EUGENICS IDEALS.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1857, 17 September 1913, Page 7

EUGENICS IDEALS.

FOR IMPROVEMENT OF THE MCE,

At last night's meeting of tho Wellington Eugenics Education Society, Miss P. Myers read a paper on "Social Environment and Moral Progress, with Suggested Possibilities cf Raco Improve-, ment." The lecturer said that, there ivoro few, if any, indications of permar nent or widespread c'hange in our intellectual or moral naturo. The application of steam power wnd scientific discoveries had put too great a strain on our cnulo and. our superficial Christianity, and this growth had l>een accompanied by various forms of social immorality almost as amazing as unprecedented. Tliero wero not wanting indications? of increasing moral degradation. The averago of mankind would remain tho same until some form of selection improved it. Tho law of natural selection by tho survival only of tho fittest was to some extent neutralised by man alone. Freedom of marriage should not be interfered with. Tho only hopo for moral and mental improvement of the raco was to mako woman socially and economically independent. The present form of homo was doomed, because tho conditions which produced .it wero fast disappearing. Was it not possible that all tho turmoil vras but tho birth-throes of a new era in which by the freo recognition of woman as man's friend, comrade, and co-partner in tho business of life, the human raco would bo ready to begin its upward mental and moral ! course? Tho lecturer was congratulated l and accordcd as»voto of tlianks.