of his ancestors and +blinded by the terrors of nature. The lightning flashes, and the untutored +mind, trembling, bows before the wrath of a jealous God; the harvest +fails, and the savage humbly submits to the vengeance of an incensed +deity; pestilence destroys the people, and the primitive man sees in this +catastrophe a punishment inflicted on him for his failure to propitiate an +exacting spirit--in these and a thousand other ways uncivilized peoples +accept the phenomena in which nature displays her power, as the expressed +will of an omnipotent being. One course alone is open to them; they must +bow down before the unknown, accepting as inevitable those forces which +they neither can understand nor conquer. + +Civilization has meant enlightenment and achievement. In lightning, +Franklin saw a potent giant which he enslaved for the service of man; in +famine, Burbank discovered a lack of proper adjustment between the soil +and the crops that men were cultivating--thereupon he produced a wheat +that would thrive on an annual rainfall of twelve inches; in pestilence, +Pasteur recognized the ravages of an organism which he prepared to study +and destroy. Lightning, famine and pestilence are, to the primitive man, +the threatening of a wrathful god; but to the progressive thinker they are +merely forces which must be utilized or counteracted in the work of human +achievement. + +As a boy, I believed my opportunities to be limited by the achievements of +the past. As a man, I see in these past achievements not hindrances, but +the foundation stones which the past has laid down, upon which the present +must build, in order that the future may erect the perfected structure of +a higher civilization. I see all of this clearly, and I see one thing +more. In the old days which I had erstwhile envied, one event of world +import might have been chronicled for each decade, but in the nineteenth +and twentieth centuries, such an event may be chronicled for each year, or +month or even for each day. The achievements of the past were noteworthy: +these of the present are stupendous. + +The process of social evolution reveals itself in these progressive steps. +Because the past has built, the present is building--building in order +that the future may stand higher in its realization of potential life. The +past was an age of uncertain, hesitating advance. The present, an age of +dynamic achievement, leads on into the future of human development. + +In the twentieth century: + + 1. Knowledge provides a basis for activity. + + 2. The social atmosphere palpitates with enthusiastic resolve and + abounds in noble endeavor. + + 3. There is work for each one to perform. + +The despondent boy has thus evolved into the enthusiastic worker whose +watchword is "Forward!"--forward towards a new goal, whose very existence +is made attainable through the achievements of the past: a goal before +which the triumphs of bygone ages pale into insignificance. + +The past worked with things. Pyramids were built, cities constructed, +mountains tunneled, trade augmented, fortunes amassed. Hear Ruskin's +comment on this devotion to material wealth: "Nevertheless, it is open, I +repeat, to serious question, ... whether, among national manufactures, +that of souls of a good quality may not at last turn out a quite lucrative +one. Nay, in some far-away and yet undreamed of hour, I can even imagine +that England ... as a Christian mother, may at last attain to the virtues +and the treasures of a heathen one, and be able to lead forth her sons, +saying: 'These are my jewels.'"[1] + +The past worked with things: the future, rising higher in the scale of +civilization, must work with men--with the plastic, living clay of +humanity. As Solomon long ago said, "He that ruleth his own spirit is +greater than he that taketh a city." The men of the past built cities and +took them. They brought the forces of nature into subjection and remodeled +the world as a living place for humanity, yet, save for a shadow in Rome +and an echo from Greece, there is scarcely a trace in history of a +consistent attempt to evolve nobler men. + +Material objects have cost the nations untold effort, but human fiber--the +life blood of nations--has been overlooked or forgotten. The world is +weary of this emphasis on things and this forgetfulness of men; the ether +trembles with the clamor for manhood. The fields, white to harvest, are +awaiting the laborers who, building on the discoveries and inventions of +things in the past, will so mold the human clay of the present that the +future may boast a society of men and women possessing the qualities of +the Super Race. + +What is a Super Race? Nothing more nor less than a race representing, in +the aggregate, the qualities of the Super Man--the qualities which enable +one possessing them to live what Herbert Spencer described so luminously +as a "complete life," namely,-- + + 1. Physical normality. + 2. Mental capacity. + 3. Concentration. + 4. Aggressiveness. + 5. Sympathy. + 6. Vision. + +These characteristics of the Super Man express themselves in his activity: + + 1. Physical normality provides energy. + 2. Mental capacity gives mental grasp. + 3. Aggressiveness. } + } produce efficiency. + 4. Concentration. } + 5. Sympathy leads to harmony with things and cooperation with men. + 6. Vision shows itself in ideals. + +The energy to do; and the mental grasp to appreciate; together with the +capacity to choose efficiently, furnish the basis for achievement. +Achievement, however, is not in itself a guarantee of worth unless its +course is shaped by sympathy and directed toward a goal which is +determined by the prophetic power of vision. Such are the characteristics +which, combined in one individual, insure completeness of life. About +them, philosophers have reasoned and poets have sung. They are the acme of +human perfection--the ideal of individual attainment. + +Though they have been thus idealized, these qualities are not new. They +have existed for ages, as they exist to-day, occasionally combined in one +individual but usually appearing separately in members of the social +group. They form part of the heritage of the human race, and in spite of +neglect and lack of fostering, they are widespread in all sections of the +population. The production of a race of men and women, a great majority of +whom shall possess these qualities, will mean the next great step in human +achievement. + +The Super Man has lived for ages. The Greeks traced the descent of their +heroes and heroines--their Super Men--from the Gods. It was thus that +they explained exceptional ability. Exceptional men live to-day, as they +did in ancient Greece, directing the thought and work of the times. They +possess the qualities of the Super Man--physical normality, mental +capacity, aggressiveness, concentration, sympathy and vision; and, above +all, we now understand that they are not the offspring of the gods, but +the sons of men and women whose combined parental qualities inevitably +produced Super Men. The Super Man is not a theory, nor an accident, but a +natural product of natural conditions. + +Though the Super Man may be met with occasionally in modern society, and +though the qualities ascribed to him are manifest everywhere among those +who have had an opportunity for their development; opinions still differ +as to the possibility of producing a Super Race. An even greater +difference of opinion is encountered when an attempt is made to formulate +the means which should be adopted to secure such an end; yet there can be +little difference of opinion as to the desirability, from a national as +well as from an individual standpoint, of creating a race of Super Men. + +The call of the present age for a Super Race is thus voiced by Yeats,[2] + + "O Silver Trumpets! Be you lifted up, + And cry to the great race that is to come. + Long throated swans, amid the Waves of Time, + Sing loudly, for beyond the wall of the World + It waits, and it may hear and come to us." + +We long for the coming of the Super Race. We aim toward this goal. Can it +be compassed in finite time? Is Nietzsche right when he says,--"I teach +you beyond-man." "All beings hitherto have created something beyond +themselves." "What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal." +"Not whence ye come, be your honor in the future, but whither ye go!" "In +your children ye shall make amends for being your father's children. Thus +ye shall redeem all that is past."[3] + +Shall we make amends to the future? Come, then, let us reason together +concerning the measures which must be adopted to raise the standard of +succeeding generations. There are three means which lie ready at hand: +three sciences which lend themselves to our task: three tools with which +we may shape the Super Race. They are: + + 1. Eugenics--The science of race culture. + + 2. Social adjustment--The science of molding institutions. + + 3. Education--The science of individual development. + +The science of Eugenics treats of those forces which, through the biologic +processes of heredity, may be relied upon to provide the inherited +qualities of the Super Race. The science of Social Adjustment treats of +those forces which, through the modification of social institutions, may +be relied upon to provide a congenial environment for the Super Race. The +science of Education aims to assist the child in unfolding and developing +the hereditary qualities of the Super Man, provided through eugenic +guarantees. Hence, Eugenics, Social Adjustment and Education are sciences, +the mastery of which is a pre-requisite to the development of the Super +Race. