Although interesting as showing the drift of public sentiment toward a revival of the banns, this proposed law is poorly drawn. Three unrelated laymen and the judge of a circuit court are not the proper persons to decide on the biological fitness of a proposed marriage. We believe the interests of eugenics would be sufficiently met at this time by a law which provided that adequate notice of application for marriage license should be published, and no license granted (except under exceptional circumstances) until the expiration of two weeks from the publication of the notice. This would give families and friends time to act; but it is probably not practicable to forbid the issuance of a license at the expiration of the designated time, unless evidence is brought forward showing that one of the applicants is not legally capable of contracting marriage because of a previous mate still living and undivorced, or because of insanity, feeble-mindedness, under age, etc. Such a law, we believe, could be put on the statute books of any state, and enforced, without arousing prejudices or running counter to public sentiment; and its eugenic value, if small, would certainly be real. This exhausts the list of suggested coercive means of restricting the reproduction of the inferior. What we propose is, we believe, a very modest program, and one which can be carried out, as soon as public opinion is educated on the subject, without any great sociological, legal or financial hindrances. We suggest nothing more than that individuals whose offspring would almost certainly be subversive of the general welfare, be prevented from having any offspring. In most cases, such individuals are, or should be, given life-long institutional care for their own benefit, and it is an easy matter, by segregation of the sexes, to prevent reproduction. In a few cases, it will probably be found desirable to sterilize the individual by a surgical operation. Such coercive restriction does, in some cases, sacrifice what may be considered personal rights. In such instances, personal rights must give way before the immensely greater interests of the race. But there is a much larger class of cases, where coercion can not be approved, and yet where an enlightened conscience, or the subtle force of public opinion, may well bring about some measure of restraint on reproduction. This class includes many individuals who are not in any direct way detrimental to society; and who yet have some inherited taint or defect that should be checked, and of which they, if enlightened, would probably be the first to desire the elimination. The number of high-minded persons who deliberately refrain from marriage, or parenthood, in the interests of posterity, is greater than any one imagines, except a eugenist brought into intimate relations with people who take an intelligent interest in the subject.