e is
continually wiping out the unfit and adapting man to the environment
where he must live. Perhaps by saving too many of the unfit man is more
or less interfering with the processes of Nature, and it may be that the
interference with her method of work is bad. But Nature is mindful of
this tendency and if it is not in accordance with the profoundest laws
of being, Nature will have her way in spite of man's meddling. Any
change that can be brought about by selective mating must come by
natural processes aided by the education of each individual through a
closer study of the origin and evolution of life. This must leave
everyone free to do his own selecting, rather than to trust it to the
state. Society can do much toward giving man an environment which will
more or less be adjusted to his heredity. To give him a heredity that
will conform to his environment is quite another thing and probably must
be kept practically free from the theories, vagaries and experiments of
man. It would seem so absurd and dangerous as not to be worth discussing
except for the fact that the movement, both for sterilizing and some
degree of control of mating has already gone far in some of the states.
There is no limit that fanaticism or hatred will respect.

No doubt the popular opinion that in some way crime and pauperism are
inherited has been strengthened by the literature concerning the family
that has been given the name of "The Jukes." The first extensive study
of this family was made by Richard L. Dugdale, who was connected with
the New York Prison Association. It was first published in 1877 and may
almost be regarded as the "Uncle Tom's Cabin" of the scientific study of
crime in America.

Mr. Dugdale was evidently a careful student, an honest investigator and
a humane man. Strange to say, deductions have been freely and carelessly
made from his book, which the investigations do not warrant, and against
which he carefully cautioned the reader. No one can examine Mr.
Dugdale's book without being impressed with the quiet unassuming modesty
and worth of the author, and yet in the hands of those who have so often
carelessly and unscientifically generalized from his studies, it has
possibly brought more harm than good.

The book covers investigations made by Dugdale between 1850 and 1870, a
period in which little was known about the laws that govern inheritance,
and necessarily, much evidence was pure hearsay without the data of
carefu