Report of proceedings of the First International Eugenics Congress held at the University of London...together with an appendix containing those papers communicated to the Congress not included in Volume 1.

  • International Eugenics Congress 1912 : London, England)
Date:
[1913]
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Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Credit: Report of proceedings of the First International Eugenics Congress held at the University of London...together with an appendix containing those papers communicated to the Congress not included in Volume 1. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    54/206 (page 50)
    5° First International Eugenics Congress. of war. The net result of Col. Melville's cogent argument was that training for war was a good thing for young men, provided they never fought. He agreed with Mr. White as to the benefit of discipline and the value of pre¬ paration to be ready to lay down life for a principle. But was it impossible to get the eugenic conditions which surrounded the young soldier—proper food, full allowance of fresh air, fair leisure for physical exercise—without the universal drafting into barracks for years of the flower of the manhood of the country ? The greatest movement of our time was that which sought these good conditions not only for the soldier, but for all. The value of Prof. Kellogg's paper remained untouched by any of the criticisms. Its conclusion was that though war might be an eternal necessity, it could never be a benefit to the race. Prof. Andréades (Greece), as belonging to a country which had been beaten in war, assured the Congress that whatever might be the evils of militarism, the evils of defeat were much greater. The question of mili¬ tarism had to be studied from two distinct points of view—from that of the permanent army (such as England's) and from that of the conscript army, in which men took arms only for a year or two. The problems presented were quite different. The sanitary conditions and the effect of military service on the race were quite different in the case of conscription. This distinction had not been clearly made in the discussion. In the case of a standing army, the army became a distinct and permanent class, and its hygienic and social position was entirely different from that of a conscript force. Prof. Kellogg thanked his critics for their courtesy and the interest of their comments. His only purpose had been to inquire whether there were not aspects of war and militarism which called for the earnest attention of eugenists. Germany had recognised this, and had worked nobly to improve the conditions of military life. Japan had done the same thing. Great Britain, France, and America should follow these examples. Prof. Achille Loria (Turin) read his paper on The Psycho-physical Elite and the Economic Elite (^). The abstract of Prof. Niceforo's paper(^) on The Cause of the In¬ feriority of Physical and Mental Characters in the Lower Social Classes was read by Prof. Michels. Prince Kropotkin said that Profs. Loria and Kellogg had widened the discussion. Prof. Loria had asked by what criterion artificial selection was to be guided. This was the most substantial problem for eugenics, and for the Congress. He had been regretting the exclusion from the discussion of the domain where eugenics came into contact with social hygiene, an exclusion which was producing an unfavourable impression outside, but the two papers in question had helped to remove it. The foundations of eugenics as a science had still to be worked out ; yet they had been asked to discuss a number of practical measures, some involving legislation, such as marriage certificates, C) Problems in Eugenics. Italian, p. 175. English, p. 179. (^) Ibid. Italian, p. 184. English, p. 189.