t fuer Rassen-Hygiene), founded by Dr. Alfred Ploetz, with the
co-operation of many distinguished physicians and men of science, "to
further the theory and practice of racial hygiene." It is a chief aim of
this Society to encourage the registration by the members of the
biological and other physical and psychic characteristics of themselves
and their families, in order to obtain a body of data on which
conclusions may eventually be based; the members undertake not to enter
on a marriage except they are assured by medical investigation of both
parties that the union is not likely to cause disaster to either partner
or to the offspring. The Society also admits associates who only occupy
themselves with the scientific aspects of its work and with propaganda.
In England the Eugenics Education Society (with its organ the _Eugenics
Review_) has done much to stimulate an intelligent interest in
eugenics.

[162] How influential public opinion may be in the selection of mates is
indicated by the influence it already exerts--in less than a century--in
the limitation of offspring. This is well marked in some parts of
France. Thus, concerning a rural district near the Garonne, Dr. Belbeze,
who knows it thoroughly, writes (_La Neurasthenie Rurale_, 1911):
"Public opinion does not at present approve of multiple procreation.
Large families, there can be no doubt, are treated with contempt.
Couples who produce a numerous progeny are looked on, with a wink, as
'maladroits,' which in this region is perhaps the supreme term of
abuse.... Public opinion is all-powerful, and alone suffices to produce
restraint, when foresight is not adequate for this purpose."

VII

RELIGION AND THE CHILD

Religious Education in Relation to Social Hygiene and to
Psychology--The Psychology of the Child--The Contents of Children's
Minds--The Imagination of Children--How far may Religion be
assimilated by Children?--Unfortunate Results of Early Religious
Instruction--Puberty the Age for Religious Education--Religion as
an Initiation into a Mystery--Initiation among Savages--The
Christian Sacraments--The Modern Tendency as regards Religious
Instruction--Its Advantages--Children and Fairy Tales--The Bible of
Childhood--Moral Training.

It is a fact as strange as it is unfortunate that the much-debated
question of the religious education of children is almost exclusively
considered from the points of view