SAMLLER FAMILIES.

Hokitika Guardian, 22 November 1921, Page 1

SAMLLER FAMILIES.

NEW YORK. September 21

The second intoinatiomd congress on eugenics, vesterdny in New York was nuirkod hy a succession of speeches rolled ino somewlntt pessimistie views of the future of the human race owintr t (f the rapid increase of the poorer strains ami the breeding out of the best storks. Tin* president of tlie congress. Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn, bewailed the growth of an individualism which threatened the existence of the family, its motto lieinc ; ‘ Let us obey nur own impulses; let n> ereate our own standards; let each individual enjoy his own rights and privileges' be to-morrow the rare dies." He illustrated his views by the development of New Fngland, which ill the course of a century lias witnessed the passage from a manychild family to the one-child family, and observed that the next stage would lie Hie mi-ehild marriage, and the extinct ion of the slock wl-i-h laid the foundations ~t the Ri-puhliron institutions of llu- country.

Other speakers urged that the human ia,-e must study the science of eugenics lo save it from going tin- why of all species of which we have palaeontological records, and becoming extinct. Major Leonard Darwin discouraged the expectations of great achievements hy eugenics in the near future, and declared that the results for which ougonists hope might not he noticeable for several hundred years. He emphasised the impossibility ~| attempting to regulate human mating hy legislation and deplored the popular misconception which credited eugenics with the design of abolishing romance and introducing cattle-breeding principles into the domestic affairs of human families. JC-iigenics did not favour file abolition of love. “If young people were always allowed to follow tile natural inclinations of their mating it would usually Ik; wise from the standpoint of eugenics, hut the many marriages which were made for wealth and social position did not tend to la-tter the human race.”