True quality, then, should be emphasized at the expense of false standards. Money, social status, family alignment, though indicators to some degree, must not be taken too much at their face value. Emphasis is to be placed on real merit as shown by achievement, or on descent from the meritoriously eminent, whether or not such eminence has led to the accumulation of a family fortune and inclusion in an exclusive social set. In this respect, it is important that the value of a high average of ancestry should be realized. A single case of eminence in a pedigree should not weigh too heavily. When it is remembered that statistically one grandparent counts for less than one-sixteenth in the heredity of an individual, it will be obvious that the individual whose sole claim to consideration is a distinguished grandfather, is not necessarily a matrimonial prize. A general high level of morality and mentality in a family is much more advantageous, from the eugenic point of view, than one "lion" several generations back.
While we desire very strongly to emphasize the importance of breeding and the great value of a good ancestry, it is only fair to utter a word of warning in this connection. Good ancestry does not necessarily make a man or woman a desirable partner. What stockmen know as the "pure-bred scrub" is a recognized evil in animal breeding, and not altogether absent from human society. Due to any one or more of a number of causes, it is possible for a germinal degenerate to appear in a good family; discrimination should certainly be made against such an individual. Furthermore, it is possible that there occasionally arises what may be called a mutant of very desirable character from a eugenic point of view. Furthermore a stock in general below mediocrity will occasionally, due to some fortuitous but fortunate combination of traits, give rise to an individual of marked ability or even eminence, who will be able to transmit in some degree that valuable new combination of traits to his or her own progeny. Persons of this character are to be regarded by eugenists as distinctly desirable husbands or wives.