Population problems / by Edward Byron Reuter.

  • Edward Byron Reuter
Date:
1923
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Population problems / by Edward Byron Reuter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    37/364 page 15
    Moreover, the contemplation of any steps designed to control numbers, whether by way of increase or limita¬ tion, immediately raises the question of quality; the human units are of very unequal worth. And this problem is not alone one of whom is to be selected; there is also a problem as to the means by which the selection is to be made. The control of the quality of the population, like the control of numbers, involves both the question of immigration and the question of the differential birth rate. An adequate policy would provide for the birth or entry of those whom it was desirable to have come or to have born. At its minimum, this certainly demands an ade¬ quate policy of segregation of hereditary defectives, and a selection among those admitted from abroad on a more reputable basis than that of their previous edu¬ cational opportunity* Any comprehensive population policy thus involves the whole question of the kind of a society it is proposed to develop in America. Selection will inevitably affect by so much the mental and physical type of the country’s population, alter its racial status, and, consequently, its political, industrial, and social life. This is a matter freighted with such boundless consequences for the future of humanity that it should be of universal interest; and an adequate policy, designed to make the population pro¬ gressively approximate the type of society that social thought deems most desirable to produce, should be a chief concern of enlightened government. Purpose of this Volume.—It is the limited and modest purpose of the present volume to state in a brief and simple way certain facts and considerations which fall within the scope of a general population policy.
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