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +EUGENICS--THE SCIENCE OF RACE CULTURE + + +The object of Eugenics is the conscious improvement of the human race by +the application of the laws of heredity to human mating. Eugenics is the +logical fruition of the progress in biologic science made during the +nineteenth century. + +The laws of heredity, studied in minute detail, have been applied with +marvelous success in the vegetable and animal kingdoms. "Is there any good +reason," demands the eugenist, "why the formulas which have operated to +re-combine the physical properties of plants and animals, should not in +like measure operate to modify the physical properties of men and women?" + +The studies which have been made of eye color, length of arm, head shape, +and other physical traits show that the same laws of heredity which apply +in the animal and vegetable kingdoms apply as well in the kingdom of man. +Since the species of plants and animals with which man has experimented +have been improved by selective breeding, there seems to be no good reason +why the human race should not be susceptible of similar improvement. What +intelligent farmer sows blighted potatoes? Where is the dog fancier who +would strive to rear a St. Bernard from a mongrel dam? Neither yesterday +nor yet to-morrow do men gather grapes of thorns. Those who have to do +with life in any form, aware of this fact, refuse to permit propagation +except among the best members of a species: hence with each succeeding +generation the ox increases in size and strength; the apple in color; the +sweet pea in perfume; and the horse in speed. Is this law of improving +species a universal law? Alas, no! it rarely if ever applies in the +selection of men and women for parenthood. The human species has not, +during historic times, improved either in physique, in mental capacity, in +aggressiveness, in concentration, in sympathy or in vision. Nay, there +are not wanting thoughtful students who affirm that in almost every one of +these respects the exact contrary holds true. + +There appears to be some question as to whether the best of the Greek +athletes exceeded in strength and skill the modern professional athlete, +but there is no doubt at all that the average citizen of Athens was a more +perfect specimen physically than the average citizen of twentieth century +America. + +Some students insist that the level of intellectual capacity has been +raised, yet Galton, after a careful survey of the field, concludes in his +_Hereditary Genius_ that the average citizen of Athens was at least two +degrees higher in the scale of intellectual attainment than the average +Englishman; Carl Snyder[4] boldly maintains that the intellectual ability +of scientific men is less to-day than it was in past centuries; while Mrs. +Martin,[5] in a study more novel than scientific, insists that the genius +of the modern world is on a level distinctly below that of the genius of +Greece. + +Perhaps American commercial aggressiveness is equal to the military +aggressiveness of the Romans, the early Germans, and the followers of +Attila. We have concentrated most of our efforts upon industry, yet even +here, our concentration is no greater than that of the poets of the +Elizabethan era, or the religious zealots of the Middle Ages. Our sympathy +with beauty is at so low an ebb that we fail even to approach the standard +of past ages. Neither in art, in sculpture, nor in poetry do our +achievements compare with those of the earlier Mediterranean +civilizations; while our knowledge of men as revealed in our literature is +not above that of the Romans or the Athenians. As for vision, we still +accept and strive to fulfill the commandments of the Prophet of Nazareth. +In all of these fields, twentieth century America is equaled, if not +outdone by the past. + +Thus the distinctive qualities of the Super Man appear in the past with an +intensity equal if not superior to that of the present. History records +the transmutation of vegetable and animal species, the revolution of +industry, the modification of social institutions, and the transformation +of governmental systems; but in all historic time, it affirms no +perceptible improvement in the qualities of man. "We must replace the man +by the Super Man," writes G. Bernard Shaw.[6] "It is frightful for the +citizen, as the years pass him, to see his own contemporaries so exactly +reproduced by the younger generation." + +Nevertheless, the possibility of race improvement exists. "What now +characterizes the exceptionally high may be expected eventually to +characterize all, for that which the best human nature is capable of is +within the reach of human nature at large."[7] After years of intensive +study, Spencer thus confidently expressed himself. Since he ceased to +work, each bit of scientific data along eugenic lines serves to confirm +his opinion. Armed with such a belief and with the assurance which +scientific research has afforded, we are preparing in this eleventh hour +to fulfill Spencer's predictions. + +There are two fields in which eugenics may be applied--the first, +Negative, the second, Positive. Through the establishment of Negative +Eugenics the unfit will be restrained from mating and perpetuating their +unfitness in the future. Through Positive Eugenics the fit may be induced +to mate, and by combining their fitness in their offspring, to raise up +each new generation out of the flower of the old. Negative Eugenics +eliminates the unfit; Positive Eugenics perpetuates the fit. + +The field of Negative Eugenics has been well explored. No question exists +as to the transmission through heredity of feeble mindedness, idiocy, +insanity and certain forms of criminality. "There is one way, only one +way, out of this difficulty. Modern society ... must declare that there +shall be no unfit and defective citizens in the State."[8] The Greeks +eliminated unfitness by the destruction of defective children; though we +may deplore such a practice in the light of our modern ethical codes, we +recognize the end as one essential to race progress. By denying the right +of parenthood to any who have transmissible disease or defect, our modern +knowledge enables us to accomplish the same end without recourse to the +destruction of human life. + +Sir Francis Galton, the founder of the science of Eugenics, writes, in his +last important work, "I think that stern compulsion ought to be exerted to +prevent the free propagation of the stock of those who are seriously +afflicted by lunacy, feeble-mindedness, habitual criminality and +pauperism."[9] Yet society, in dealing with hereditary defect, presents +some of its most grotesque inconsistencies. "It is a curious comment on +the artificiality of our social system that no stigma attaches to +preventable ill-health." An empty purse, or a ruined home may mean social +ostracism, but "break-down in person, whatever the cause, evokes +sympathy, subscription and silence."[10] + +Certain defects are known to be transmissible by heredity from parent to +child, until the _cretin_ of Balzac's _Country Doctor_ is reproduced for +centuries. The remedy for this form of social self-torture lies in the +denial of parenthood to those who have transmissible defects. +Individually, such a denial works hardships in this generation: socially, +and to the future generations, it means comparative freedom from +individual, and hence from social defect. + +The problem of Positive Eugenics presents an essentially different aspect. +As Ruskin so well observes--"It is a matter of no final concern, to any +parent, whether he shall have two children or four; but matter of quite +final concern whether those he has shall or shall not deserve to be +hanged." The quality is always the significant factor. Whether in family +or national progress, an effort must be made to insure against hanging, or +against any tendency that leads gallowsward. + +Positive Eugenics is the science of race building through wise mating. "As +long as ability marries ability, a large proportion of able offspring is a +certainty."[11] What prospective parent does not fondly imagine that his +children will be at least near-great? Yet how many individuals, in their +choice of a mate, set out with the deliberate intention of securing a life +partner whose qualities, when combined with his own, must produce +greatness? + +The Darwin-Galton-Wedgwood families boast sixteen men of world fame in +five generations; in the Bach family there were fifty-seven musicians of +note in eight generations; Wood's study of _Heredity in Royalty_ shows the +evident transmission of special ability; yet men and women of ability, +anxious for able offspring, mate without any rational effort to secure the +end which they desire. "Ninety-nine times out of a hundred our +mathematician marries a woman whose family did not count a single +astronomer, physicist or other mathematical mind among it members. The +result of such a union is what could be expected. Although genius does +not generally die out right away in the first generation, it decreases by +half, and further dilutions soon bring it down to nothingness."