menace, to open new paths and possibilities, in the interest of the
generations still to come. One may present the whole matter in a
simplified picture by imagining all our statesmen, our philanthropists
and public men, our parties and institutions gathered into one great
hall, and into this hall a huge spout, that no man can stop, discharges
a baby every eight seconds. That is, I hold, a permissible picture of
human life, and whatever is not represented at all in that picture is a
divergent and secondary concern. Our success or failure with that
unending stream of babies is the measure of our civilization; every
institution stands or falls by its contribution to that result, by the
improvement of the children born, or by the improvement in the quality
of births attained under its influence.

To begin these speculations in logical order we must begin at the birth
point, we must begin by asking how much may we hope, now or at a later
time, to improve the supply of that raw material which is perpetually
dumped upon our hands? Can we raise, and if so, what can we do to raise
the quality of the average birth?

This speculation is as old at least as Plato, and as living as the
seven or eight babies born into the English-speaking world since the
reader began this Paper. The conclusion that if we could prevent or
discourage the inferior sorts of people from having children, and if we
could stimulate and encourage the superior sorts to increase and
multiply, we should raise the general standard of the race, is so
simple, so obvious, that in every age I suppose there have been voices
asking in amazement, why the thing is not done? It is so usual to
answer that it is not done on account of popular ignorance, public
stupidity, religious prejudice or superstition, that I shall not
apologize for giving some little space here to the suggestion that in