This movement has eugenic importance because it is
generally believed, although more statistical evidence is needed, that
families tend to "run out" in a few generations under city conditions;
and it is generally agreed that among those who leave the rural
districts to go to the cities, there are found many of the best
representatives of the country families.
If superior people are going to the large cities, and if this removal
leads to a smaller reproductive contribution than they would otherwise
have made, then the growth of great cities is an important dysgenic
factor.
This is the view taken by O. F. Cook,[174] when he writes:
"Statistically speaking cities are centers of population, but
biologically or eugenically speaking they are centers of depopulation.
They are like sink-holes or _siguanas_, as the Indians of Guatemala call
the places where the streams of their country drop into subterranean
channels and disappear. It never happens that cities develop large
populations that go out and occupy the surrounding country. The movement
of population is always toward the city. The currents of humanity pass
into the urban _siguanas_ and are gone."
"If the time has really come for the consideration of practical eugenic
measures, here is a place to begin, a subject worthy of the most careful
study--how to rearrange our social and economic system so that more of
the superior members of our race will stay on the land and raise
families, instead of moving to the city and remaining unmarried or
childless, or allowing their children to grow up in unfavorable urban
environments that mean deterioration and extinction.
Pages:
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564