[12] + +This, in brief, is the problem of Negative and of Positive Eugenics. Both +defect and ability are transmitted by heredity; both are the product of +the mating process known as marriage; since society can and does control +marriage, it may, through this control, exercise a real influence upon the +character of future generations. + +The science of Eugenics is in its infancy, yet, widely established and +vigorously applied, it may revolutionize the human species. The Super Race +may come, because "looked at from the social standpoint, we see how +exceptional families, by careful marriages, can within even a few +generations, obtain an exceptional stock, and how directly this suggests +assortative mating as a moral duty for the highly endowed. On the other +hand, the exceptionally degenerate isolated in the slums of our modern +cities can easily produce permanent stock also: a stock which no change of +environment will permanently elevate, and which nothing but mixture with +better blood will improve. But this is an improvement of the bad by a +social waste of the better. We do not want to eliminate bad stock by +watering it with good, but by placing it under conditions where it is +relatively or absolutely infertile."[13] + +"But what of love?" wails the sentimentalist; "in your scheme Eugenics +outweighs Cupid!" Perhaps, but what of it? Cupid has proved in the past a +sad bungler, whose mistakes and failures grimace from every page of our +divorce court records. Far from hindering his activities, however, +Eugenics will assist Cupid by bringing together persons truly +congenial--hence capable of an enduring love. Too many men have married a +natty Easter bonnet, or a cleverly tailored suit. Too many women have +fallen a prey to a tempting bank account or a pair of glorious +mustachios. Blind Cupid limps but lamely over the rugged path of +matrimonial bliss. The questionable success of his best efforts proves his +sure need of a guide. + +Eugenics represents an effort to bring together those people who have +complementary qualities and complementary interests; who are capable of +maintaining congenial relationships in the present; and creating able +offspring in the future. Selection and parenthood are the cradle of the +future. Hence the individual who, in the exercise of his choice, overlooks +their significance overlooks one of his most important racial +responsibilities. + +Society is interested in Eugenics, because it is through Eugenics that the +hereditary traits of the Super Race are perpetuated and perfected. +Eugenics, rightly understood and applied, is a social asset of unexcelled +value. How long, then, shall our society continue to feed on the husks, +neglecting the grain which lies everywhere ready at hand? + +Eugenics is indeed one means of race salvation, yet what care do we take +to perfect eugenic measures? "If through sheer chance, some great +mathematician is evolved one day out of the crowd, the state--who should +be ever on the watch for such events and whose main care should be to +preserve and increase such sources of light, progress and national +glory--does nothing to protect the man of genius against care, disease or +anything likely to shorten life nor to multiply the splendid thinking +machine."[14] A great state must have for its component parts great men +and women. Did we truly seek greatness, how many measures for its +attainment lie neglected at our very doors! + +Every well regulated state of antiquity eliminated defectives in the +interest of the group, and of the future. What more effective means of +social preservation could be imagined than some measure through whose +operation the defective classes in society would be eliminated, and the +social structure, bulwarked by stalwart manhood and womanhood, made proof +against the ravages of time. How serious a thing is the propagation of +defect! Murder is a crime, punishable by death, yet a murderer merely +eliminates one unit from the social group. The destruction of this one +life may cause sorrow; it may deprive society of a valued member; but it +is, after all, a comparatively insignificant offense. The perpetuation of +hereditary defect is infinitely worse than murder. Consider, for example, +a marriage, sanctioned by church and state, between two persons both +having in their blood hereditary feeble-mindedness. + +Investigations of thousands of feeble-minded families show that, in such a +case, every one of the offspring may be and probably will be +feeble-minded--a curse to himself and a burden to society. Pauperism, +crime, social dependence, vice, all follow in the train of mental defect, +and the mentally defective parents hand on for untold generations their +taint--sometimes in more, sometimes in less virulent form, but always +bringing into the world beings not only incapable of caring for +themselves, but fatally capable of handing on their defect to the future. +The murderer robs society; the mentally defective parent curses society, +both in the present and in the future, with the taint of degeneracy. The +murderer takes away a life; but the feeble-minded parent passes on to the +future the seeds of racial decay. + +The first step in Eugenics progress--the elimination of defect by +preventing the procreation of defectives--is easily stated, and may be +almost as easily attained. The price of six battleships ($50,000,000) +would probably provide homes for all of the seriously defective men, women +and children now at large in the United States. Thus could the scum of +society be removed, and a source of social contamination be effectively +regulated. Yet with tens of thousands of defectives, freely propagating +their kind, we continue to build battleships, fondly believing that rifled +cannon and steel armor plate will prove sufficient for national defense. + +This is but a part, and by far the least important part, of the eugenic +programme. The elimination of defect prevents degeneracy, but does not +insure the physical normality, mental capacity, aggressiveness, +concentration, sympathy and vision of the Super Man. While the elimination +of defect is imperative, it is after all only the first step toward the +creation of positive qualities. + +Positive Eugenics may be as obvious as Negative Eugenics, but the +promulgation of its doctrines is not equally easy. A series of legislative +enactments will prevent the mating of the hereditarily defective; nothing +but the most painstaking education can be relied upon to secure the mating +of those eugenically fit. Nevertheless for that modern state which seeks +to persist and dominate, no lesser measure will suffice. After all, why +should not society educate its youth to a sense of wisdom in mating? The +United States spends each year some four hundred millions of dollars in +public education, teaching children to read, to spell, to sew, to draw. +The importance of these studies is obvious, yet, from a social standpoint, +they cannot compare in significance with such training in the laws of +heredity and biology as will insure wise choice in mating. The state, in +its efforts at self preservation, cannot lay too much emphasis on the +training for eugenic choice. + +Biology, through the laws of heredity, applied in the science of Eugenics, +holds out every hope for the coming of the Super Man and of the Super +Race. Not in our knowledge of its laws, but in the practice of its +precepts, are we lacking. + +Eugenics, it is true, in its negative and positive phases, holds out a +great hope for the future. But Eugenics alone will not suffice. The +science of Eugenics must be coupled with the science of Social Adjustment +to insure the production of a Super Race. The necessity of this union is +well recognized by the students of heredity, while the students of Social +Adjustment found their theories on premises essentially biologic in +origin. One of the most widely known writers on heredity concludes a +recent book with the statement that--"At present, we can only indicate +that the future of our race depends on Eugenics (in some form or other), +combined with the simultaneous evolution of eutechnics and eutopias. +'Brave words,' of course; but surely not 'Eutopian'!"[15] Thus the +knowledge and practice of the laws of heredity must be supplemented by a +knowledge and practice of the laws of Social Adjustment. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT--THE SCIENCE OF MOLDING INSTITUTIONS + + +After a gardener has produced his seed, guaranteeing a good heredity by +breeding together those individual plants which possess in the highest +degree the qualities he desires to secure, he turns his attention to the +seed bed. First of all, the location must be good--the bed must be on a +southern slope, where it will benefit by the first warm rays of the spring +sun; then the soil must be finely pulverized, in order that the tiny +rootlets may easily force their way downward, finding nourishment ready at +hand; when the seeds have been planted, in ground well prepared and +fertilized, they must be watered, cultivated, weeded; and as they develop +into larger plants, thinned, transplanted, pruned and sprayed. The wise +gardener considers environment as well as heredity. By sowing choice +seeds in well prepared soil, he ensures the excellence of his crop. + +Modern society may well be compared to a garden. The plants are living, +moving beings, with some freedom to act on their own initiative. Moreover, +it is they who make and tend the gardens in which they grow. Like the +gardener in the story, they must look to environment as well as to +heredity. The seed bed must be carefully prepared, and the young plants, +as they appear, must be given all the attention which science makes +possible. Modern society is a garden of which the products are men and +women. The sowing, weeding, cultivating--carried