do
not discriminate between the fertility of the physically and mentally
fit and that of the unfit. Our social instincts have reduced to a
minimum the natural elimination of the socially dangerous elements;
they must now lead us consciously to provide against the worst effects
of differential fertility--a survival of the most fertile, when the
most fertile are not the socially fittest.

The subject before us illustrates the direct bearing of science upon
moral conduct and upon statecraft. The scientific study of man is not
merely a passive intellectual viewing of nature. It teaches us the art
of living, of building up stable and dominant nations, and it is of no
greater importance for the scientist in his laboratory, than for the
statesman in council and the philanthropist in society.

III

HUMAN HEREDITY AND THE EUGENIC PROGRAM

III

HUMAN HEREDITY AND THE EUGENIC PROGRAM

"A breed whose proof is in time and deeds;
What we are, we are--nativity is answer enough to objections."

A few years ago official recognition was taken of the disturbing fact
that the annual wheat yield of Great Britain was grossly deficient in
both quantity and quality. In 1900 The National Association of British
and Irish Millers, with almost unprecedented sagacity, raised a fund
to provide for a series of experiments under the direction of a
competent biologist, in order to discover if possible some means of
restoring the former yield and quality of the native wheats. The story
of the result reads like a romance. The experimenter--Prof. R. H.
Biffen--collected many different varieties of wheat, native and
foreign, each of which had some desirable qualities, and studied their
mode of inheritance. Now, after only a few years of experimentation a
wheat has been produced and is being grown upon a large scale in
which have been united this desirable character of one variety, that
character of another. From each variety has been taken some valuable
trait, and these have all been combined into one variety possessing
the characteristics of a short full head, beardlessness, high gluten
content, immunity to the devastating rust, a strong supporting straw,
and a high yield per acre. A wheat made to order and fulfilling the
"details and specifications" of the growers.

Manitoba and British Columbia opened up whole new lands of the fin