Practical Eugenics.17
Section II.
Practical Eugenics.
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS UPON “ EDUCATION
BEFORE PROCREATION.”
(Abstract.)
By Adolphe Pinard,
Professor at the Faculty; Member of the Academy of Medicine of
Paris.
Sir Francis Galton has entitled Eugenics the new science having for its
object the study of the causes subject to social control which can improve or
impair the racial qualities of future generations, whether physical or mental.
Eugenics, thus defined, is nothing else but “ Education before Pro
creation,” which has been studied in France for a number of years, and
which constitutes the first part of child-culture, “ a science having for its
object the search for information relative to the reproduction, preservation,
and improvement of the human species ”(*).
The Congress ought then to have for its object to work for the investiga
tion of the conditions necessary to secure a favourable procreation. Now,
it appears that the word “ Eugenics,” from the etymological point of view,
does not characterise either explicitly or sufficiently the proposed object,
while the word “ Eugennique,” of yerjTjouo, at once recalls to the
mind the idea of a favourable procreation(2).
It is part of the duty of our first principal sitting to lay down a rule
upon this point.
Certainly, biological, sociological, and historical researches, laws and
social customs regarded in their relations with the science of Eugenics,
are necessary and will undoubtedly result in extremely interesting data, but
from now it is above all things urgent to establish and proclaim eugenic
principles. Researches relating to physiological heredity and pathological heredity
ought to be pursued without interruption, but it is necessary to make known
(1) v. De la Puériculture in Revue Scientifique, 1897.
(2) Besides, the word “Eugenics” recalls in France a chemical term; eugenic- acid.
