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EUTHENICS
THE SCIENCE OF CONTROLLABLE
ENVIRONMENT
A PLEA FOR BETTER
LIVING CONDITIONS AS A FIRST STEP
TOWARD HIGHER HUMAN
EFFICIENCY
The national annual unnecessary loss of capitalized
net earnings is about $1,000,000,000.
_Report on National Vitality_
_By_ ELLEN H. RICHARDS
Author of Cost of Living Series, Art of Right Living, etc.
SECOND EDITION
WHITCOMB & BARROWS
BOSTON, 1912
COPYRIGHT 1910
BY ELLEN H. RICHARDS
THOMAS TODD CO., PRINTERS
14 BEACON ST., BOSTON
FOREWORD
Never has society been so clear as to its several special
ends, never has so little effort been due to chance or
compulsion.
_Ralph Barton Perry, The Moral Economy._
Not through chance, but through increase of scientific knowledge; not
through compulsion, but through democratic idealism consciously
working through common interests, will be brought about the creation
of right conditions, the control of environment.
The betterment of living conditions, through conscious endeavor, for
the purpose of securing efficient human beings, is what the author
means by EUTHENICS.[1]
[1] Eutheneo, [Greek: Euthêneô] (_eu_, well; _the_, root of _tithemi_,
to cause). To be in a flourishing state, to abound in, to
prosper.--_Demosthenes._ To be strong or vigorous.--_Herodotus._
To be vigorous in body.--_Aristotle._
Euthenia, [Greek: Euthênia]. Good state of the body: prosperity, good
fortune, abundance.--_Herodotus._
"Human vitality depends upon two primary conditions--heredity and
hygiene--or conditions preceding birth and conditions during life."[2]
[2] Report on National Vitality, p. 49.
Eugenics deals with race improvement through heredity.
Euthenics deals with race improvement through environment.
Eugenics is hygiene for the future generations.
Euthenics is hygiene for the present generation.
Eugenics must await careful investigation.
Euthenics has immediate opportunity.
Euthenics precedes eugenics, developing better men now, and thus
inevitably creating a better race of men in the future. Euthenics is
the term proposed for the preliminary science on which Eugenics must
be based.
This new science seeks to emphasize the immediate duty of man to
better his conditions by availing himself of knowledge already at
hand. As far as in him lies he must make application of this knowledge
to secure his greatest efficiency under conditions which he can create
or under such existing conditions as he may not be able wholly to
control, but such as he may modify. The knowledge of the causes of
disease tends only to depress the average citizen rather than to
arouse him to combat it. Hope of success will urge him forward, and it
is the duty of lovers of mankind to show all possible ways of
attaining the goal. The tendency to hopelessness retards reformation
and regeneration, and the lack of belief in success holds back the
wheels of progress.
Euthenics is to be developed:
1. Through sanitary science.
2. Through education.
3. Through relating science and education to life.
Students of sanitary science discover for us the laws which make for
health and the prevention of disease. The laboratory has been studying
conditions and causes, and now can show the way to many remedies.
A knowledge of these laws, of the means of conserving man's resources
and vitality, which will result in the wealth of human energy, is more
and more brought within the reach of all by various educational
agencies.
The individual must estimate properly the value of this knowledge in
its application to daily life, in order to secure efficiency and the
greatest happiness for himself and for the community.
Right living conditions comprise pure food and a safe water supply, a
clean and disease-free atmosphere in which to live and work, proper
shelter, and the adjustment of work, rest, and amusement. The
attainment of these conditions calls for hearty coöperation between
individual and community--effort on the part of the individual because
the individual makes personality a power; effort on the part of the
community because the strength of combined endeavor is required to
meet all great problems.
EUTHENICS
BETTER ENVIRONMENT FOR THE HUMAN RACE
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. The opportunity for betterment is real and practical,
not merely academic 3
II. Individual effort is needed to improve individual
conditions. Home and habits of living, eating, etc.
Good habits pay in economy of time and force 15
III. Community effort is needed to make better conditions
for all, in streets and public places, for water and
milk supply, hospitals, markets, housing problems, etc.
Restraint for sake of neighbors 39
IV. Interchangeableness of these two forms of progressive
effort. First one, then the other ahead 59
V. The child to be "raised" as he should be. Restraint for his
good. Teaching good habits the chief duty of the family 73
VI. The child to be educated in the light of sanitary science.
Office of the school. Domestic science for girls. Applied
science. The duty of the higher education. Research needed 91
VII. Stimulative education for adults. Books, newspapers,
lectures, working models, museums, exhibits, moving pictures 117
VIII. Both child and adult to be protected from their own
ignorance. Educative value of law and of fines for
disobedience. Compulsory sanitation by municipal, state,
and federal regulations. Instructive inspection 131
IX. There is responsibility as well as opportunity. The
housewife an important factor and an economic force in
improving the national health and increasing the national
wealth 143
CHAPTER I
_The opportunity for betterment is real and practical, not
merely academic._
Men ignore Nature's laws in their personal lives. They crave
a larger measure of goodness and happiness, and yet in their
choice of dwelling places, in their building of houses to
live in, in their selection of food and drink, in their
clothing of their bodies, in their choice of occupations and
amusements, in their methods and habits of work, they
disregard natural laws and impose upon themselves conditions
that make their ideals of goodness and happiness impossible
of attainment.
_Prof. George E. Dawson, The Control of Life through Environment._
And is it, I ask, an unworthy ambition for man to set before
himself to understand those eternal laws upon which his
happiness, his prosperity, his very life depend? Is he to be
blamed and anathematized for endeavoring to fulfill the
divine injunction: "Fear God and keep His commandments, for
that is the whole duty of man"? Before he can keep them,
surely he must first ascertain what they are.
_Adam Sedgwick. Address, Imperial College of Science and Technology,
December 16, 1909. Nature, December 23, 1909, p. 228._
In my judgment, the situation is hopeful. To realize that
our problems are chiefly those of environment which we in
increasing measure control, to realize that, no matter how
bad the environment of this generation, the next is not
injured provided that it be given favorable conditions, is
surely to have an optimistic view.
_Carl Kelsey, Influence of Heredity and Environment upon Race
Improvement. Annals of American Academy of Political and Social
Science, July, 1909._