Racial hygiene : a practical discussion of eugenics and race culture / by Thurman B. Rice.

  • Rice, Thurman B. (Thurman Brooks), 1888-1952.
Date:
1929
Catalogue details

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

Credit: Racial hygiene : a practical discussion of eugenics and race culture / by Thurman B. Rice. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    29/400 (page 9)
    tion of an intelligent public opinion, alert but not alarmed, is the goal. The public must be awakened from the lethargy and self- complacency with which it regards these matters of race and blood. Although we know that the backbone of the nation is its manhood and womanhood we pay but little attention to the begetting of sound offspring. Money and time are spent in the preservation of the grizzly bear, of the bison, of game and fish ; the most careful study is made of the breeding of domesticated plants and animals; expedi tions are sent at great expense to discover the North and the South Poles, to study the life of the tropics of America and Africa, to unearth the relics of ancient peoples all over the world; stupendous sums of money are spent on the armaments of warfare and destruction;—and a few paltry thousands for the study of the propagation and the preser vation of a healthy and superior human stock. Every student of the subject knows that from five to ten times the present facilities are needed to care for the feeble minded in such a way that they cannot transmit their de fect. This is an extremely important matter, but we are told that it will cost a lot of money, and the taxpayers want the expenses cut. As a matter of fact, adequate insti tutional care of defectives would cost less than the care of the defectives by private families as under the present sys tem, and would bring the major portion of the expense to an end after a few generations. R ace C ulture . Can race culture be applied to the hu man species? The application of the laws of selection and heredity have been marvelously successful in the produc tion of superior breeds of domesticated plants and animals. Exactly the same biological laws govern the human race, although some of them cannot be applied. There are in addition other laws, sociological, ethical, economic and reli-