; _the_, root of _tithemi_,
to cause). To be in a flourishing state, to abound in, to
prosper.--_Demosthenes._ To be strong or vigorous.--_Herodotus._
To be vigorous in body.--_Aristotle._
Euthenia, [Greek: Euthenia]. Good state of the body: prosperity, good
fortune, abundance.--_Herodotus._
"Human vitality depends upon two primary conditions--heredity and
hygiene--or conditions preceding birth and conditions during life."[2]
[2] Report on National Vitality, p. 49.
Eugenics deals with race improvement through heredity.
Euthenics deals with race improvement through environment.
Eugenics is hygiene for the future generations.
Euthenics is hygiene for the present generation.
Eugenics must await careful investigation.
Euthenics has immediate opportunity.
Euthenics precedes eugenics, developing better men now, and thus
inevitably creating a better race of men in the future. Euthenics is
the term proposed for the preliminary science on which Eugenics must
be based.
This new science seeks to emphasize the immediate duty of man to
better his conditions by availing himself of knowledge already at
hand. As far as in him lies he must make application of this knowledge
to secure his greatest efficiency under conditions which he can create
or under such existing conditions as he may not be able wholly to
control, but such as he may modify. The knowledge of the causes of
disease tends only to depress the average citizen rather than to
arouse him to combat it. Hope of success will urge him forward, and it
is the duty of lovers of mankind to show all possible ways of
attaining the goal. The tendency to hopelessness retards reformation
and regeneration, and the lack of belief in success holds back the
wheels of progress.
Euthenics is to be developed:
1. Through sanitary science.
2. Through education.
3. Through relating science and education to life.
Students of sanitary science discover for us the laws which make for
health and the prevention of disease. The laboratory has been studying
conditions and causes, and now can show the way to many remedies.
A knowledge of these laws, of the means of conserving man's resources
and vitality, which will result in the wealth of human energy, is more
and more brought within the reach of all by various educational
agencies.
The individual must estimate properly the value of this knowledge in
its application to daily life, in order
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