is sure to be unfavorably impressed by the book unless he keeps constantly in mind the author's purpose.

Introductory to the chapter on "The Inheritance of Family Traits" are two chapters. In the first, eugenics is defined, its nature indicated, and its general procedure suggested. This chapter is brief but not very effective. The second chapter, under the title "The Method of Eugenics," presents still less satisfactorily, in the opinion of the reviewer, an account of the mechanism of heredity, of its laws, and of the application of these laws to eugenics.

At the beginning of this chapter, the author partially reveals his motive.

To get at the facts [of human heredity] it is necessary to study the progeny of human marriages. Now marriage can be and is looked at from many points of view: in novels, as the climax of human courtship; in law, largely as a union of two lines of property-descent; in society, as fixing a certain status; but in eugenics, which considers its biological aspect, marriage is an experiment in breeding; and the children, in their varied combinations of characters, give the result of the experiment. That marriage should still be only an experiment in breeding, while the breeding of many animals and plants has been reduced to a science, is ground for reproach. Surely the human product is superior to that of poultry; and as we may now predict with precision the characters of the offspring of a particular pair of pedigreed poultry so may it sometime be with man. As we now know how to make almost any desired combination of characters of guinea-pigs, chickens, wheats, and cottons so may we hope to do with man [p. 7].

It is unfortunate that the introductory discussion of the nature, aims, and methods of eugenics should not be more readable. Possibly it is because the author's mental pattern is extremely different from the reviewer's that the latter finds chap. ii both uninteresting and difficult to follow. Certainly an account of the mechanism of heredity is important for this book and should be adapted to the unbiological reader.

Turning to the latter portion of the book, we find six chapters which together contain less pages (90) than the single chapter on "The Inheritance of Family Traits." These several chapters bear the titles "The Geographic Distribution of Inheritable Traits," "Migrations and Their Eugenic Significance," "The Influence of the Individual on the Race," "The Study of American Families," "Eugenics and Euthenics," and "The Organization of Applied Eugenics."

In considering the relation of geographic distribution to heredity, the author discusses the effects of consanguinity in marriage and of physiographic and social barriers. Important among the former are

water and topography; among the latter, social status, language, race, and religion.

The chapter which deals with migration in its relations to eugenics briefly characterizes the primitive, early, and recent migrations and immigrations. An attempt is then made to characterize the races which are today contributing to the stream of immigrants to America. In the list are included Irish, Germans, Scandinavians, AustroHungarians, Hebrews, Italians, Poles, and Portuguese.

Summarizing his review of recent conditions of immigration, Dr. Davenport writes:

It appears that, unless conditions change of themselves or are radically changed, the population of the United States will, on account of the great influx of blood from southeastern Europe, rapidly become darker in pigmentation, smaller in stature, more mercurial, more attached to music and art, more given to crimes of larceny, kidnaping, assault, murder, rape, and seximmorality and less given to burglary, drunkenness, and vagrancy than were the original English settlers. Since of the insane in hospitals there are relatively more foreign-born than native it seems probable that, under present conditions, the ratio of insanity in the population will rapidly increase [p. 921].

Under the topic "Control of Immigration," a plan for the gathering of eugenic facts is proposed. It provides that fieldworkers, distributed over the world, shall investigate the family history of every applicant for naturalization in the United States. The estimated annual cost of this work is $510,000, but, as the author remarks, "compared with the annual expenditure of over $100,000,000 in this country to take care of our defectives this amount seems small and would be well invested, for, within a decade, the annual saving to our institutions would pay for the work" (p. 223).

The influence of the individual on the race is interestingly exhibited by an account of Elizabeth Tuttle, the first families of Virginia, the Kentucky aristocracy, the Jukes, the Ishmaelites, and the Baker family.

In the chapter on "The Study of American Families," the author lays special stress upon the integrity of family traits. He thus characterizes the idea that our traits are inherited in constantly diminishing degree from parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc.

This way of looking at heredity is a relic of a former view that a trait when mated to its absence produced a half-trait in the progeny as skin color was considered to do, and which gave rise to the conception of quadroons, octaroons, etc., with successive lightening of the skin to one fourth, one eight, and so on. Now that we know that even skin color may segregate out in the

ancestral full grades we are ready to accept as practically universal the rule that unit characters do not blend; that apparent blends in a trait are a consequence of its composition out of many units. Since this is so, a unit character (especially a negative character) which a remote ancestor possessed may reappear, after many generations have passed, in its pristine purity. A germ plasm that produced a mathematical genius only once, a century ago, may produce another not less noteworthy again [p. 249].

Not until the reader comes to the chapter on "Eugenics and Euthenics" does he find a suggestion of the possible influence of environment on man. Possibly the author has done well to keep heredity in the foreground instead of confusing the reader by admitting that we cannot be absolutely certain whether a given trait, or condition of trait, is due to nature, to nurture, or in part to each. However this may be, chap. viii makes it perfectly clear that the author is not blind to environmental influences. Perhaps he underestimates their rôle; possibly he overestimates the applicability of the laws of heredity upon which he bases his eugenic recommendations. At any rate, it is inevitable that a reader who turns from such a book as Thomson's Heredity to Davenport's Heredity in Its Relation to Eugenics will deem the latter one-sided, possibly even unfair to the facts now well established.