forward through social +institutions--determines by its character whether the race shall decay, as +other races have done, or progress toward the Super Man. + +The science of social gardening--Social Adjustment--has been given a great +impetus, in recent years, by the increased knowledge of the relative +influences of heredity and environment in determining the status of the +individual. This knowledge has led us to a belief in men. + +Earlier beliefs conceived of the majority of men as utterly depraved. Some +indeed were among the elect, but the remainder, born to the lowest depths +of the social gehenna, were outcasts and pariahs, helpless in this world +and hopeless in the next. This doctrine of total depravity set at nought +all progressive effort. Here stands a man--society has called him a +criminal. Last year he attempted to steal an automobile, less than three +weeks after his release from serving a two-year sentence for grand +larceny. To-day he is in court again, charged with entering a lodging +house and stealing three pairs of trousers and an overcoat. The man is on +trial for burglary--what shall be the social verdict regarding him? + +"Alas," mourns the advocate of total depravity, "God so made him. It is +not our right to interfere." + +"Wait," says the social scientist, "until I investigate the case." + +The case is held over while the scientist makes his investigation. After +careful inquiry, he reports that the young man's criminal record began at +the age of nine, when he was arrested for stealing bananas from a freight +car. Locked up with older criminals, he soon learned their tricks. He was +"nimble" and could "handle himself," so his prison mates taught him the +science of pocket picking, and initiated him into the gentle art of "shop +lifting." He was released, after two months of this schooling, and +slipping out into the big, black city, he tried an experiment. Succeeding, +he tried again, and yet again. Before the month was out, he was detected +stealing a silk handkerchief, and was back in prison. There his education +was perfected, and he entered the world to try once more. From the world +to jail, from jail to the world--this boy's life history from the age of +nine, had been one long attempt to learn his trade; fortunately or +unfortunately, he was somewhat of a bungler, and sooner or later he was +always caught. + +When he was a boy, he sneaked up a dingy court, and three pairs of dirty +stairs to a landing where, in the rear of a battered tenement, was an +abode which he had been taught to call home. His father, a dock laborer, +earned, on the average, about $300 a year. Sometimes he worked steadily, +day and night, for a week, and earned $25 or $30; then there would be no +work for ten days or perhaps two weeks; the money would run out; the +grocer would refuse credit; and the family would be hungry. It was during +one of these hungry intervals that the nine-year-old urchin made his +descent on the bananas in the freight car, and received his first jail +sentence. + +His mother, good hearted but woefully ignorant, made the best of things, +taking in washing, doing odd jobs here and there, tending to her children, +when opportunity offered, and at other times letting them run the streets. + +"There," concludes the social scientist, "is the story of that boy's life. +His only picture of manhood is an inefficient father who cannot earn +enough to support his family; his concept of a mother expresses itself in +good hearted ignorance; his view of society has been secured from the rear +of a shabby tenement, the curb of a narrow street and a cell in the county +jail. The seed bed has been neither prepared, watered, nor tended, and +the young shoot has grown wild." + +The social scientist has not been content with an analysis of social +maladjustment; going further, he has transplanted the young shoots from +the defective seed bed to better ground. Dr. Bernardo organized a system +for taking the boy criminals out of the slums of English cities, and +sending them to farms in Australia, South Africa and Canada. Nearly 50,000 +boys have been thus disposed of. Though in their home cities many of them +had already entered a criminal life, in their new surroundings less than +two per cent. of them showed any tendency to revert to their former +criminal practices. A little tending and transplanting into a congenial +environment, proved the salvation of these boys, who would otherwise have +thronged the jails of England. + +Careful analysis has convinced the social scientist that, in the absence +of malformation of the brain, or of some other physical defect, the +average man is largely made by his environment. As serious physical defect +is quite rare, being present in less than five per cent. of the +population; and as only a small percentage of the population, perhaps two +or three per cent., is above the average in ability, more than nine-tenths +of the people remain average--shaped by their environment; capable of good +or of evil, according as the good or evil forces of society influence +their youth and early maturity. + +The eighteenth century philosophers had embodied the same conclusion in +the doctrine that all men are created free and equal. Victor Hugo, in the +first half of the nineteenth century, based most of his inspiring novels +on the theory that in every man there is a divine spark--a +conscience--which will be developed by a good environment or crushed and +blackened by a bad one. + +Each year added new proofs of the theory of universal capacity, until Ward +was able to write his _Applied Sociology_, demonstrating that opportunity +is the key-note of social progress.[16] For, says he, up to the present +time nine-tenths of the men, and ten-tenths of the women (nineteen +twentieths of society) have been denied a legitimate opportunity for +development. Grant this opportunity, and at once, without any change in +hereditary characteristics, you can increase, nineteen fold, the +achievements of society. + +Ward's estimate may be or may not be exactly correct. His contention that +universalized opportunity would greatly augment social achievement is, +however, fundamentally sound. Social Adjustment aims, through the shaping +social institutions, to provide every individual with an opportunity to +secure a strong body, a trained mind, an aggressive attitude, the power of +concentration, and the vision of a goal toward which he is working.[17] In +short, the object of Social Adjustment is the provision of universal +opportunity. + +The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear many a gem of purest ray serene. +Even the most gifted individual, thrown into an adverse environment, will +either fail utterly to develop his powers, or else will develop them so +incompletely that they can never come to their full fruition. Thomas A. +Edison cast away on an island in the South Pacific would be useless to his +fellows. Abraham Lincoln, living among the Apache Indians, would have left +small impress on the world. A sculptor, to be really great, must go to +Rome, because it is in Rome that the great works of sculptured art are to +be found. It is in Rome, furthermore, that the great sculptors work and +teach. A lawyer can scarcely achieve distinction while practicing in a +backwoods county court, nor can a surgeon remain proficient in his science +unless he keep in constant touch with the world of surgery. "I must go to +the city," cried a woman with an unusual voice. "Here in the country I can +sing, but I cannot study music." She must, of necessity, go to the city +because in the city alone exists the stimulus and the example which are +necessary for the perfection of her art. + +A congenial environment is necessary for the perfection of any hereditary +talent. Lester F. Ward concludes, after an exhaustive analysis of +self-made men, that such men are the exception. That they exist he must +admit, but that their abilities would have come to a much more complete +development in a congenial environment he clearly demonstrates. + +The rigorous persecution of the Middle Ages eliminated any save the most +daring thinkers. Men of science, who presumed to assert facts in +contradiction of the accepted dogmas of the Church, were ruthlessly +silenced, hence the ages were very dark. The nineteenth century, on the +contrary, through its cultivation of science and scientific attainments, +has reaped a harvest of scientific achievement unparalleled in the history +of the world. Men to-day enter scientific pursuits for the same reason +that they formerly entered the military service--because every emphasis is +laid on scientific endeavor. The nineteenth century scientist is the +logical outcome of the nineteenth century desires for scientific progress. + +The environment shapes the man. Yet, equally, does the man shape the +environment. A high standard individual may be handicapped by social +tradition, but, in like manner, progressive social institutions are +inconceivable in the absence of high standard men and women. + +The institutions of a society--its homes, schools, government, +industry--are created by the past and shaped by the present. Institutions +are not subjected to sudden changes, yet one generation, animated by the +effort to realize a high ideal, may reshape the social structure. Can one +conceive of a paper strewn campus in a college where the spirit is strong? +Parisians believe in beauty, hence Paris is beautiful. Social institutions +combine the achievements of the past with the ethics of the present. + +"Let me see where you live and I will tell you what you are," is a true +saying. The social environment, moldable in each generation, is an +accurate index to the ideals and aspirations of the generation in which it +exists. