Indeed a regard for the
totality of human happiness makes it necessary that they should not so
continue.
While it is the hope of eugenics that fewer defective and anti-social
individuals shall be born in the future, it has been emphasized so much
that the program of eugenics is likely to be seen in false perspective.
In reality it is the less important side of the picture. More good
citizens are wanted, as well as fewer bad ones. Every race requires
leaders. These leaders appear from time to time, and enough is known
about eugenics now to show that their appearance is frequently
predictable, not accidental. It is possible to have them appear more
frequently; and in addition, to raise the level of the whole race,
making the entire nation happier and more useful. These are the great
tasks of eugenics. America needs more families like that old Puritan
strain which is one of the familiar examples of eugenics:
"At their head stands Jonathan Edwards, and behind him an array of his
descendants numbering in 1900, 1,394, of whom 295 were college
graduates; 13 presidents of our greatest colleges; 65 professors in
colleges, besides many principals of other important educational
institutions; 60 physicians, many of whom were eminent; 100 and more
clergymen, missionaries, or theological professors; 75 were officers in
the army and navy; 60 prominent authors and writers, by whom 135 books
of merit were written and published and 18 important periodicals edited;
33 American states and several foreign countries, and 92 American cities
and many foreign cities have profited by the beneficent influences of
their eminent activity; 100 and more were lawyers, of whom one was our
most eminent professor of law; 30 were judges; 80 held public office, of
whom one was vice president of the United States; three were United
States senators; several were governors, members of Congress, framers of
state constitutions, mayors of cities and ministers of foreign courts;
one was president of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company; 15 railroads,
many banks, insurance companies, and large industrial enterprises have
been indebted to their management.
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