Extremely important to the advocate of eugenic measures is the concluding chapter, in which the author strongly urges the desirability of eugenic surveys. He suggests that state surveys to provide us with adequate information concerning families might be made by the teachers of our public schools and he meets objection that this is impracticable by the statement that, in the state of New Jersey, such a survey is being conducted by state institutions and largely on the basis of individual initiative. So far as the reviewer knows, the teachers of the state have not been employed generally or systematically in the gathering of data.

Finally, attention is called to the existence, at Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, of a eugenics record office in which are being accumulated and filed, for convenient examination and safe keeping, the family histories, and other materials bearing on human heredity, which can be obtained through individuals or institutions. The office supplies blanks for a record of family traits and, also, for special traits as they appear in a number of generations. This office has the additional functions which are indicated by the concluding sentences of Heredity in Relation to Eugenics:

The Eugenics Record Office wishes to co-operate with institutions and state boards of control in organizing the study of defectives and criminalistic

strains in each state. It will offer suggestions as to the organization of local societies devoted to the study of eugenics. It proffers its services free of charge to persons seeking advice as to the consequences of proposed marriage matings. In a word, it is devoted to the advancement of the science and practice of Eugenics [p. 271].

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

ROBERT M. YERKES

Penal Servitude. By E. STAGG WHITIN. New York: National Committee on Prison Labor, 1912.

The title of the book indicates the point of attack on the contract system of prison labor. The preface expresses the hope that the campaign against this system will be continued "until it can be said with truth that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, not even as a punishment for crime, exists within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction." By "servitude" the author seems to mean a condition in which the labor of the prisoner is exploited to his detriment for the advantage of contractors. He surely cannot mean that a convict is to be left in entire freedom, on an equality with lawabiding citizens, or that he is to be permitted to remain idle if he is unwilling to work. He declares that "the status of the convict is that of one in penal servitude-the last surviving vestige of the old slave system." Whether this epithet helps to an understanding of the subject each reader must judge for himself; certain it is that no substitute for enforced labor is proposed by the author; and it is also certain that, so long as a man is deprived of freedom as punishment for crime, or for his own reformation, or for social protection, it will seem to him very much like "involuntary servitude," no matter what novel name is found for the situation. The book does give convincing evidence that penalty should be economically administered, that by probation and parole the time of incarceration should be shortened as much as possible, consistent with justice; but for some, so far as we can now see, involuntary labor will remain necessary.

Dr. Whitin urges (p. 8) that it is the duty of the state to provide labor for all convicts, labor which will not compete with free labor; and that the prisoner should "return to the state the full amount of his cost to it, and support his wife and children." Perhaps he would add indemnity for damages to the parties injured. It is the duty of the state to do what is possible in this direction, but duty does not include the impossible. What should be included in cost to the state? The cost of police, courts, prison buildings, administration, or the indi

vidual convict's share of this cost? The book is not clear on this point and offers no estimate or method of making an estimate. It might, perhaps, for all we know, cost a hundred years or more of labor for many a criminal to pay back what he has robbed or ruined by his misdeeds. All that we can do is to make the industry of prisoners as productive as possible, and to encourage each convict to good conduct by a gratuity measured somewhat by his industry and other desirable qualities. But to promise him wages is to promise him the moon; for no wages fund, in the strict business sense, is created.

There is, indeed, a glowing and rosy optimism about the financial results to be expected from the "state-use system." That system is one toward which modern thought and practice are moving. It eliminates outside interference with prison discipline; it is the form of organization which is best adapted to educational training of young men for industries to which they are best fitted by nature and habit. Whether it can be made lucrative to the state remains to be discovered. worth a fair trial. But the evidence furnished in this volume, while very suggestive and encouraging, is not convincing. Indeed, nothing but experiment, under favorable circumstances, can provide proof in the scientific sense. Under the dominant "spoils system" of politics success will remain impossible.

It is

The state-use system thus far has been, in general, a sorry failure, from a financial standpoint. If our author has presented the European experience in this field we should see that this system is quite general on the other side of the Atlantic, and that many able administrators approve it; but that it is a costly method, as there seen, and that it presents difficulties which are admitted by its best friends. It may reduce somewhat direct and concentrated competition with the market of products of free labor, but how far no one can estimate with accuracy; it does not altogether quiet the criticisms of trade unions and manufacturers, who eagerly desire the business of supplying state institutions, army, and navy with needed commodities.

Therefore, while in full sympathy with the purpose of the author, and while desiring the introduction of the state-use system, one must hope that the bright and earnest secretary of the National Prison Committee will continue his studies, and strengthen his argument. For what he has already done in discovering and uncovering gross and inexcusable evils of administration he deserves abundant praise; and his constructive propositions are based on sound principles.

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

CHARLES R. HENDERSON