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +EDUCATION--THE SCIENCE OF INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT + + +Eugenics provides the hereditary qualities of the Super Man; Social +Adjustment furnishes the environment in which these qualities are to +develop; there still remains the development of the individual through +Education, a word which means, for our purposes, all phases of character +shaping from birth-day to death-day. + +The individual has been rediscovered during the past three centuries. He +was known in some of the earlier civilizations, but during the Middle Ages +the place that had seen him knew him no more. He was submerged in the +group and forced to subordinate his interests to the demands of group +welfare. The distinctive work of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries +has been a reversal of this enforced individual oblivion and the +formulation of a demand for individual initiative and activity. The +individual, pushed forward in politics, in religion, and in commerce has +freely asserted and successfully maintained his right to consideration, +until the opportunities of the twentieth century free citizen far exceed +those of the convention-bound citizen of the middle ages. The twentieth +century citizen is free because he makes efficient choices. The +continuance of his freedom depends upon the continued wisdom of his +choice. + +The chief objective point of modern endeavor has been individual freedom +of choice. The _laissez-faire_ doctrine in commercial relations, democracy +in politics, the natural philosophy and natural theology of the eighteenth +century are all expressions of a belief in equality. When men are made +free to choose, they are placed on a basis of equality, since they have a +like opportunity to succeed or fail. The man who chooses rightly wins +success--the man who chooses wrongly fails. + +Thus the freedom to choose is for the average man a right of inestimable +value, because it places in his hands the opportunity to achieve. Rights +do not, however, come alone. The freeman is bound in his choices to +recognize the law that rights are always accompanied by duties. + +Each right is accompanied by a proportionate responsibility--there is no +dinner without its dishwashing. To be sure, you may shift the burden of +dishwashing to the maid, and the burden of voting to the "other fellow," +but the responsibility is none the less present. Garbage is still garbage, +even when thrown into the well, and your responsibilities, shifted to the +maid and the other voter, return to plague you in the form of a servant +problem and of vicious politics. Men who have a right to choose have also +a duty to fulfill, and this right and this duty are inseparable. + +The eighteenth century began the discovery of the individual man; the +nineteenth century--at least the latter half of it--was responsible for +the discovery of the individual woman. Even to-day in many civilized +lands, the woman is merely an appendage. Men innumerable write in the +hotel register "John Edwards and Wife," yet if the truth were told they +should often write "Jane Edwards and John Edwards," and perhaps sometimes +"Jane Edwards and husband." + +Western civilization, a good unthinking creature, has insisted bravely on +the development of the individual man, while largely overlooking the +existence of the individual woman; yet the studies of heredity show very +clearly that at least as many qualities are inherited from the female as +from the male. Nay, further, since the female is less specialized, the +distinctive race qualities are inherited from her, rather than from the +more specialized male. In short, the Super Man will have a mother as well +as a father. + +The fact that the average man has as many female as he had male ancestors +is very frequently overlooked. Yet it is a fact that inevitably carries +with it the imputation, that if his ancestors were thus equally +apportioned, he must have inherited his qualities from both sexes. +Therefore, in the production of the Super Man, the qualities of the woman +are of equal importance with the qualities of the man. + +The individual is the goal and Education the means, since Education is +the science of individual development. Through Education, we shall enable +the individual to live completely. But what is complete life? How shall we +compass or define it? + +Two laws are laid down as fundamental in nature--the laws of self +preservation and of self perpetuation. With the development of society, +and social relations, the individual must recognize himself, not as an +individual only, but likewise as a unit in a social group. Hence, for him, +self preservation and self perpetuation necessarily involve group +preservation and group perpetuation. His code of life must therefore +formulate itself in this wise-- + +THE OBJECTS OF ENDEAVOR + + _Immediate_ _Ultimate_ + ---- ---- + INDIVIDUAL Self Expression Super Man + + { Eugenics + SOCIAL { Social Adjustment Super Race + { Education + +The individual, for self preservation, demands self expression; for self +perpetuation he demands that the standard of his children be higher than +his own. As a member of the social group, he looks to Eugenics, Social +Adjustment, and Education as the immediate means of raising social +standards, and the ultimate means of providing a Super Race. + +Such are the abstract ideals--how may they be practically applied? How +shall the individual express, through Eugenics, Social Adjustment, and +Education his desire for the development of a Super Race? + +Do you, sir, enjoy living in the neighborhood of vandals and thieves? +Well, hardly. One could not be expected to take so frivolous a view of +life, therefore you will in self defense take every possible precaution to +suppress vandalism and thievery? Never, my dear sir, never! You must take +every possible precaution to reduce the spirit of vandalism and of +thievery. The acts are in themselves unconsequential--they are but the +product of a diseased mind or an indifferent training. The spirit, here as +elsewhere, is all important. + +Are you a scientist? Do you admire Pasteur and Herbert Spencer? You are a +"practical" man--see what Edison has done for you. As a statesman, you +revere Lincoln and Daniel Webster. You cannot, as an artist, overlook the +portraits of Rembrandt or the water scenes of Ruysdael. You must agree +with me that these and a thousand others that I might mention--men called +geniuses by their contemporaries or their descendants--have contributed +untold worth to the society of which they were a part. They chose rightly. +They are looked upon, and justly, as the salt of the earth. You admit the +value of geniuses, in civilization, and you would, of course, do anything +to increase their number? Then, let me say to you that the first thing for +you to decide is that your own children shall be neither vandals nor +thieves. The second thing for you to decide is that they shall, in so far +as you are able to determine the matter, possess all of your good +qualities, coupled with the good qualities which you lack, supplied by an +able mate. In short, you must choose your life partner with a view to the +elimination of anti-social tendencies, on the one hand, and on the other +to the development of the qualities which distinguish the Super Man. + +How obvious is this statement, yet how haphazard has been the production +of greatness. Only once in a generation does a man, in his choice of a +wife, follow the example of John Newcomb. In a truly scientific spirit he +enumerated on paper the qualities which he possessed; placed opposite them +the qualities in which he was lacking; and then set out to find the woman +who should supply his deficiencies. When he had located his future +helpmeet, playing hymn tunes on an organ in a little red school house, and +upon further acquaintance, had assured himself that she really possessed +the needed qualities, he married her, with the determination that their +first child should be a great mathematician. Their first child was Simon +Newcomb, one of the leading astronomers of the nineteenth century. + +John Newcomb was a village school master, and his wife a village maiden, +but in their choice they combined two sets of qualities which would +inevitably produce a Super Man. John Newcomb was a pioneer eugenist. He +chose a mate with the thought of the future foremost in his mind. + +Too often, however, the men of parts follow the example of the brilliant +professor who married a "social butterfly." "Why in the world did you do +it?" asked an old friend. "Oh, well," answered the professor, "I felt that +I had brains enough for both." + +True, professor, but according to the Mendelian law of heredity, those +brains of yours will be halved in each of your children, and quartered in +each of your grandchildren. Why should not the future be at least as +brilliant as your own generation? + +Human marriage is ordinarily a hit or miss affair. Men and women, inspired +by the loftiest motives, and animated in most matters by supreme good +sense, not infrequently grope blindly toward matrimony; often marry +uncongenially; and finally bring disgrace upon their own heads, and misery +upon their families. Stevenson, with such marriages in mind, writes to +the average prospective bridegroom-- + +"What! you have had one life to manage, and have failed so strangely, and +now can see nothing wiser than to conjoin with it the management of some +one else's? Because you have been unfaithful in a very little, you propose +yourself to be a ruler over ten cities. You are no longer content to be +your own enemy; you must be your wife's also. God made you, but you marry +yourself; no one is responsible but you. You have eternally missed your +way in life, with consequences that you still deplore, and yet you +masterfully seize your wife's hand, and blindfold, drag her after you to +ruin. And it is your wife, you observe, whom you select. She, whose +happiness you most desire, you choose to be your victim. You would +earnestly warn her from a tottering bridge or bad investment. If she were +to marry some one else, how you would tremble for her fate! If she were +only your sister and you thought half as much of her, how doubtfully would +you entrust her future to a man no better than yourself!"