be promoted both now and in the future if the number of offspring were
- There is another argument which may legitimately be brought forward, and which may appeal to some who are relatively insensitive to the biological or even the humanitarian aspects of the case. This is the financial argument.
Except students of eugenics, few persons realize how staggering is the bill annually paid for the care of defectives. The amount which the state of New York expends yearly on the maintenance of its insane wards, is greater than it spends for any other purpose except education; and in a very few years, if its insane population continues to increase at the present rate, it will spend more on them than it does on the education of its normal children. The cost of institutional care for the socially inadequate is far from being all that these people cost the state; but those figures at least are not based on guesswork. The annual cost4 of maintaining a feeble-minded ward of the state, in various commonwealths, is: