A PLEA FOR EUGENICS.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 886, 4 August 1910, Page 6

A PLEA FOR EUGENICS.

THE UNFIT IN LIFE,

She never remembered hurting anyone, nor doing .anybody harm... They Joeknl her Uμ.because she was violent \ at times, and. now she was a. prisoner for all her life. They had told her that she was suffering from a hereditary disease. Had her parents, she asked, done right in bringing her into tho world, and could nothing be done concerning this matter for the sake of unborn millions of innocents?

She had written, the; letter within the walls of a mental asylum, which was to bo her life-long .gaol. Professor Kirk, who read the plea before a gathering of members of ..the Wellington Philosophical Society last night, had a photo of tho writer cast on the sheet, and the reproduction did not in any way woaken the appeal. Perhaps to the student of such matters her defects were visible in her lace, but to the inexpert hers was an expression of resignation, and the lines, tho iurrows of pain, were plain. The family the professor explained, was able to trace lunacy back some generations, and the lather of this girl had appealed to him to do something to prevent marriages of unfit people. In the course of a lecture on "The » i "J, *■ Society of Eugenics in New Zealand, Professor. Kirk said that among primitive men, tho struggle for existence ensured fitness, but in most civilised countries the case was otherwise. Hedical skill helped, and weaklings were reared in spite of weakness and disease, and took places among the parents ot the next generation, and tended to pass,on the weakness and disease often in an aggravated form. The aim of. eugenics was to bring' about improvement, so that, the man of the future would be a better expression of the potentialities of his kind than tho man of to-day was. A consistent effort was needed to bring about the reform and,the Eugenic Society at Home was moving. New Zealand had not been backward ,in_ matters of-less importance Someone had suggested that all persons about to marry should be* registered as first, second, and third class in point of fitness, and the speaker would add that no man should, be allowed to marry unless ho could' produce a enrtificate to show that ho was free of certain disease in an ■ contagious form. It was late when Professor Kirk's address was nailed on, and iwveral portions of tho prepared paper were not read. Mr. G. Hogbon suggested, that the proceedings should be adjourned till the next .meeting. In view of the imoortance of the subject, he thought it would be well to give an. opportunity of hearing the whole of the paper, and of having a full discussion. The suggestion was agreed to.