[18] + +Here, then, lies the path of eugenic activity for the individual--clear, +straight, unmistakable. In the first place, he must never transmit to the +future any defect. If he has a transmissible defect, he must have no +offspring. This seems but reasonable--an obligation to bring no +unnecessary misery into a world where so much already exists. But the +individual--free to choose--must go one step further, and in his +selection, must seek a mate with the qualities which are complementary to +his own. + +Looked at from the standpoint of society, there is no single choice which +compares in importance to the choice of a mate; for on that choice depend +the qualities which this generation will transmit to the next, and from +which the next generation must create its follower. Furthermore, there is +no choice which, in modern society, is more completely individual--more +freed from social interference, than the choice of a life mate. The man in +choosing his life partner, chooses the future. Civilization hangs +expectant on his decision. The Super Race, dim and indistinct, may be +made a living reality by a eugenic choice in the present--a choice for +which each man and woman who marries is in part responsible. With the +advance of woman's emancipation, with the increasing range of her +activity, comes an ever increasing opportunity to exercise such a choice. +She, as well as the man, may now assist in the determination of the +future. She as well as the man may now be held accountable for the +non-appearance of the Super Race. + +Does the burden of Eugenic Choice rest heavily upon the shoulders of the +individual? Does he hesitate to assume the responsibility of the future +race? The burden of shaping Social Adjustments is no less onerous. + +Briefly, then, what changes may the individual make in institutions to +develop the qualities of the Super Man? The social institutions with which +the average man comes into the most intimate contact are: + + 1. The Home. + 2. The School. + 3. The Government. + +The home as an institution must provide for the Super Man enough food, +clothing and shelter to guarantee him a good physique; enough training in +cooperation and mutual helpfulness to give him the vision of a Super Race; +and a supply of enthusiasm sufficient to enable him to work with +increasing energy for the fulfillment of those things in which he +believes. In order that the home may supply these things, it must have an +income sufficient to provide all of the necessaries and some of the +comforts of life. It must further be dominated by a spirit of sympathetic +democracy. + +While the present system of wealth distribution is so grotesquely +unscientific that men are forced to rear families on incomes that will not +provide the necessaries, to say nothing of the comforts, of life, no true +home can be established nor can a Super Race be produced. If the child is +an asset to the state, the state should support the child, guaranteeing to +it an income sufficient to provide for its material welfare. + +Why prate of home virtue? Why discourse learnedly on the possibilities of +a developed manhood to a father earning nine dollars a week? If you can +guarantee such a man an income of three dollars a week for each child, in +addition to the nine dollars for his wife and himself, you may well air +your views regarding a Super Race; but until your lowest income is high +enough to guarantee the necessaries of life to a family of five; or until +the state guarantees an income to each child in its early life, "You may +as well go stand upon the beach and bid the main flood bate his usual +height," as to demand that a man, working for starvation wages, provide a +home in which Super Men can be reared. + +When income has been provided; when there is food for every mouth, warm +clothing for every back, enough fuel for winter, and a few pennies each +week for recreation, then indeed you may begin to speak in terms of social +improvement. Then, and then only, you may tell the father and the mother +that upon their efforts during the first seven years of their children's +lives depends the attitude which those children will assume when they go +out into the world; that the home in which tyranny is unknown, in which +the family rules the family, will produce the noblest citizens for the +noblest state; that the home is still the most fundamental institution in +civilization, the conservator of our ideals, and visions of the better +things that are to come in the future--these things you may say, +emphasizing the fact, that without a well rounded home-training in youth, +even the noblest talents cannot come to their full fruition. + +The school is a specialized form of home. In early days, when life was +simple, and specialization was unknown, education was given almost wholly +in the home; but with the growth of specialized tasks, the home could no +longer fulfill its function as educator and the school was introduced. +Education, whether given in the home or in the school, has as its object a +complete life. The purpose of education is to enable the pupil to live +completely--to be a rounded being, in whatever station he may be called +upon to fill. + +Would you mold the school to fit the needs of the children? Then, the +system of education must be so shaped that children are prepared to live +their lives completely. They must understand themselves. "Know thyself" is +a command worthy of their attention. The child's body, in the period of +change from childhood to adulthood, is an organism of the most delicate +nature, barely reaching adjustment under the most auspicious conditions, +and more than frequently failing signally from a lack of knowledge, or +from the absence of sympathetic understanding. The child--the father of +the man--must be taught to appreciate the human machine of which he is +given charge. It is in the school, with its corps of specialists, that +this work can be most effectively done. + +Then, one by one, the school may take up and foster the qualities of the +Super Man. Physique must come first. It is blatant mockery to speak of +educating minds that dwell in anaemic bodies. Every boy and girl has a +right to a strong, well knit frame, and the school must teach the best +methods of securing it. Mental grasp--the power to see and judge a +situation or combination of facts, may also come through the school. In +fact, the school course, as at present organized, aims to secure that and +little else. As the science of education advances, the same material which +now comprises the entire course will be taught in less time and in wiser +ways, so that the child shall be free to learn some of those other things +so important to his soul's welfare. Aggressiveness and concentration are +methods rather than ends, and can be made a part of every game, every +competition, and every study, so that the child absorbs them as he absorbs +the atmosphere, without knowing that they become a part of his being. +Whether the school can instill sympathy and inspire vision is a question +that the future alone must decide. Both may be given by individual +teachers, and both may be possible to the school, though, if the home is +doing its work, these things will come more effectively there than through +the school. Most or all of the essential qualities of the Super Man can +and will come through a well organized and properly directed educational +system. + +The government--providing the machinery of state administration, +furnishing the school, the playground, and the library; affording an +opportunity for the exercise of citizenship and the expression of those +advancing ideas which must gradually remold the social institutions of +each age in response to the demands of the new generation--affords one of +the most potent forces for the development of the Super Man. + +The school is the big home; the government is the big school. The child +leaves the home, and enters the school; leaves the school and enters the +state. In the home he is acted upon; in the school he, himself, begins to +act; but in the government he is the sole actor--he is the state. A home +must be higher than the children; the school must be more advanced than +the pupils; but the state reflects exactly the character of its citizens. +It is in the state that the Super Man, crystallizing his convictions and +beliefs into the form of legislative enactments, must prepare the way for +the Super Race. + +The Super Race is the produce of heredity, of social environment, and of +individual development. Heredity supplies the raw material--the +individual human being, while education and social environment, operating +upon this raw stuff, determine the course of its development. Steel is not +made from bee's wax, nor is the Super Man created out of a defective +heredity. In like manner, since those who are in Rome do as the Romans do, +the raw material, no matter what its quality, is shaped by its +surroundings. The old saying "as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined," +should be modified in this one particular--the force which bends the twig +must continue in the tree, else the latter will turn and grow toward the +sky. + +The stock of the Super Man will be secured by the mating of persons +possessing the Super-Race qualities; yet, reared in an unfavorable +environment, these qualities cannot produce the highest result. + +Neither biologic nor social forces are alone adequate to develop the Super +Race. Physique, mental capacity, aggressiveness, concentration, sympathy +and vision are the products of heredity, social environment and training. +The system of human mating must be perfected and the status of social +institutions must be raised in order that the individuals produced in each +generation may attain an additional increment of the qualities which will, +in the end, produce the Super Race. