this effect of compulsory education. Such measures as the free distribution of text-books, the provision of free lunches at noon, or the extension to school children of a reduced car-fare, make it easier for the selfish or inefficient parent to raise children; they cost him less and therefore he may tend to have more of them. If such were the case, the measures referred to, despite the euthenic considerations, must be classified as dysgenic.
In another and quite different way, compulsory education is of service to eugenics. The educational system should be a sieve, through which all the children of the country are passed,—or more accurately, a series of sieves, which will enable the teacher to determine just how far it is profitable to educate each child so that he may lead a life of the greatest possible usefulness to the state and happiness to himself. Obviously such a function would be inadequately discharged, if the sieve failed to get all the available material; and compulsory education makes it certain that none will be omitted.
It is very desirable that no child escape inspection, because of the importance of discovering every individual of exceptional ability or inability. Since the public educational system has not yet risen to the need of this systematic mental diagnosis, private philanthropy should for the present be alert to get appropriate treatment for the unusually promising individual. In Pittsburgh, a committee of the Civic Club is seeking youths of this type, who might be obliged to leave school prematurely for economic reasons, and is aiding them to appropriate opportunities. Such discriminating selection will probably become much more widespread and we may hope a recognized function of the schools, owing to the great public demonstration of psychometry now being conducted at the cantonments for the mental classification of recruits.