Parenthood and Race Culture
REVIEWS AND CRITICISM.
- Author:
Saleeby, M.D. New York:
Moffat, Yard & Co., 1909.
Dr Saleeby, whose excursion into journalistic medicine as an upholder of a so-called cancer-cure may readily be pardoned him in consideration of his really valuable later work, calls himself a eugenist, and as such has written a book on parenthood and race culture which should be a real help to those who are trying to solve the social problem in its complicated moral relation to human society. The term eugenist in the popular mind stands for a startling revolutionary materialist, but so far at least as Dr Saleeby and his school are concerned, a eugenist is a man who is devoting heart and mind to the improvement of the race, a man who believes that only by using the scientific knowledge of to-day to provide a better race for to-morrow, can we do our duty and justify our existence. The moral and intellectual, the spiritual and ethical qualities of human nature are the ones pre-eminently for which to strive, but the physical side cannot be neglected because of its influence on the psychic. This in brief is the creed in which Dr Saleeby and his predecessor, Mr. Galton, believe, and apart from a rather unpleasant nomenclature, which it would in no wise injure the purport of the book to omit, there is nothing either startling or materialistic aboiit his philosophy. The book is constructive rather than destructive, and aims towards establishing a plan of action which, if followed, will do away in the future with some of the most difficult and depressing of our present conditions. We may note here Dr Saleeby’s quotation from Mr. Galton: “The aim of eugenics fe to bring as many influences as can be reasonably employed, to cause the useful classes in the community to contribute more than their proportion to the next generation.”
The first half of the book is devoted to a discussion of development of the race, the historical tracing of the natural law of selection which has produced progress, and the discussion of those elementary qualities which have the greatest “survival value”. He discusses at length the question of the value of education versus, or1 rather combined with, heredity, and here it may be of interest to quote?”Let not the reader, therefore, suppose that in the advocacy of eugenics or race-culture we have become blinded to the possibilities offered us by reasonable education even of the very heterogeneous material offered us by heredity. Yet it must be maintained that, though we cannot do without education, and though something infinitely better than we practice at present will be necessary if the ideal of race-culture is ever to be realized, yet education alone, however good, can never enable us to achieve our end.” “We have to learn, however, that the analogy is not one of addition but of multiplication. Neither inheritance nor environment, as such, gives anything.
The environment factor may be potentially one hundred?an ideal education?but the innate or inherited factor may be nothing, as when the pupil is a door-mat or a fool. The result then is nothing. Darwin had the trombone played to a plant, but he did not make a Palestrina. No academy of music will make a beetroot into a Beethoven, though I daresay a well-trained beetroot might write a musical comedy. The point is that one hundred multiplied by nothing equals nothing. Similarly, the innate factor may be one hundred, as in the case of a potential genius, but he may be brought up upon alcohol and curses amongst savages, and the result again is nothing.”
Dr Saleeby does not ally the eugenist with any school of thought, and in speaking of Socialism he says?”We cannot agree with Socialism when, as we think, it assumes that all evil is of economic or educational origin. The student of heredity finds elements of evil abundant in poisoned germ-plasm and not absent from the best. Surely, surely, the products of progress are not mechanisms but men; and surely no economic system as such can be the only mechanism worth naming?which would be one that made men.” Dr Saleeby lays stress upon the psychic, moral, spiritual or emotional value as you choose to describe it, of parenthood, as against those philosophers who believe in the human stud-farm. He describes the historical development of the parental attitude from the earliest creatures to man, and says distinctly that in proportion as the parental care has developed, so has the species also improved and progressed. He says in speaking of the supremacy of motherhood?”it is worth noting that motherhood cannot safely be superseded. I do not believe in the creche or the municipal milk depot except as stop-gaps, or as object-lessons for those who imagine that the slaughtered babies are not slaughtered but die of inherent defect, and that therefore infant mortality is a eugenic process. In working for the reduction of this evil we must work through and by motherhood. In some future age, displaying the elements of sanity, our girls will be instructed in these matters.” His views upon monogamic marriage are exceedingly sane and based upon high ideals. After discussing the development of the marriage relation through the animals and the earlier races, he says?”The point especially to be insisted upon as regards even animal marriage is its evident service to their race-culture, in accordance with the principle here laid down that marriage is of value because it supports motherhood and fatherhood, and that its different forms are of value in proportion as they do so more or less effectively.” In speaking of human marriage he says?”We must turn now to human marriage, and the principle which we must remember is that of survival value. We are discussing a natural phenomenon exhibited by living creatures. This is what so few people realize when they speak of marriage. They cannot disabuse themselves of the idea that it is a human invention, and especially an ecclesiastical invention. Thus, on one hand, it is supported by persons who base its claims on mystical or dogmatic grounds; whilst, on the other hand, it is attacked by those who are opposed to ecclesiasticism or religion of any kind, and attacked in the name of science?in which, if the fact could only be recognized, is found every possible warrant and sanction, and indeed imperative demand, for this most precious of all institutions. Here we must endeavor to look upon it as an exceedingly ancient fact of life, vastly more ancient than mankind; and judging it and explaining it we must apply Nature’s universal criterion, which is that of its survival-value or service to race-culture.”
