The Daily News. MONDAY, AUGUST 29. FIT AND UNFIT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 120, 29 August 1910, Page 4

The Daily News. MONDAY, AUGUST 29. FIT AND UNFIT.

In theorising on the reason for the winning of a mere boat-race by New Zealander Arnst the other day, we insensibly touched' the root of eugenics in asserting that to be "well-born" in its physical sense was the greatest boon that any human being could have. In dealing with a subject of such tremendous significance, if/ has always to be remembered that a proportion of people wilfully misconstrue and attach evil significance to earnest truth. A New Zealand branch of the London Society of Eugenics has lately been established at Dunedin, its reason being to throw light on the allimportant subject of sex. If such a society is really and truly to work for the furtherance of knowledge, not only among its members but among the people, its utility cannot be exaggerated. Mr. Grinling, at the inaugural meeting of the new branch in Dunedin, made the following, most important remarks:—

The eugenics aimed at enlightening ignorance upon the important and essential subject of sex. In speaking of the need of informing boys and girls about certain truths, he said that timely and effectual truth-telling should commence in the home, its foundation be laid by the parents, for in the absence of such foundations the school teacher was almost powerless. Here they touched upon one of the most difficult and delicate enterprises upon which the eugenist was impelled to embark. The root reason why sex subjects were not generally talked about between father and son, between mother and daughter, was because of fear. Eugenics invoked the aid of scientific research to put that fear to flight.' It brought to liqht the truth concerning the existing state of things, its injustice, its waste of human happ'ness. The evil needed no stressing; it was sufficiently apparent. It devolved upon a society like that to suggest the best remedy. The broad facts of health and life, the existence of certain dangers, needed clearly and plainly setting forth—first to parents and teachers, and through them to the children. Experience showed that in that matter books had a superior value —the printed page was an impersonal counsellor. Sooner or later every boy, every girl, must awaken. It was important to secure that the awakening should not come too soon, nor amid ugly surroundings, but it was absolutely essential that it should not be an awakening of ignorance. He concluded by remarking that over-zeal by hasty action would do harm by holding out expectations of a near golden age which would certainly be falsified, and cause the science to be discredited. The first and main point was to secure the general acceptance of eugenics as a hopeful and most important study.

I Dr. Benham, treating the subject from its scientific standpoint, put forward the incontrovertible assertion that the greatest function of the human kind was parenthood. He differentiated between "nurture and nature," in order to demonstrate the fact that nature passed characteristics from parent to child, possibly during one generation or with lapses. It has been conclusively proved time and time again that nature is irrevocable, that rio system of philanthropy or teaching or preaching, can eliminate, natural defects that have been sown be- ■ fore the birth of the human animal. The medical man showed that the highest aim of eugenics was not to attempt the impossible in trying" to correct errors of nature—or, perhaps one would say, not to seek with perfect futility to decrease the punishment of nature for transgression of her laws—but to encourage the healthy, mentally and physically, to marry and beget children. The subject is so frequently regarded as one only for the discussion of scholars in private that it is refreshing to observe that there is now a distinct tendency to open discussion. A public sentiment is requisite before the essential action ean be undertaken. If it is understood that irrevocable nature will inevitably produce evil fruit from evil stock, it must be admitted without equivocation that propagation' from evil, stock should cease. Nature unquestionably produces larger crops from the unfit human being than from the fit, and this is by way of weakening the stock through successive generations by way of eventually eliminating the unfit. The true eugenist would therefore make it impossible for the State to sanction the marriage of the unfit, T)ut it is evident to even the slightest thinker that this in itself could not lead to their elimination. That is to say, the unfit does not need State sanction for permission to procreate. We are*of opinion that there is at the present moment in New Zealand no man or hody of men into whose hands the power should be placed of prohibiting matrimony. And to go further, there are no persons in New Zealand who could fulfil the trust of making it physically impossible for the alleged unfit to produce their kind. Further still, it has not yet been definitely proved that all the children of the unfit ore likewise unfit or evil. Nature loves variety, and although scientists may cite cases in which whole families, in conformity with their parents, are wholly unfit to live and propagate, they can also point to innumerable instances where whole families or individuals of them are unlike the parents mentally and physically. It is a wellknown scientific fact, for instance, that "the sins of the fathers are visited on the children, etc.," but it is also a proved j contention that in hereditary disease, even though a first child may have a taint that will poison its life, succeeding children may be normal in body. Canon Curzon-Siggers, at that inaugural meeting which is the text of these remarks, said that the insane, the weaJt-minded, and the diseased l should not be permitted to produce their 'kiocL The point is to ' definitely prove that candidates for 'matrimony are either insane, weak-mind- ' ed or diseased. To whom will the great trust of deciding such tremendous questions be given? A case In point. A week or two ago a young man who had Ibeen in a lunatic asylum in Auckland murdered his father' with a sword in

Cornwall. The father was a military medical man. He decided that the son was cured of his mental disease. Is it not possible that this homicidal maniac, if he were a candidate for matrimony before a 'board of medical men, might easily be given permission to marry ? is •it not also possible that any young man similarly circumstanced, even though he were not given permission to marry, might still produce his kind; and is it possible to definitely decide that the children of such a parent would have homicidal mania, or any other species of mental aberration? These earnest teachers of eugenics, it is sincerely hoped, will have for the basis of the work a decision that theorising, among themselves can have no influence in making people, ' either "well-born" or influencing "wellborn" people to marry their kind and to produce their like; that the whole public is to be taken into the confidence of the workers; and that the enthusiasm of the teachers will be so great that it will create public opinion antagonistic to the marriage of the proved unfit. If knowledge can grow to the point of absolute decision as to who is and who is not fit to marry, and if all classes of society will accept the decision of science, then those who are decided: to be unfit might be dealt with in the only way dictated by common sense.