Parenthood and Race Culture: An Outline of Eugenics — John Shaqi
Parenthood and Race Culture: An Outline of EugenicsSaleeby, C. W. (Caleb Williams)
Philosophy
Parenthood and Race Culture: An Outline of Eugenics
Saleeby, C. W. (Caleb Williams)
Eugenics
During the last year or two of the campaign against infant mortality
many things have become clear, and none clearer than the fundamental
compatibility between this campaign and the principles of eugenics. As
these two efforts wall be predominant in the real politics of all the
years to come, a few more words must here be devoted to the relation
between them.
Granted that the highest of all objects is the making of worthy human
beings, it is quite evident that we must attend equally to the two
factors which determine all human life--heredity and environment.
Eugenics stands for the principle of heredity--the principle that the
right children shall be born. The campaign against infant mortality
stands for a good environment[4]--so that children, when born, may
survive and thrive. Obviously eugenics would be of no use if the
children could not survive, and no human infant can survive unless
it be born into a moral environment: no motherhood, no man. The two
campaigns, then, are strictly complementary. We must endeavour to rid
ourselves of the popular notion that the whole result of the campaign
against infant mortality can be measured by the number of babies
whose death is prevented. The infant mortality is merely an index of
a widespread social disease--an index and an extreme symptom. But
for every baby killed many are damaged; and to remove the causes of
infant mortality is to remove the causes which at present effect the
deterioration of millions of human beings. The eugenic campaign, then,
without the other would be almost futile.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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