BEING WELL-BORN
BEING WELL-BORN
AN INTRODUCTION TO EUGENICS
By
MICHAEL F. GUYER, Ph. D.
Professor of Zoology, The University of Wisconsin
Childhood and Youth Series
Edited by M. V. O’SHEA
Professor of Education, The University of Wisconsin
INDIANAPOLIS
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Copyright 1916
The Bobbs-Merrill Company
PRESS OF
BRAUNWORTH & CO.
BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS
BROOKLYN, N. Y.
TO MY WIFE
HELEN M. GUYER
EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
The writer recalls that when he was a young boy, he heard the grown-uppeople in the community earnestly and incessantly debating the question:Does heredity play a greater part in shaping one’s mind and body than doeshis environment? From that day to this he has listened to men and women inevery walk of life discussing the relation of heredity to environment indetermining human traits. Teachers and parents are constantly asking: “Aresuch and such characteristics in my children due to their inheritance orto the way they have been trained?” Students of juvenile delinquency andof mental defect and deficiency are searching everywhere for light on thismatter. It is not to be wondered at that practically all people arepeculiarly interested in this problem, since it concerns intimately one’spersonal traits, and it constantly confronts any one who is responsiblefor the care and culture of the young.
It is suggestive to note how people differ in their views regarding theextent to which a child’s physical and mental qualities and capacities arefixed definitely by his inheritance. The writer has often heard studentsin university classes discuss the subject; and their handling of theproblem has shown how superficially and even superstitiously most personsregard the mechanism and functions of heredity. It is significant also toobserve what extreme views many people hold regarding the possibility ofaffecting a child’s traits and abilities by subjecting him to specificinfluences during his prenatal life. In any group of one hundred personschosen at random, probably seventy-five will believe in specific prenatalinfluence. Many of them will believe in birthmarks due to peculiarexperiences of the mother. A popular book recently published asserts amongother things that if a mother will look upon beautiful pictures and listento good music during the prenatal period of her child, the latter willpossess esthetic traits and interests in high degree. On the other hand,people generally do not seem to think that degenerate parents beget onlydegenerate children. Alcoholics, feeble-minded persons and the like arepermitted to bring children into the world.
Very few people have any precise knowledge of the mechanism of heredity.The whole thing is inscrutable to them, and is shrouded in mystery.Superstition flourishes among even intelligent persons in respect toheredity, and errors due to education, and tragedies resulting fromvicious social organization are all alike ascribed to its uncontrollableforces. Most people are none the wiser because they do not know to whatextent the physical and mental defects and deviations of individuals aredue to inheritance or to the malign influences of the individual’senvironment and training.