Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Irma Spehar and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net EUTHENICS THE SCIENCE OF CONTROLLABLE ENVIRONMENT A PLEA FOR BETTER LIVING CONDITIONS AS A FIRST STEP TOWARD HIGHER HUMAN EFFICIENCY The national annual unnecessary loss of capitalized net earnings is about $1,000,000,000. _Report on National Vitality_ _By_ ELLEN H. RICHARDS Author of Cost of Living Series, Art of Right Living, etc. SECOND EDITION WHITCOMB & BARROWS BOSTON, 1912 COPYRIGHT 1910 BY ELLEN H. RICHARDS THOMAS TODD CO., PRINTERS 14 BEACON ST., BOSTON FOREWORD Never has society been so clear as to its several special ends, never has so little effort been due to chance or compulsion. _Ralph Barton Perry, The Moral Economy._ Not through chance, but through increase of scientific knowledge; not through compulsion, but through democratic idealism consciously working through common interests, will be brought about the creation of right conditions, the control of environment. The betterment of living conditions, through conscious endeavor, for the purpose of securing efficient human beings, is what the author means by EUTHENICS.[1] [1] Eutheneo, Εὐθηνέω (_eu_, well; _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, Εὐθηνία. 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.