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE AMERICAN OPPORTUNITY + + +Here, in brief compass, are laid down the general principles upon which a +nation must rely for the raising of its standard of human excellence. In +general, we are convinced that the Super Race is possible. +Specifically--and here is the next point--there are more possibilities for +the development of the Super Race in the United States to-day than there +have been in any nation of the past; or than there are in any nation of +the present. The Super Race is America's distinctive opportunity. + +The factors which may play so significant a part in establishing a Super +Race in the United States are here set down in an order which permits of +sequential treatment-- + + 1. Natural resources. + 2. The stock of the dominant races. + 3. Leisure. + 4. The emancipation of women. + 5. The abandonment of war. + 6. A knowledge of race making. + 7. A knowledge of Social Adjustment. + 8. A widespread educational machinery. + +Natural resources are an indispensable element in national progress. A +congenial climate is a pre-requisite to social development. No permanently +successful civilization can be erected on the shores of Hudson Bay, or in +the torrid heat of the Amazon Valley. The temperate zones, with their +variable climate, and their wide range of vegetable products, seem to +provide the foundation for the successful civilizations of the immediate +future. No less necessary to civilization are harbors for the maintenance +of commerce; and an abundance of minerals, the sinews of industry; and +most important of all, fertile agricultural land. + +In its possession of these natural resources, the United States is +unexcelled. Its climate, while generally temperate, varies sufficiently to +give an excellent range of products; harbors and rivers are abundant; +forests and minerals are scattered everywhere; and the agricultural land, +rich and well watered, is as extensive and as potentially productive as +any equivalent area in the world. So far as natural resources provide a +basis for a Super Race, the United States occupies a position of almost +unique prominence. + +The stock of the dominant races may or may not be a cant phrase. +Notwithstanding the effective work done by Ripley in his _Races of +Europe_,[19] an impression still prevails that certain races are, from +their racial characteristics, specially fitted to dominate others. +Woodruff, in his _Expansion of Races_,[20] takes this view, strongly +urging the claim of the northwestern European to the distinction of world +ruler. Whether race be a matter of supreme or of little concern, in +determining the development of a Super Race, the United States possesses +an admirable blending of the western European peoples who now occupy the +dominant position in the commercial and military affairs of the world. If +racial stock be a matter of no importance, it requires no emphasis; if, on +the other hand, it be a significant factor in the creation of the Super +Race, then the United States holds an enviable position in its racial +qualities. + +Thus the raw materials of nation building--the natural resources and the +racial qualities, are possessed by the United States in generous +abundance. Has our use of them tended toward the development of the Super +Race? + +Leisure is an opportunity for the pursuit of a congenial avocation. It +must be carefully differentiated from the idleness with which it is so +often considered synonymous. Satan still finds mischief for idle hands. +The man who idles in leisure time is as likely now as ever in the past to +find himself breaking several of the commandments. Leisure merely provides +an opportunity for free choice. Unwisely used, it leads to individual +dissipation and social degeneracy. Wisely employed, it is a most +important means for the promotion of social progress. + +Most of the great things of the world have been done in leisure time. A +poet cannot create, nor can a mechanic devise, if he is forced during +twelve hours each day to struggle for the bare necessities of life. A +study of the lives of those who have made notable achievements in art, +science, literature, and diplomacy shows that they were free, for the most +part, from the bread and butter struggle. They had estates, they were the +recipients of pensions, but they did not submit to the soul-destroying +monotony of repeating the same task endlessly through the long reaches of +a twelve hour day. + +Primitive society demands the service of even its immature members. +Children are adults before their childhood is well begun. Civilization, +recognizing the possibility of self preservation through lengthened youth, +has said to the child "Play." + +Long youth means long life. Play time--leisure--for the youth is the bone +and sinew of a high standard maturity. Leisure in youth for play, leisure +in mature life for reflection and creation--these are two of the most +precious gifts of civilization to social progress. + +The United States has led the nations in providing opportunity for leisure +time. Labor saving devices have been brought to a higher perfection there +than in any other part of the world. Nowhere are children kept longer from +assuming the responsibilities of adult life; in few countries is the +workday shorter for adults. + +Probably no other people in the world can supply themselves with the +necessaries of life in so short a working time as can the inhabitants of +the United States. If every able bodied adult engaged for five hours each +day in gainful activity, enough economic goods could be created to provide +all the necessaries and many of the comforts of life. The leisure obtained +through American industry, if rightly directed, may provide for every +child born a thorough education--an ample opportunity to express the +qualities which are latent in him--and a thorough preparation for life. + +The emancipation of women is another force which may be directed toward +the improvement of race qualities. Women bear the race in their bodies; at +least half of the qualities of the offspring are inherited from them; as +mothers, they educate the children during the first six years of their +lives, and then, as school teachers and mothers they play the leading part +in education until the children reach the age of twelve or fourteen. The +youth of the race is in women's keeping. They shape the child clay. The +twig is bent, the tree is inclined by women's hands. + +The emancipation of woman means her individualization. Both in primitive +custom and in early law her individuality is merged in that of the man. +"Wives," wrote Paul, "be obedient unto your husbands, for this is the +law." Mohammedan women wear veils that they may not be seen; Chinese women +bind their feet that they may not escape; the women of continental Europe +spend their lives in ministering to the comfort of their liege lords. They +are dependent--almost abject. From such a sowing, what must be the +reaping? Into the hands of these subject creatures, men have committed +the training of their sons. + +Can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit? If women are inferior to men, +can they be worthy to train their future superiors--their sons? If they +are of a lower mentality than men, how is it that, in the school as well +as in the home, men have given into their hands the power to shape the +destinies of the race? + +Would you have your sons trained by a free man or by a slave? Do noble +civic ideals flow from a citizen of a free commonwealth, or from the +subjects of a despot? Only the woman who is a human being, with power and +freedom to choose, may teach the son of a free man. Emancipation has given +to women the power of choice. + +The women of America have been partially emancipated. In some states, they +may vote, sue for divorce, collect their own wages, hold property, and +transact business. Everywhere they are filling the high schools and +colleges; participating in industry and entering the professions. American +women are independent beings--distinctive units in a great organic +society. + +In so far as the qualities of the Super Man are developed and perfected by +the teachings of women, they will be more effectually rounded by the +emancipated woman than by the serf. The mothers of America are prepared to +teach their sons and daughters because they have been taught to think the +noblest thoughts and do the strongest things. + +The abandonment of war removes one of the most destructive forces of the +past, because war has always tended to eliminate the best of every race. +In the flower of their manhood, the noblest died on the field of +battle--their lives uncompleted; their tasks unfinished--leaving, perhaps, +no offspring to bear their qualities in the succeeding generation. +Although the law of nature is the survival of the fittest, "In the red +field of human history the natural process of selection is often +reversed."