Of Martin Kallikak Sr., himself, the record of many characteristic traits has been preserved. As stated in another chapter, his father died when he was a lad of fifteen. The father, in his will, after enumerating certain personal bequests to his wife, recommends the selling of the homestead farm, in order to provide for the education of his children. There is a quaint document still in existence, in which Martin Kallikak, having attained his majority, agrees to pay £250 to each of his three “spinster” sisters, still minors, in return for a quitclaim deed of the homestead farm. This was a considerable burden for a young man to assume, but it seems to have given him the impetus which later made him a rich and prosperous farmer. He had joined the Revolutionary Army in April, 1776. Two years later he was wounded in a way to disable him for further service, and he then returned to the home farm. During the summer of enforced idleness he wooed and won the heart of a young woman of good Quaker family. Her shrewd old father, however, refused to give his consent. To his objections, based on the ground that Martin did not own enough of this world’s goods, the young man is recorded as saying, “Never mind. I will own more land than ever thou did, before I die,” which promise he made true. That the paternal objection was overruled is proven by the registry of marriages, which gives the date of Martin’s union with the Quakeress as January, 1779. The old Bible of Casper Kallikak, one of the family heirlooms, is in the possession of a Reverend Mr. ----, who is descended from Casper through the line of one of his daughters. This Bible was bought in 1704 and is still in an excellent state of preservation, for, although time-stained, the pages are intact and there still may be seen in legible handwriting the family record penned so long ago. On a flyleaf, is a quaint verse in which old Casper bequeaths the volume to his eldest son, bidding him, “So oft as in it he doth looke” remember how his father had “aye been guided by ye precepts in this booke,” and enjoining him to walk in the same safe way. CHAPTER V WHAT IS TO BE DONE? No one interested in the progress of civilization can contemplate the facts presented in the previous chapters without having the question arise, Why isn’t something done about this? It will be more to the point if we put the question, Why do _we_ not _do_ something about it? We are thus face to face with the problem in a practical way and we ask ourselves the next question, What _can_ we do? For the low-grade idiot, the loathsome unfortunate that may be seen in our institutions, some have proposed the lethal chamber. But humanity is steadily tending away from the possibility of that method, and there is no probability that it will ever be practiced.