for parenthood shall be.
Common sense, however, suggests that it will assume some form that will
eliminate those physically or mentally diseased. He believes that, when the
people are sufficiently educated to appreciate the object in view, they
will devise a system that will meet with universal approval.

Eugenics concerns itself with problems on which the destiny of the race
depends. It must not, therefore, be limited to questions relative to mating
and breeding. Every factor that contributes to the well-being and uplifting
of the race, every subject that bespeaks physical or mental regeneration,
that aids moral and social righteousness and salvation, and promises a
greater social happiness and contentment, has a eugenic [xxiii]
significance. So long as there exists an unsupported mother or a suffering
child; so long as we rely on hospitals and prisons, penitentiaries and the
police, to minister to the correction and regeneration of the unfit and
degenerate; so long as we tolerate grafting politicians and deprive the
poor of breathing spaces, sanitary appliances, and a hygienic environment;
so long as war and pestilence deprive posterity of the best of the race for
parenthood; so long as we emphasize rescue rather than prevention, so long
must the eugenist strive unceasingly to preach his propaganda of race
regeneration.

The scope of eugenics is too far-reaching in its beneficent purpose to be
fettered by the querulous triflings of the ancient or intellectual prude;
nor should it be belittled by the superficial insight of the habitual
scoffer. It is not a fantasy nor an idle dream. It is not even an
inspiration. The destiny of the race has brought us face to face with
conditions unparalleled in the history of this civilization, and the very
existence of the race itself may be wholly dependent on the foresight of
the minds that have made the science of eugenics possible.

A brief consideration of the conditions that actually exist, with which we
are face to face, and which certainly justify the existence of a science
whose function it should be to demand serious investigation of methods of
race regeneration, may help the reader to an intelligent and practical
understanding of the tremendous importance of the subject.

It has been already remarked that, at the present rate of decrease, the
birth-rate will be reduced to zero within a century. If the birth-rates in
England, Germany, and France should contin