d largely from the neighborhood of
Amoy. They have usually married Filipino women of good families, so
their offspring had exceptional advantages, and stand high in the
estimation of the community. The requirement of the Spanish government
was that a Chinese must embrace Christianity and become a citizen,
before he could marry a Filipino. Usually he assumed his wife's name, so
the children were brought up wholly as Filipinos, and considered
themselves such, without cherishing any particular sentiment for the
Flowery Kingdom.

The biologist who studies impartially the Filipino peoples may easily
conclude that the American government is making a mistake in excluding
the Chinese; that the infiltration of intelligent Chinese and their
intermixture with the native population would do more to raise the level
of ability of the latter than a dozen generations of that compulsory
education on which the government has built such high hopes.

And this conclusion leads to the question whether much of the surplus
population of the Orient could not profitably be diverted to regions
occupied by savage and barbarian people. Chinese immigrants, mostly
traders, have long been going in small numbers to many such regions and
have freely intermarried with native women. It is a matter of common
observation to travelers that much of the small mercantile business has
passed into the hands of Chinese mestizos. As far as the first few
generations, at least, the cross here seems to be productive of good
results. Whether Oriental immigration should be encouraged must depend
on the decision of the respective governments, and considerations other
than biologic will have weight. As far as eugenics is concerned it is
likely that such regions would profit by a reasonable amount of Chinese
or Japanese immigration which resulted in interbreeding and not in the
formation of isolated race-groups, because the superior Orientals tend
to raise the level of the native population into which they marry.

The question of the regulation of immigration is, as we have insisted
throughout this chapter, a question of weighing the consequences. A
decision must be reached in each case by asking what course will do most
for the future good both of the nation and of the whole species. To talk
of the sacred duty of offering an asylum to any who choose to come, is
to indulge in immoral sentimentality. Even if the problem be put on the
most unselfish plane possible, to ask