THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

NEW YORk • .BOSTON • CHICAGO
DALLAS • SAN FRANCISCO

MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.

TORONTO

THE
KALLIKAK FAMILY

A STUDY IN THE HEREDITY OF
FEEBLE-MINDEDNESS

BY

HENRY HERBERT GODDARD, PH.D.

Director of the Research Laboratory of the Training School

at Vineland, New Jersey, for Feeble-minded Girls

and Soys

Nifo gorfe

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

1913

All rights reserved

COPYRIGHT, 1912,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1912. Reprinted
February, 1913.

Norwood Prest

. 5. Cutbing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co.
d, Mass., U.S. A

MR. SAMUEL S. FELS

FRIEND AND PHILANTHROPIST

A LAYMAN WITH THE SCIENTIST'S LOVE OF TRUTH

AND
THE TRUE CITIZEN'S LOVE OF HUMANITY

WHO MADE POSSIBLE THIS STUDY AND WHO HAS

FOLLOWED THE WORK FROM ITS INCIPIENCY

WITH KINDLY CRITICISM AND ADVICE

THIS BOOK
IS DEDICATED

PREFACE

ON September 15, 1906, the Training School for
Backward and Feeble-minded Children at Vineland,
New Jersey, opened a laboratory and a Department
of Research for the study of feeble-mindedness.

A beginning was made in studying the mental con-
dition of the children who lived in the Institution, with
a view to determining the mental and physical pecul-
iarities of the different grades and types, to getting an
accurate record of what deficiencies each child had
and what he was capable of doing, with the hope that
in time these records could be correlated with the con-
dition of the nervous system of the child, if he should
die while in the Institution and an autopsy should be
allowed.

As soon as possible after the beginning of this work,
a definite start was made toward determining the cause
of feeble-mindedness. After some preliminary work,
it was concluded that the only way to get the informa-
tion needed was by sending trained workers to the
homes of the children, to learn by careful and wise
questioning the facts that could be obtained. It was

viii PREFACE

a great surprise to us to discover so much mental defect
in the families of so many of these children. The re-
sults of the study of more than 300 families will soon be
published, showing that about 65 per cent of these
children have the hereditary taint.

The present study of the Kallikak family is a genuine
story of real people. The name is, of course, fictitious,
as are all of the names throughout the story. The
results here presented come after two years of constant
work, investigating the conditions of this family.

Some readers may question how it has been possible
to get such definite data in regard to people who lived
so long ago.

A word of explanation is hence in order. In the first
place, the family itself proved to be a notorious one, so
the people, in the community where the present genera-
tions are living, know of them ; they knew their parents
and grandparents ; and the older members knew them
farther back, because of the reputation they had always
borne. Secondly, the reputation which the Training
School has in the State is such that all have been willing
to cooperate as soon as they understood the purpose and
plan of the work. This has been of great help. Thirdly,
the time devoted to this investigation must not be over-
looked. A hasty investigation could never have pro-

PREFACE ix

duced the results which we have reached. Oftentimes
a second, a third, a fifth, or a sixth visit has been neces-
sary in order to develop an acquaintance and relation-
ship with these families which induced them gradually
to relate things which they otherwise had not recalled
or did not care to tell. Many an important item has
been gathered after several visits to these homes. Chap-
ter IV will throw still more light on the method used.

If the reader is inclined to the view that we must
have called a great many people feeblerminded who
were not so, let him be assured that this is not the case.
On the contrary, we have preferred to err on the other
side, and we have not marked people feeble-minded
unless the case was such that we could substantiate it
beyond a reasonable doubt. If there was good reason
to call them normal, we have so marked them. If not,
and we are unable to decide in our own minds, we have
generally left them unmarked. In a few cases, we have
marked them normal or feeble-minded, with a question
mark. By this is meant that we have studied the case
and after deliberation are still in doubt, but the prob-
abilities are " N " or " F " as indicated. The mere
fact of the doubt shows, however, that they are at
least border-line cases.

To the scientific reader we would say that the data

x PREFACE

here presented are, we believe, accurate to a high de-
gree. It is true that we have made rather dogmatic
statements and have drawn conclusions that do not
seem scientifically warranted from the data. We have
done this because it seems necessary to make these
statements and conclusions for the benefit of the lay
reader, and it was impossible to present in this book
all of the data that would substantiate them. We have,
as a matter of fact, drawn upon the material which is
soon to be presented in a larger book. The reference
to Mendelism is an illustration of what we mean. It
is, as it is given here, meager and inadequate, and the
assumption that the given law applies to human hered-
ity is an assumption so far as the data presented are
concerned. We would ask that the scientist reserve
judgment and wait for the larger book for the proof of
these statements and for an adequate discussion of
Mendelism in relation to the problem.

The necessary expense for this study, as well as for all
of the work of the Research Laboratory, has been met
by voluntary contributions from philanthropic men and
women, who believe that here is an opportunity to
benefit humanity, such as is hardly equaled elsewhere.

We take this means of expressing to them our deep
appreciation of their sympathy and generosity. I wish

PREFACE

XI

also to make special mention of the indefatigable in-
dustry, wisdom, tact, and judgment of our field workers
who have gathered these facts and whose results, al-
though continually checked up, have stood every test
put upon them as to their accuracy and value.

The work on this particular family has been done by
Elizabeth S. Kite, to whom I am also indebted for prac-
tically all of Chapter IV.

I am also greatly indebted to my assistants in the
laboratory, for help in preparing the charts, keeping
the records, and correcting manuscript and proof.

To Superintendent Edward R. Johnstone, whose
wisdom and foresight led to the establishment of this
Department of Research, whose help, sympathy, and
encouragement have been constant throughout the
work of preparing this study, the thanks and grati-
tude of the entire group of readers who find in these
facts any help toward the solution of the problems
that they are facing, are due.

HENRY H. GODDARD.

VlNELAND, N.J.,

SEPTEMBER, 1912.

CONTENTS

PAGE

PREFACE vii

I. THE STORY OF DEBORAH I

II. THE DATA 13

THE CHARTS 33

III. WHAT IT MEANS 50

IV. FURTHER FACTS ABOUT THE KALLIKAK FAMILY . 70
V. WHAT is TO BE DONE ? . . . . . . 101

Xlll

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

DEBORAH KALLIKAK AS SHE APPEARS TO-DAY AT THE

TRAINING SCHOOL Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

DEBORAH AT THE SEWING MACHINE . . . .. . __. 4

DEBORAH AS WAITRESS ....... 4

SPECIMENS OF DEBORAH'S HANDIWORK .... 6

DEBORAH, AGED FIFTEEN .8

DEBORAH, AGED SEVENTEEN 8

LAST HOME OF MILLARD KALLIKAK 20

ESTHER, DAUGHTER OF " DADDY " KALLIKAK ... 20

RUINS OF MOUNTAIN HUT BUILT BY MARTIN KALLIKAK, JR. 24

SITE OF MOUNTAIN HOME OF MILLARD KALLIKAK . . 24

GREAT-GRANDSON OF " DADDY " KALLIKAK ... 84

MELINDA, DAUGHTER OF "JEMIMA" 84

GREAT-GRANDCHILDREN OF "OLD SAL" .... 88

CHILDREN OF Guss SAUNDERS, WITH THEIR GRANDMOTHER 88

THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

A STUDY IN THE HEREDITY OF FEEBLE-MINDEDNESS

CHAPTER I

THE STORY OF DEBORAH

ONE bright October day, fourteen years ago, there
came to the Training School at Vineland, a little eight-
year-old girl. She had been born in an almshouse. Her
mother had afterwards married, not the father of this
child, but the prospective father of another child, and
later had divorced him and married another man, who
was also the father of some of her children. She had
been led to do this through the efforts of well-meaning
people who felt that it was a great misfortune for a child
to be born into the world illegitimately. From their
standpoint the argument was good, because the mother
with four or five younger children was unable to provide
adequately for this little girl, whom both husbands re-
fused to support.

On the plea that the child did not get along well at
school and might possibly be feeble-minded, she gained

2 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

admission to the Training School, there to begin a career
which has been interesting and valuable to the Insti-
tution, and which has led to an investigation that can-
not fail to prove of great social import.

The following are extracts from her history since she
came to the Institution : -

From Admission Blanks, Nov. '97. — Average size and
weight. No peculiarity in form or size of head.
Staring expression. Jerking movement in walking.
No bodily deformity Mouth shut. Washes and
dresses herself, except fastening clothes. Under-
stands commands. Not very obedient. Knows a
few letters. Cannot read nor count. Knows all the
colors. Not fond of music. Power of memory poor.
Listens well. Looks steadily. Good imitator. Can
use a needle. Can carry wood and fill a kettle. Can
throw a ball, but cannot catch. Sees and hears well.
Right-handed. Excitable but not nervous. Not
affectionate and quite noisy. Careless in dress.
Active. Obstinate and destructive. Does not mind
slapping and scolding. Grandmother somewhat de-
ficient. Grandfather periodical drunkard and men-
tally deficient. Been to school. No results.

From Institution Reports : —

Jan. '99. — Conduct better. Counts i-io and 10-
i. Knows at sight and can write from memory "see,"
"me," "ran," "man," "rat," "can." Weaves diffi-
cult mat in steps of I and 3 , but requires much assistance.

THE STORY OF DEBORAH 3

Feb. '99. — Counts 1-30; writes 1-15. Orderly.
Folds neatly.

March, '99. — Draws circle and square. Writes
1-29. Combines simple numbers.

April, '99. — Conduct quite bad — impudent and
growing worse. Transferred from Seguin Cottage to
Wilbur for a while. Seems some better.

