328 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
pality ; in American cities it must at first be taken by the Charity Organization Society or some kindred association.
4. A social policy relating to the Dependent Group must include an extension of experiments with positive social selection. Each year competent thinkers come nearer to agreement on this principle, although it is not so clear that we have yet hit upon the most effective devices in its application. It is more than formerly assumed that persons who cannot improve, or at least will not degrade, the physical and psychical average of the race, should be prevented, so far as possible, from propagating their kind. Acci- dental and sporadic deflections downward from the average would still occur; but one of the principal causes of race-deterioration would cease at the source.
The device of extermination by painless death has not been seriously discussed among the competent.
The device of sterilization has been frequently suggested, and, in a few instances, chiefly on the ground of advantage to the indi- vidual, it has been employed. There is nothing absurd, cruel, or impracticable in this proposition, although it would be helpful only within a limited area at best, and would not make segregation unnecessary, since even a sterilized degenerate can do injury by example and actions. It could be useful only upon the recom- mendation of a medical administrator and in the case of persons isolated from social contacts.
A beginning has been made with the device of the custodial colony for segregation, already in quite general use with the insane, the feeble-minded, the epileptic. The idea is not absolutely new, but the scientific grounds and economic methods have not yet been worked out in a way to frame a cogent argument and appeal to electors and legislators. We must still interpret the partial and tentative experiments already made so as to throw light on extended applications of the principle. Until the entire com- munity, or at least the governing majority, has accepted this policy with open eyes and united will, we must expect to pay the heavy costs of neglect.
Conviction of the importance of a rational and humane policy of social selection has been diluted, and aggressive effort has been
