immediately because of sickness. In these cases illness was the last straw that broke the camel's back. It has been estimated that the loss to the United States from preventable diseases amounts to $2,000,000,000 a year. Just what weight to allow these external factors of the physical environment it is impossible to say. They vary from place to place in any country, from occupation to occupation, and with the concurrence of other factors in the network of causation. Their importance varies also with the development of such devices as insurance and sanitation, safety devices and organizations for the protection of the health and safety of people. In the absence of data showing their statistical importance, we may say that common observation indicates that they play a considerable part at present in producing poverty and pauperism. HEREDITARY FACTORS No less important, perhaps, but more subject to man's control, are the hereditary factors which make for incapacity and therefore for poverty. Most of what we are potentially is that capacity which we inherit. With every child born there comes a heritage of abilities or incapacities which form the groundwork on which that life is built. On that foundation is reared the superstructure of achievement which makes a rich and useful personality. No less true is it that we also inherit weaknesses and tendencies which, in spite of all that can be done by society, render the individual incapable of the success possible to those with a better heritage. Enough studies have been made to prove that mental traits are hereditary. Francis Galton in his studies of the influence of heredity on men of genius, and F. A. W Woods, in his study of royalty, have shown that achievement runs in families In discussing the general results of his investigations of hereditary genius, Galton observes, "The general uniformity in the distribution of ability among kinsmen in the different groups is strikingly manifest. The eminent sons are almost invariably more numerous than the eminent brothers, and these are a trifle more numerous than the eminent fathers. On proceeding further down the table, we come 'Galton, Hereditary Genius, New York, 1871, especially Chap. XIX; Inquiries into Human Faculty, London, 1883 and 1907; F. A. Woods, Mental and Moral Heredity in Royalty, New York, 1906. to sudden dropping off of the numbers at the second grade of kinship, namely, at the grandfathers, uncles, nephews, and grandsons. . . He concludes, "There cannot, therefore, remain a doubt as to the existence of a law of distribution of ability in families, or that it is pretty accurately expressed by the figures in Column B, under the heading of eminent men of all classes.'" Remarking upon these observations of Galton, Thompson, the biologist, says: "The great generalization known as Galton's Law of Ancestral Inheritance, according to which inheritances are on the average made up of a half from the two parents, a quarter from the four grandparents, an eighth from the great-grandparents, and so on, may require some adjustment as regards the precise fractions, and in relation to cases of inter-crossing, but the general fact seems to have been well established, and it is eloquent. Taking it along with Professor Karl Pearson's evidence that the inheritance of psychical characters. can be formulated like that of physical characters, we are in a better position to understand what is called 'social solidarity' and 'social inertia.' We are able to realize more vividly how the past has a living hand on and in the present, even to feel, perhaps, that there is a danger of fallacy in insisting too much on either past or future, when we have to deal with the continuous stream of life. Mr. Galton's generalization makes reversions, survivals, recapitulations, and the like, more intelligible." He adds, "Now, the differences in hereditary endowment of strength or intelligence, of stature or longevity, of fertility or social disposition-have a certain regularity of distribution, so far as we can measure them at all." 2 Woods, in his study of inheritance in royalty, found the parents and offspring to show even a higher coefficient of correlation of mental ability than even Galton's Law would lead one to expect. In order to test whether this similarity is due to heredity or to the influence of similar environments, he correlated the mental ability of grandparents and their grandchildren. He says: "These give a correlation coefficient of 1528.0332. This is much higher than the theoretical r = .0750. Here for the first time we are able to observe the intellectual achievements of two groups of human beings who lived about a century apart from each other, usually in other surroundings, and frequently in parts of Europe quite remote from each other, yet who 1Galton, Hereditary Genius, p. 318. Thompson, Heredity, London, 1912, pp. 522, 523. are associated with each other in one point, and that blood connection." 1 Certainly these studies, together with those of Karl Pearson, of the Galton Laboratory in London, do show that ability is inherited in a remarkable manner. Is lack of ability or lack of capacity for the important work of life also inherited? From all the evidence at hand now from the study of defectives of one kind or another, it seems that a categorical affirmative can be returned. It is not held that all incapacity or defect of either physical or mental nature is inherited, but that some of it is inherited. The remainder is due to the influence of damaging circumstances to the developing being either before or after birth. Every study made of chronic paupers, of inebriates and of criminals has revealed a bad heredity in many of them. These studies of degenerate pauper families when first made confined themselves quite closely to simply pointing out that the characters of the progenitors were such and such, and that so many of their descendants had such and such similar characters. One of the first of such studies, and one which attracted wide attention both in this country and in Europe, was that of the so-called Juke family, by Dugdale, published in 1877. This study, while vitiated in some of its conclusions by the assumption that poverty and crime are inherited as such, brings out very strikingly that in the Juke family there was a weakness which was handed down in ever-increasing proportions when inbreeding occurred, and which led to a corresponding increase of pauperism. With this hereditary weakness went hand in hand the diseases entailed by vicious lives with the result of increasing dependency.2 Discussing his findings in the Juke family, Dugdale says, "Comparing by sexes the almshouse relief of the State at large with that of the 'Jukes,' we find seven and a half times more pauperism among their women than among the average of women for the State, among their men nine times more, while the average for both sexes of the 'Juke' and X blood (i. e., outsiders with whom the Jukes intermarried) together gives six and three-quarters times more paupers than the average for the State." 