=Which Shall It Be?--=As a matter of social evolution, human homes originated in the necessity of an abiding place for the nurture and training of the young past their first period of helplessness. Well in the foreground of the mental picture which arises when we hear the very word _home_, are children. What shall the home of the future be with regard to its most important assets, the children? Shall we as a people continue to be confronted at every turn by the dull countenance of the imbecile, the inevitable product of a bad parental mating; or the feeble body and the clouded intellect of the child sprung from a parentage of polluted blood; or the furtive cunning of the born criminal, the will-less mind of the bred degenerate, or the shiftless spawn of the pauper? Or shall it be a type with laughing face, with bounding muscles, with unclouded brain, overflowing with health and happiness--in short, _the well-born child_? The answer is in our own hands. The fate of many future generations is ours to determine and we are false to our trusteeship if we evade the responsibility clearly laid before us. How conscientiously we heed known facts, how actively we acquaint ourselves with new facts, and how effectively we execute the obvious duties demanded by these facts, will give us the answer. THE END GLOSSARY ACQUIRED CHARACTERS, traits developed in the body through changes in environment or function, in contra-distinction to those which have their specific causes in the germ-cells. ADAPTATION (L. _ad_, to; _aptus_, fit), fitness to environment. ALBINISM (L. _albus_, white), a condition of deficiency in pigment. ALLELOMORPH (Gr. _allelon_, of one another; _morphe_, form), one of a pair of alternate Mendelian characters. AMEBA (Gr. _amoibe_, change), a primitive single-celled animal. AMPHIBIAN (Gr. _amphi_, both; _bios_, life), capable of living both on land and in water. ANTHROPOID (Gr. _anthropos_, man; _eidos_, form), man-like. ARISTOGENIC (Gr. _aristos_, best; _genesis_, origin), pertaining to the genetically most desirable human strains. ASSOCIATION AREAS, those regions of the brain in which presumably the higher mental processes are effected. ATAVISM (L. _ad_, before; _avus_, grandfather), a return in one or more characters to an ancestral type. See p. 8 for restricted modern usage. ATROPHY (Gr. _a_, negative; _trophe_, nourishment), a wasting away of a part of a living organism. AXON (Gr. _axon_, axis), the process from a nerve cell which becomes a nerve fiber. BINET-SIMON SCALE, a series of tests graded to age and previous training of the average normal child, much used in measuring mental deficiency. BIOLOGY (Gr. _bios_, life; _logos_, discourse), the study of life and of living things. BIOMETRY (Gr. _bios_, life; _metron_, measure), the study of biological problems by means of statistical methods. BLASTOMERE (Gr. _blastos_, germ; _meros_, part), one of the early cells formed by the division of the ovum.