I once wrote to a prominent eugenist in hopes of finding out what makes a crime a crime--and I did find out. He told me that the essence of crime was non-conformity. He had hit the nail squarely on the head. That is the essence of crime exactly, non-obedience to some law. But what law? Here my correspondent showed himself to be entirely at sea. He could refer to nothing but the statute law momentarily in effect in the place where the crime was committed. Are we to preserve one sort of germ-plasm in California and another in Massachusetts? A willingness to conform to any and every statute which a legislature anywhere may see fit to pass is certainly a curious test of human virtue, of the right to leave an impress on future generations. As to the nature of insanity, my correspondent was willing to leave it to the doctors--more especially as Prof. Lombroso, then quite prominent, had lately identified it with genius. Mr. Wiggam has a theory of both crime and insanity which at least removes all vagueness from the terms. Whose germ-plasm is to be allowed to go on down the ages? The germ-plasm of those who have been able to get named in “Who’s Who!” 3. SALVATION BY WHO’S WHO I admit that this is an exaggeration--at the present moment. Eugenists assure us that they mean to be very temperate. But we know from experience how temperate a reform movement is likely to become, once it is fairly launched. In substance, the “Who’s Who” theory of unnatural selection is actually developed in a series of articles by Mr. Wiggam reviewing Professor Lewis M. Terman’s “Genetic Studies of Genius,” which appeared in _The World’s Work_ during 1926. As usual, Mr. Wiggam beguiles us for a time with pleasant writing. In this instance it deals with the old legend of the poor country-boy and his supposed chance of becoming distinguished. A formidable array of statistics is brought out to show that it is not much of a chance. The advantage, it seems, all lies with city-children--stimulated, as they no doubt are, by breathing the fumes of gasoline. Three per cent of the people (and these belong to the “professional classes”) have in America produced nearly one-half of our artists, we are told. One third of the population (described as being “above early struggles”) have been responsible for three-fourths of America’s writers. Something must be the matter. Too much struggle it would appear. Writer-bearing strata are to be pampered. Good! Some, of course, will say that what American literature is waiting for is a few more words from the two-thirds of the population who are not above early struggles--that even some of our rich and famous authors wrote better when they were young and poor. But as I do not know the pedigree of these objectors I shall pass them by and follow the Wiggam argument as he finds it in Terman.