The fertility of the unfit / [W.A. Chapple].

  • Chapple, W. A.
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: The fertility of the unfit / [W.A. Chapple]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    8/156 (page IV)
    iv preface Criminals by a remedy of the most radical kind. When he was good enough to ask me to write a preface for his book I hesitated somewhat. I read the substance of it in MS.S. and was deeply impressed by it. But still I am in some doubt. I am not quite prepared to accept at once Dr. Chappie's proposed remedy. Neither am I prepared to reject it. I am simply an enquirer, trying to arrive at the truth regarding this clamant social problem. The time has certainly come when the issues raised in Dr. Chappie's book -Baust, be faced. It is very desirable therefore, that the public should have these put before it in a frank, cautious way, by experts who understand what they are writing about, and have a due sense of the grave responsibilities involved. Dr. Chappie's contribution seems to me very fully to satisfy these requirements. No doubt both his premises and conclusions are open to criticism at various points. It is, indeed, not unlikely that the plan whereby he proposes to limit the fertility of the Unfit may come with a sort of shock to some readers. It is, perhaps, well that it should, for it may lead to thought and criticism. In any case, this policy of drift must be dropped and Dr. Chappie's remedy, or some other, promptly adopted. A preface is not the place to discuss the pro's and con's of Dr. Chappie's treatise. My main object in this foreword is to commend to the public who take an interest in this grave problem a discussion of it, which is alike timely and thorough and reverent. And this, I believe, readers will find in the following pages. Rutherford VV^addell. JDunedin, Dec. çih^ 1903.