PHYSICAL AND MENTAL DECADENCE.

Shannon News, 14 April 1927, Page 4

PHYSICAL AND MENTAL DECADENCE.

Are we becoming “a scrub herd oi mongrels” .* Professor Julian Huxley thinks we are, and he believes that we should begin to “weed -and breed’’ — weed out the scrubs and breed some thing be tier. On the other hand, a medical writer in “The ■ Lancet" thinks that the race is growing better rather than worse, and ha s confidence that biological adjustment may automatically keep it in tune with new conditions as they arise. We should certainly help on this adjustment by “weeding and breeding.’’ but there is no necessity for drastic action prompted by unwise panic.

Says “’I he Lancet”:—The problem of mental deficiency in relation to tho health of the community in the present and tho future is beginning to attract the attention which it deserves. There arc. says Sir George Newman in a recent report, 33,000 children in England and Wales returned as mentally defective, and some 200,000 more as exceptionally dull and backward. Neglect of these children at the stage when something can be done for then- leads to a great mass of unemployability, industrial incapacity, delinquency, and even of crime when they grow up. As to the form which this control should take, opinions arc sharply divided. tl is only the Eugenics Education Society which has as yet had the courage to draw up an outline of a practical policy.

Birth Control And Eugenics. Broadly speaking, - there are two. schools of thought on the subject. One is fired by the new knowledge of heredity, vitamins, and the like, and observes how successfully biology has dealt with the parasites of man, animals and plants. It asks that our knowledge should be vigorously applied and that active reform should be instituted. Professor Huxley in particular urges the pressing urgency of doing something about birth control and the necessity, rather less immediate, perhaps, of a eugenic programme. He. views human increase ns inevitably leading to disaster, and would have us weed and breed our population as wo wcad our gardens and breed our cattle. The other'school is biological, too, though if consists more of naturalists than of experimentalists. It reflects oi} the'fact - shown by experience that animate nature is a wonderfully wellbalanced, and that the components live- in a harmonious adjustment with one another, which seems to be instinctive or automatic; that tho disturbance of this whole which follows tho disturbance of one of the parts is apt to extend to a breadth and length which we can not predict; and that' after such a disturbance the components will settle down into a new whole, which will-hfiw&sjstable as its 1 ’L.fe'll-.-, , . ."W,

forerunner until its constituents or surroundings are altered. It believes in fact, that live things regulate themselves quite well. Weeding And Breeding. Most ordinary people will w r ant some compromise. Biological knowledge is great, and hardly anyone will be prepared to give himself over to a life ordained and directed by biologists. It is sufficient to recall what' w r ould have happened if v r e had all kept strictly to the diet which the physiologists of Hi 10 -would havo told us was complete and adequate. They will agree that is very proper to weed your garden, but that it is rather dangerous to do it too thoroughly before you havo made up your mind quite clearly which plants you are going to class as “weeds.” They will agree that selective breeding might do as much for men as for cattle if we can settle what we are going to breed for before w r e begin. And if they arc of the sort which wants to do something, they will probably come to the conclusion that it would be good to pull up the very worst and undoubtedly -weeds and to leave the speed-well in the cabbagepatch for the sake of_ its beauty and cheerfulness, though it is not much use to eat, and to encourage the making of good and clever people without putting too many obstacles in the way of those who are not so obviously desirable but out of whom astonishingly fine children sometimes come. And of birth control they seem to know as much as is necessary already. Anyone with eyec to see can perceivo the progress w’hich our community as a whole has made—physically, mentally, morally and spiritually, it is a sight which more than anything else encourages those who look for further advance.

Professor Huxley tolls us that we “aro becoming a scrub herd of mongrels.” If it were in any degree true it would bo depressing; fortunately it It not.