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Eugenics as a Creed and the Last Decade of Galton's Life 223

(b) To institute and carry on such investigations into the history of classes and families as may be calculated to promote the knowledge of Eugenics.

"(c) To prepare and present to the Committee, though not necessarily for publication, an annual Report on his work [to be done under general direction of the Committee]. To give from time to time, if required or approved by the Committee, short Courses of Lectures on Eugenics, and in particular on his own investigations thereon.

"(d) To prepare for publication at such times and in such manner as may be approved by the Committee (and at least at the end of his tenure of the Fellowship), a Memoir or Memoirs on the investigations which he has carried out."

The origin of the trend on which the Galton Laboratory of National Eugenics was developed later will be found in this Draft Scheme.

The University Senate on October 17th accepted the Draft Scheme without emendation, voted its - cordial thanks to Francis Galton for his gift, and appointed as a Special Committee to recommend a Fellow and afterwards direct him*, Sir Edward Busk, Mr Mackinder, Francis Galton and myself. It also directed the Principal to issue an advertisement of the Fellowship and its conditions. This Sir Arthur Riicker did, but either out of sheer perversity, ' or through some clerical error, the word " morally " was substituted for " mentally " in the definition, and National Eugenics appeared in the advertisement as',' the study of agencies under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations either physically or morally." Quite recently this absurd definition was communicated to me by a member of the executive of the University as the work of the Special Committee ! It has, I believe, no standing whatever, except that of an advertisement issued by the executive', for which neither Galton, nor the Special Committee, had any responsibility. Galton, in his Herbert Spencer Lecture at Oxford in 1907, cites the definition correctly, and in his Memories of my Life, 1908 (p. 321), he writes that Eugenics is officially defined in the Minutes of the University of London as " the study of agencies under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations either physically or mentally." I do not know whether this definition fully covered his original views or not. I only know of one occasion on which during his life he departed 'in public from it. This was during a talk with an interviewer from the Jewish Chronicle, July 20, 1910. He then defined Eugenics with a slight difference as "the study of the conditions under human control which improve or impair the inborn characteristics of the races. It

There was too much " direction " about the scheme as originally planned. Galton, as I have previously remarked (see p. 135 above), was in my judgment too fond of working through committees. Beside the University Special Committee, which on the whole did little more than leave the first Research Fellow and Galton to their own devices, there was an "Advisory Committee" nominated by Galton, which met at the Eugenics Record Office and achieved' little beyond hampering the Fellow. On this point the reader will find further remarks

later. .

t It is to be noted that in an announcement of the Fellowship in The Times of Oct. 26, 1904, the word "mentally" occurs in its proper place.

$ In this interview Galton stated that it is one part of Eugenics to encourage the idea of parental responsibility, the other part is to see that the children born are. well born. Galton considered that the Mosaic. code had enjoined the multiplication of the human species, but it was really more important to prescribe that the children should be born from the fit and not


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