3 In 1892, Charles Booth published his studies of pauperism in London under the title of Pauperism and the Endowment of Old Age. 'F. A. Woods, Heredity in Royalty, New York, 1906, p. 277. 2 Dugdale, The Jukes, New York, 1910 pp. 28-39. 3 * Ibid., p. 30. In these studies, made on the basis of records of the relieving officers of various poor-law unions in London, Booth gives a number of stories of the cases which had been relieved over a period of years. Chapter II in this book is entitled "Stories of Stepney Pauperism. These stories, which are written from the facts given in the case records of the Stepney Union Workhouse and allied institutions, reveal the interrelation of bad surrounding social conditions and bad heredity. Story after story shows how the tendency to laziness, immorality, irregular employment, drunkenness and sickness, with their resulting recourse to the public poor relief authorities, run in certain families. Incapacity runs like a thread from father to son or daughter and on down the line, as well as in the kinship. See, for example, Booth's story of the now famous Rooney family.1 This is only one of almost a score of families of similar history in debauchery, drunkenness and pauperism. A recent study in Virginia by the State Board of Charities has revealed in some county poorhouses as many as four generations of the same family. Other studies made in various parts of the world, such as the Zeros in Switzerland, the Tribe of Ishmael in Indiana, the Smoky Pilgrims in Kansas, and the Hill Folk and the Nam Family studied by Davenport, show how incapacity runs from generation to generation. Of the Hill Folk, one of the most recent of these studies, Davenport says, "We are dealing with a rural community such as can be found in nearly, if not quite, every county in the older states of the Union, in which nearly all of the people belong to the vague class of the 'feeble-minded'-the incapable. The individuals vary much in capacity, a result which follows from the complexity of their germ plasm. Some have capacities that can be developed under proper conditions, but for many more even the best of environmental conditions can do little." Miss Danielson says of this study, "The following report is the result of an investigation of two family trees in a small Massachusetts town. It aims to show how much crime, misery and expense may result from the union of two defective individuals-how a large number of the present court frequenters, paupers and town nuisances are connected by a significant network of relationship." She adds, "Into one corner of this attractive town there came, about 1800, a 1 Booth, Pauperism, pp. 14-15. 'Mental Defectives in Virginia, pp. 37-50. 4 Davenport and Danielson, The Hill Folk, 1910, p. 5. shiftless basket maker. About the same time an Englishman, also from the western hills, bought a small farm in the least fertile part of the town. The progeny of these two men, old Neil Rasp, and the Englishman, Nuke, have sifted through the town and beyond it. Everywhere they have made desolate, alcoholic homes which have furnished the state wards for over fifty years, and have required town aid for a longer time." 1 Miss Danielson studied the number and expense for the relief of the Hill people in this town for two decades. She says, "In the first decade 9.3 per cent of the town's bill for paupers was paid for the Hill families. In the second decade 29.1 per cent of the total bill was paid for the same families or their descendants. During the thirty years covered by these decades, the total aid given to paupers increased 69.4 per cent, but that given to the Hill families increased 430 per cent." 2 In another study of a degenerate rural community, called the Nam Family, in New York State, Davenport and Estabrook investigated 1.795 persons in the kindred. They studied the trait of indolence in this group. They say concerning the results of this study, "Our data afford us a number of families where both parents are indolent, others where both are industrious. We have tabulated the fraternities, 30 in number, derived from two industrious parents, without regard to grandparents. Of a total of 82 known children from such matings, 73, or 90 per cent, are industrious. When, on the other hand, both parents are indolent, no regard being had to grandparents, then out of a total of 34 known children, 26 are unindustrious, or 76.5 per cent." 3 In order to ascertain whether these Nams were what they were by reason of their blood or by reason of their environment, a study was made of a branch of the family which migrated to Minnesota at an early day and have lived there ever since. The authors of this study conclude as follows on this question: "What, then, has been the effect of the changed environment on these individuals? Do the individuals and their offspring, reared in a new and better environment, resemble their parents and show the characteristics of the blood? Or has a new and better environment such as exists in this county in Minnesota (where an equal chance was given to all) improved their condition? . . . The same mental traits which characterize the Nams Davenport and Danielson, The Hill Folk, 1910, p. 1. 1 2 Ibid., pp. 14, 15. Davenport and Estabrook, The Nam Family, Cold Spring Harbor, 1912, pp. 66, 67. |