[21] The best perish in war, leaving the less fit to carry +forward the affairs of state, and to propagate. "The man who is left +holds in his grasp the history of the future,"[22] and if, as is +frequently the case, he is the one least fitted to survive, the race is +constantly breeding from the unfit rather than from the fit. Where the +human harvest is bad, the nation must perish. So long as war persisted, so +long as the best left their bones on the battle field, while the worst +left their descendants to man the state, a bad human harvest was +inevitable. War ate into the heart of national vitality by destroying the +nation's best blood. + +War, however, has practically ceased. The movement for peace, in which the +United States, both by precept and practice, is a leader, stands as one of +the signal achievements of the new century. The abandonment of war has +laid a basis for the Super Race by permitting the most fit to live and to +hand on their special qualities to coming generations. + +In the United States, as elsewhere in the civilized world, the science of +race making has recently undergone great development. While the movement +began in England, it has spread rapidly, until at the present time its +significance is universally recognized by scientists. The principles of +artificial selection have been applied in the creation of vegetable and +animal prodigies; the knowledge of biologic and selective principles is +wide-spread; and the educated men and women of the United States generally +understand the potency of these forces. + +Important steps have already been taken to prevent the propagation of the +unfit. Born criminals are in some states deprived of the power of +reproduction; in most of the states, the marriage of diseased persons is +prohibited; here and there attempts have been made to prohibit the +marriage of any suffering from a transmissible defect. On the other hand, +mentally defective persons are being segregated in institutions--guarded +against the dangers which beset the men and particularly the women of weak +mind. During the past two decades great strides have been made in +educating the American public to a higher standard of health and +efficiency. Though the science of race making, as such, has not been +given a prominent place in public discussion, the principles on which race +making is based have formed an important element in public education. The +desire to make a Super Race in America is as yet in its infancy, but the +ground has been thoroughly prepared, and a foundation laid upon which such +a super-structure of desire for race making can be speedily and +effectively erected. + +Meanwhile, the science of Social Adjustment has occupied the most +prominent place in American thought. If the American people have +under-emphasized Eugenics they have over-emphasized Social Adjustment. +From ocean to ocean, the country has been swept, during the past three +decades, by a whirlwind of legislation directed toward the adjustment of +social institutions to human needs. Trusts, factories, food, railroads, +liquor selling and a hundred other subjects have been kept in the +foreground of public attention. The American people might almost plead +guilty to adjustment madness. + +From the foundation of the earliest colonies, the basis, in theory at +least, was laid for the development of the individual. The colonists +believed in the worth-whileness of men, they lived in an age of natural +philosophy; they were the products of an effort to secure religious and +political freedom; they therefore emphasized the individual conscience, +and the right of the individual to think and act for himself. Each +individual was a man, to be so regarded, and so honored. Their new life +was a hard one. Nature presented an aspect on the rocky, untilled New +England coast different from that in the civilized countries of the old +world. There was but one way to meet these new conditions--the individual +must carve out his own future. + +Throughout the United States, the watchword of the people has been +opportunity. Without opportunity, the people perish--hence opportunity +must stand waiting for each succeeding generation. In the turmoil of +commercial life, in the ebb and flow of the immigrant tide, the reality +has been frequently lost; yet the ideal of opportunity remains as firmly +rooted as ever. + +The worth-whileness of men, the social control of the environment, and a +free opportunity for the development of the individual constitute the +basis for social advance in the United States. The ideal is firmly rooted; +the possibility of its realization is an everpresent reality. + +With a boundless wealth of natural resources; bulwarked by the stock of +the dominant races; with abundant leisure; granting freedom and +individuality to women; foregoing war; cognizant of the principles of race +making; Social Adjustment and of Education, the American nation is thrown +into the foreground, as the land for the development of the Super Race. +The American people have within their grasp the torch of social progress. +Can they carry it in the van, lighting the dark caverns of the future? Can +they develop a race of men who shall set a standard for the world--men of +physical and mental power, efficient, broadly sympathetic, actuated by the +highest ideals, striving toward a vision of human nobleness? + +The answer rests with this and the succeeding generations. Given ten +talents of opportunity, are we as a nation worthy to be made the rulers +over ten cities? Provided with the raw stuff of a Super Race, can we mold +it into "A mightier race than any that has been?" The past worked with +things: the present works with men. "We stand at the verge of a state of +culture, which will be that of the depths, not, as heretofore, of the +surface alone; a stage which will not be merely a culture through mankind, +but a culture of mankind. For the first time the great fashioners of +culture will be able to work in marble instead of, as heretofore, being +forced to work in snow."[23] Bulwarked by this pregnant thought, and +assured by Ruskin that, "There is as yet no ascertained limit to the +noblesse of person and mind which the human creature may attain," we press +forward confidently, advocating and practicing those measures which will +create the energy, mental grasp, efficiency, sympathy and vision of the +Super Man and the Super Race. + + + + +Footnotes: + +[1] JOHN RUSKIN, _Unto this Last_--Essay II. + +[2] WILLIAM B. YEATS, _Poetic Works_, Vol. II, p. 407. Macmillan Co., N. Y. + +[3] FREDERICK NIETZSCHE, _Thus Spoke Zarathustra_, pp. 5-296. Macmillan +Co., N. Y. + +[4] CARL SNYDER, _The World Machine_. New York, Longmans, Green & Co., +1907. + +[5] PRESTONIA MANN MARTIN, _Is Mankind Advancing?_ New York, Baker & +Taylor Co., 1911. + +[6] G. BERNARD SHAW, _Man and Super Man_, p. 218-219. N. Y., Brentano's. + +[7] HERBERT SPENCER, _The Data of Ethics_. Para. 97. N. Y., D. Appleton & +Co., 1893. + +[8] SAML. Z. BATTEN, _The Redemption of the Unfit_, American Journal of +Sociology, Vol. 14, p. 242 (1909). + +[9] FRANCIS GALTON, _Memoirs of My Life_, p. 311. N. Y., E. P. Dutton, +1909. + +[10] ARNOLD WHITE, _Efficiency and Empire_, p. 97. London, Methuen & Co., +1901. + +[11] W. C. & C. D. WHETHAM, _The Family and the Nations_, p. 85. N. Y., +Longmans, 1909. + +[12] GUSTAVE MICHAUD, _Shall We Improve Our Race_, The Popular Science +Monthly, Vol. 72, p. 77 (1908). + +[13] J. A. THOMPSON, _Heredity_, p. 331. N. Y., G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1908. + +[14] GUSTAVE MICHAUD, _Shall We Improve Our Race?_ Popular Science +Monthly, Vol. 72, p. 77 (1908). + +[15] J. ARTHUR THOMPSON, _Heredity_, p. 308. N. Y., G. P. Putnam's Sons, +1908. + +[16] LESTER F. WARD, _Applied Sociology_, pp. 224-282. Boston, Ginn & Co., +1906. + +[17] For a more complete statement of the problem, see _Social +Adjustment_, SCOTT NEARING, New York: Macmillan Company, 1911. + +[18] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, _Virginibus Puerisque_. + +[19] WM. Z. RIPLEY, _Races of Europe_. N. Y., D. Appleton & Co., 1899. + +[20] C. E. WOODRUFF, _The Expansion of Races_. N. Y., Rebman, 1909. + +[21] D. S. JORDAN, _The Human Harvest_, p. 54. Boston, American Unitarian +Association, 1907. + +[22] _Ibid_, p. 48. + +[23] ELLEN KEY, _Love and Marriage_, p. 53. N. Y., Putnam, 1911. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Super Race: An American Problem, by +Scott Nearing + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SUPER RACE: AMERICAN PROBLEM *** + +***** This file should be named 35417.txt or 35417.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/4/1/35417/ + +Produced by Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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