d conventional as the English society that banished them for
England's good. The colonies in Virginia with access to land and a
chance to make homes for themselves established a social order and
formed communities more prosperous than the ones that sent them out.
Many of their descendants are now successful and important members of
every western state.

In fact, most of the European immigrants who have settled in the United
States were the poor and the outcast, the misfits of European countries.
With better opportunities and a chance to build up homes in a new land,
their descendants are at least the equals of those who stayed behind.
The growth and development of the United States westward from the
Atlantic seaboard has been effected by the poorer and less intelligent,
but often the more venturesome, who constantly turned West to get
cheaper land and a better chance. The residents of these western states
compare very favorably with those who still reside in the sections of
the country which these pioneers left behind. It cannot be shown that
the less intelligent have criminal natures. All that can be shown is
that they have a poorer equipment to meet the stress and strain of
life. To make most of this class safe, all that is needed is fairer
conditions and an easier environment. If society could only recover from
the obsession that what is necessary to regulate man is plenty of
prisons and harder punishments, it would be fairly easy and infinitely
cheaper to improve the environment from which crime springs than to
visit vengeance on the victim.

The effect of education is very great. Many a subnormal and backward
person has been educated so he could take a place in life that those
with a much greater natural ability could not fill.

Beyond the segregation of the imbecile, the insane and those who have
committed crime, it is dangerous to go. The course of preventing crime
lies in the other direction, better opportunity and an easier life.

It has grown to be a commonplace in the discussion of crime to speak of
isolation and sterilization as the proper treatment of the criminal and
defective. This is generally done without any clear understanding of the
laws of heredity.

The laws of the transmission from parent to child of traits and
tendencies are not yet well enough known to justify any attempt to
interfere with the function of life, except in the case of the idiotic.
It is plain that crime cannot be inherited. C