The second half of the book is devoted to the discussion of the practical means which we have at hand to produce the desired result. These means he divides into two parts, negative eugenics and positive eugenics. “Positive eugenics must largely take the form at present of removing such disabilities as now weigh upon the desirable members of the community, especially of the prudent sort.” For instance, he points out that the income tax provisions especially under the laws of England tend towards making the burdens of the married much greater than those of the unmarried. “It is in negative eugenics,” he feels, “that we can accomplish most at this stage, and in so doing can steadily educate public opinion.” “There is a field for action which does not demand a general revolution, nor does it require us to wait for certainty until the facts, the laws of heredity, etc., have been fully illustrated.” “As Thoreau observes, for a thousand who are lopping off the branches of an evil there is but one striking at its roots. If we strike at the roots of certain grave and costly evils of the present day, we shall abundantly demonstrate that this is a matter of the most vital economy.”
Dr Saleeby speaks of the problem of the multiplication, largely by inheritance, of the deaf and dumb, the feebleminded, the insane, the criminal, the epileptic. While he feels very strongly about allowing such individuals the right to multiply, his recommendations about surgical or other radical interventions are safe and conservative. He makes one point which seems exceedingly useful and worthy of close study. “This point, as to the amount of hardship involved in the observance of negative race-culture, has always to be kept in mind. If negative eugenics were generally enforced upon a given generation some persons would, of course, suffer in greater or less degree from the disabilities imposed upon them. But their number would depend upon the neglect of eugenics by previous generations, and thereafter the number of those upon whom our principles pressed hardly would be relatively minute.” “Negative eugenics will seek to define the diseases and defects which are really hereditary, to name those the transmission of which is already certainly known to occur, and to raise the average of the race by interfering as far as may be with the parenthood of persons suffering from these transmissible disorders.” Recognizing the monogamic marriage as the ideal way of continuing the race, he believes that in educating the race towards realizing the responsibility of parenthood, we will obtain the highest result of natural selection. He believes that this process has, as a matter of fact, been going on unconsciously for many generations. How much more will it not accomplish when consciously and conscientiously directed! He has several practical suggestions to make toward this end which it would be impossible to quote at length.
Next come the chapters devoted to the racial poisons, alcohol, lead, narcotics and syphilis. To the first he devotes most time as being perhaps still the most debatable ground. His argument is that parenthood must be forbidden to the dipsomaniac, the chronic inebriate, or the drunkard, whether male or female. His argument is distinctly in line with the little book entitled “Alcohol” by Dr Henry Smith Williams, which has just been published and will prove interesting and instructive reading to any who care to go more particularly into the subject. About the other poisons he speaks more briefly, and commends to those who wish to know more about it, books on the individual subjects. He gives valuable hints to the medical profession and speaks in many parts of the book of the need of more knowledge on many of the physical and psychological questions involved. A very interesting chapter is devoted to the question of the historical development of race culture and the promise of race culture. And following are a useful appendix with many authorities quoted, a full index and some mention of the various societies which can supply one with literature by those who are working towards eugenic education.
The somewhat didactic method in which Dr1. Saleeby states certain rather debatable questions is to be regretted in so far as it detracts from the permanent value of the book which is a practical philosophy on which to base action rather than a scientific treatise. The main plan and purpose of the book is clear and reasonable and fine, but the author’s personal beliefs about many subjects are rather irrelevant and unessential, and not always firmly based upon undisputed knowledge. His treatment of the question of heredity may be cited as an instance of the above, many pages being taken up in discussing the terms which describe that which we may and may not bequeath to our children. Like all enthusiasts, like all prophets, the spirit and the result to be striven for are so clearly before Dr Saleeby as he writes that sometimes the paths of logic whereby he has reached the rock of decision are somewhat obscure to the reader. The book is aimed to reach teachers, parents, and practical social workers, indeed all who have the good of the community at heart. M. G. F.
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