ive of eugenics.
Young men will be taught the truth about vice, and if they have been
victims in the past, they will willingly submit themselves to a _competent_
investigation of their fitness for marriage. If they are still pure, the
desire to remain so, in order to be eligible for parenthood, will guard
them against the risk of contamination. This will not only result in a
distinct improvement of the moral tone, but the potential possibilities to
posterity will be incalculable. Legislation might therefore be the vehicle
through which eugenic education could enlighten and evolve a fit race.

EUGENICS AND PARENTHOOD

If the supreme end is a better race we must recognize that the great need
for society to-day is to educate for parenthood. History teaches that a
civilization that dissipates its virility in profligacy or spends its
energy in political and commercial trickery, and gives no thought to the
character of the men and women it produces, is destined to total failure.
Parenthood and birth--in these we have the eugenic instruments of the [16]
future. The only permanent way to cure the ills of the world is to prevent
the multiplication of people below a certain standard. The elevation and
the actual preservation of the race depends upon rendering it impossible
for the unfit coming into existence at all. In other words the unfit or
unworthy must be rejected, not necessarily as individuals, but as parents.

Eugenics is allied to the principle of heredity,--the principle that
enables us to modify conditions so as to ensure the right children being
born. The propaganda against infant mortality is directed only toward the
provision of a good environment,--so that children, when born, may survive
and attain the maximum of their hereditary promise. The two campaigns are
essentially complementary. The one applies only before birth, the other
after birth. The statistics of infant mortality unfortunately show that it
is not a process that extinguishes the unfit only. The healthy succumb to
unfavorable environment and it was to amend this condition that the
campaign against infant mortality was undertaken. The two campaigns appeal
to the same creed: that parenthood is the supreme function of the race,
that it must not be indifferently undertaken; that it demands the most
careful preparation; that it is a duty which can only be carried out
eugenically by the highest attainable health of body and mind and emotions.

EUGENICS A