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OCR Rendition - approximate
Eugenics as a Greed and the Last Decade of Galton's Fife 299 albinism in man has been going on for three years and is far from completed; it is precisely so with the tuberculosis and insanity researches. No Fellow in his one or two years of work could attempt to complete a six years' research of this kind, but he could help in carrying on such work, and publish during his period of office such researches as happened to be nearing completion. I think in this way he might keep the eugenics idea before the public; but the scheme is essentially based upon the "secular" accumulation of data and' continuity in the direction of the office such as we have had here in our biometric work. If you think I could aid in such a plan I will do so willingly, and am ready to place at the disposal of your office such inquiries as we have in band relating to man, but I should need to control the manner in which the data were reduced, and see that the material which has taken considerable time and much energy to collect was properly dealt with. On the other hand I am conscious that much maybe done on eugenic lines apart from biometric methods, if you can only get the right man, but it is doubtful whether there would be continuity in the work or any permanent collecting of records. Still an able man would advertise the subject much better than I can do with many other claims on my energies, and I do not wish to minimise this aspect of the matter. I will always under any conditions of your Office, give it what aid lies in my power and you may wish for. My hope would be that, if you let matters slide for a little now, you will be ready and able to take up the directive work again in a few months' time. I have no idea what Lister will say, but I expect it will be a protracted fight ! There is another man asking all sorts of questions in the Times to-day ! Affectionately yours, KARL PEARSON. It will not be needful to print more than one other letter from me regarding the association of the Eugenics Record Office with the Biometric Laboratory, namely, that of placing before Galton the draft plan of the "Galton Laboratory for National Eugenics " (see below, pp. 304-307). I do this to indicate that the lines on which that Laboratory has been run since Galton's death were settled by the letters which passed between us in 1906, and to remind the reader that the Galton Laboratory was actually started early in 1907 under its present Director, and except in the matter of greater power and. activity was not modified in any essential manner by Galton's death in 1911. It is, perhaps, unnecessary to state that the text of Galton's will of 1908 and the codicil to the same will dated 1909 were not those which the following letters indicate that he put before me for criticism in 1906; the latter belonged to a will of the same year. The substance of the final paragraph of the codicil of May 25, 1909, was first made known to me by Galton's executors. While in 1911 I was glad and proud to be elected Galton Professor, especially as it was in accordance with Galton's wish, it was with much hesitation that I took over in 1906 the voluntary task of supervising his Eugenics Office. Above all things I dreaded that any difference of view between us as to work should in the slightest impair what to me was a most perfect friendship. It is a sign of Galton's generosity and large-mindedness that although he remained thoroughly interested in what we did, he never once attempted in the least to control us or to express anything but keen satisfaction in our proceedings. When I recall that Galton was always a man of very definite opinions, that the science of Eugenics was his creation not mine, and lastly that in these four years of my supervision Galton passed from 84 to 88 years of age,-a time when the majority of those who survive grow querulous and 38-2
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