Curricular Resources > 2009 Volume V > Unit 1 (09.05.01) > Section 6

Evolutionary Medicine

CONTENTS OF CURRICULUM UNIT 09.05.01

Unit Guide

Genetic Testing: Modern-Day Eugenics?

Joseph A. Corsetti

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Lesson #1: Introducing Eugenics

Student Learning Objectives

1. Students will define Eugenics.

2. Students will list and explain the goals and objectives of the Eugenics movement

Lesson Development:

1. Distribute handout. It should have the four passages from Charles Davenport's Heredity in Relation to Eugenics. These are included at the end of this lesson, but can also be accessed through Google Books. The book is now in the public domain.

2. Divide students into small groups (3-4 students) and assign each group one of the excerpts.

3. Each group has to translate the passage into modern day English as well as write a summary of the passage in txt format. This means that the students are allowed 160 characters, not words, to summarize the meaning of the passage.

4. Both the translation and the summary should be written on a large piece of paper.

5. Have the groups share out their work with the whole class.

6. Afterwards, check for understanding by having students create a definition for the word eugenics, and by listing in their notebooks, the goals of the movement.

Excerpts:

1. Page 1: "Eugenics is the science of the improvement of the human race by better breeding or, as the late Sir Francis Galton expressed it: "The science which deals with all influences that improve the inborn qualities of a race." The eugenical standpoint is that of the agriculturalist who, while recognizing the value of culture [environment], believes that permanent advance is to be made only by securing the best "blood." Man is an organism--an animal; and the laws of improvement of corn and racehorses hold true for him also. Unless people accept this simple truth and let it influence marriage selection, human progress will cease."

2. Page 216: "Their is no question that, taken as a whole, the hordes of Jews that are now coming to us from Russia and the extreme southeast of Europe, with their intense individualism and ideals of gain at the cost of any interest, represent the opposite extreme from the early English and the more recent Scandinavian immigration with their ideals of community life in the open country, advancement by the sweat of the brow, and the uprearing of families in the fear of God and the love of country."

3. Page 219: "Summarizing the review of recent conditions of immigration it appears certain that, unless conditions change of themselves or are radically changed, the population of the United states will, on account of the great influx of blood from South-eastern Europe, rapidly become darker in pigmentation, smaller in stature, more mercurial, more attached to music and art, more given to crimes of larceny, kidnapping, assault, murder, rape and sex-immorality and less given to burglary, drunkenness and vagrancy that were the original English settlers. Since of the insane in hospitals there are relatively more foreign-born than native it seems probable that, under present conditions, the ratio of insanity in the population will rapidly increase."

4. Page 224: "If increasing attention is paid to the selective elimination at our ports of entry of the actually undesirable (those with a germ plasm that has imbecile, epileptic, insane, criminalistic, alcoholic, and sexually immoral tendencies); if agents in Europe learn the family history of all applicants for naturalization; if the luring of the credulous and suggestible by steamship agents abroad and especially in the south-east of Europe be reduced to its lowest limits, then we may expect to see our population not harmed but improved by this mixtures with a more mercurial people."

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1.	Students will define Eugenics.
2.	Students will list and explain the goals and objectives of the Eugenics movement

1.	Distribute handout. It should have the four passages from Charles Davenport's Heredity in Relation to Eugenics. These are included at the end of this lesson, but can also be accessed through Google Books. The book is now in the public domain.
2.	Divide students into small groups (3-4 students) and assign each group one of the excerpts.
3.	Each group has to translate the passage into modern day English as well as write a summary of the passage in txt format. This means that the students are allowed 160 characters, not words, to summarize the meaning of the passage.
4.	Both the translation and the summary should be written on a large piece of paper.
5.	Have the groups share out their work with the whole class.
6.	Afterwards, check for understanding by having students create a definition for the word eugenics, and by listing in their notebooks, the goals of the movement.

1.	Page 1: "Eugenics is the science of the improvement of the human race by better breeding or, as the late Sir Francis Galton expressed it: "The science which deals with all influences that improve the inborn qualities of a race." The eugenical standpoint is that of the agriculturalist who, while recognizing the value of culture [environment], believes that permanent advance is to be made only by securing the best "blood." Man is an organism--an animal; and the laws of improvement of corn and racehorses hold true for him also. Unless people accept this simple truth and let it influence marriage selection, human progress will cease."
2.	Page 216: "Their is no question that, taken as a whole, the hordes of Jews that are now coming to us from Russia and the extreme southeast of Europe, with their intense individualism and ideals of gain at the cost of any interest, represent the opposite extreme from the early English and the more recent Scandinavian immigration with their ideals of community life in the open country, advancement by the sweat of the brow, and the uprearing of families in the fear of God and the love of country."
3.	Page 219: "Summarizing the review of recent conditions of immigration it appears certain that, unless conditions change of themselves or are radically changed, the population of the United states will, on account of the great influx of blood from South-eastern Europe, rapidly become darker in pigmentation, smaller in stature, more mercurial, more attached to music and art, more given to crimes of larceny, kidnapping, assault, murder, rape and sex-immorality and less given to burglary, drunkenness and vagrancy that were the original English settlers. Since of the insane in hospitals there are relatively more foreign-born than native it seems probable that, under present conditions, the ratio of insanity in the population will rapidly increase."
4.	Page 224: "If increasing attention is paid to the selective elimination at our ports of entry of the actually undesirable (those with a germ plasm that has imbecile, epileptic, insane, criminalistic, alcoholic, and sexually immoral tendencies); if agents in Europe learn the family history of all applicants for naturalization; if the luring of the credulous and suggestible by steamship agents abroad and especially in the south-east of Europe be reduced to its lowest limits, then we may expect to see our population not harmed but improved by this mixtures with a more mercurial people."