SCHOOL. Dec. 'oo. Disobedient. Graceful. Good
in drill. Can copy. Knows a number of words.
Writes them from memory. Reads a little. Adds
with objects. Counts and knows value of numbers.
Does all ladder and pole drills nicely. Good in en-
tertainment work. Memorizes quickly. Can always
be relied upon for either speaking or singing.
Marches well. A good captain. Knows "Halt,"
"Right," and "Left Face" and "Forward March."
Always in step.

Music. Knows different notes. Plays "Jesus, Lover
of my Soul" nicely. Plays scale of C and F on cornet.
May, '01. — Plays scales of C and F and first two
exercises in "Beginners' Band Book" on cornet. She
plays by ear. She has not learned to read the notes
of these two scales, simply because she will not put
her mind to it. She has played hymns in simple time,
but the fingering has had to be written for her.

SCHOOL. Excellent worker in gardening class. Has
just completed a very good diagram of our garden to
show at Annual Meeting.

COTTAGE. Helps make beds and waits on table, is quick
with her work, but is very noisy.

4 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

Oct. 'oi.--Has nearly finished outlining a pillow
sham. Can do very good work when she tries.
ENGLISH. Does better in number work than in- any
other branch. Her mind wanders a great deal. In
the midst of a lesson, that she has apparently paid a
great deal of attention to, she will ask a question that
has no bearing on the lesson at all. Is slow to learn.

Nov. 'oi.--Is very good in number work, espe-
cially in addition. Can add 25 and 15. Spells a few
words, such as "wind," "blows," "flowers." Writes
fairly well from copy if she tries. Her attention is
very hard to keep. Is restless in class. Likes to
be first in everything. The one thing she does best
in school is to add numbers with pegs. Knows about
fifteen words, such as "cat," "fan," "run,""man." She
could learn more in school if she would pay attention,
but her mind seems away off from the subject in dis-
cussion. Could play scale of C and F on cornet and
would play some by ear if she could have kept up her
lessons. Was taken out on account of sore throat.

Nov. '04. -- Understands how to make bead
chains. Has made four. Knows how to use a sew-
ing machine. Has made a shirtwaist. Uses tape
measure accurately. Can play on cornet four
hard band pieces and three solos, also reads at sight
easy songs and hymns. Band pieces are : "Attention,
March !" "Quick Step Sterling," "Onward, Christian
Soldiers," and "Star-spangled Banner." Solos are :
"America," "Old Black Joe," and "Onward, Christian
Soldiers." Conduct at school, fair.

THE STORY OF DEBORAH 5

Jan. '07. — Took the part of Mrs. Doe in "Fun
in a Photograph Gallery."

Feb. '08. — Can write a fairly good story, but spells
very few words. Has little idea of the use of capitals.
It is difficult for her to separate her sentences. Draw-
ing, painting, coloring, and any kind of hand work
she does quite nicely. In clay modeling, her idea of
form is quite good. Is much improved in conduct.
Does not act so wild in class.

In wood-carving class, she starts a thing she wants to
do very enthusiastically, but if it takes her very long,
her interest flags and she has to be spurred on by the
thought of the result when well done. This year
she has made a carved book rest with mission ends
and is now working on a shirtwaist box with mortise
and tenon joints and lap joints. The top will be
paneled. She can do most of her own marking
when shown how.

Has made a great improvement in "Band" during
the last year. Can get a better tone on the cornet
and more volume. Reads by note all music that she
plays. Plays second cornet parts to about twenty-
five pieces.

Jan. '09. — Has embroidered the front of a shirt-
waist and the front gore of a skirt. She has shown
a great amount of patience, perseverance, and judg-
ment in her work this year, has been anxious to do
her work, and has been a good girl. In wood carving
she is doing much more careful work than last year.

Has made a large "Skolcroft" chair with only a little

THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

help in putting it into clamps. Did her own meas-
uring and carved the wood. She filled the wood her-
self before staining. This she had never done before.

June, '09. — Made the suit which she had em-
broidered earlier in the year, using the machine in
making it. Helped F. B. put her chair together and
really acted as a teacher in showing her how to up-
holster it. Will be a helper in wood-carving class
this summer.

Took important part in the Christmas play of 1908
and was a "Fan Girl" in the Japanese play given
Annual Day, 1909.

Mar. 'n. — Works just about the same in wood-
carving class as she has other years. Can work very
rapidly when she tries, but does not very often try.
Does not have much confidence in herself when mark-
ing out her work, but when urged, keeps trying until
she gets it right. Is making a large dressing case
this year. Is doing very nice work, especially in
physical culture class.

May, 'u. — Finished her dressing case, but was
careless towards the last, so it is not quite as nice as
was expected. Made a very handsome embroidered
linen dress (satin stitch and eyelets), also an em-
broidered corset cover. Made up both pieces under
direction. Can write a well-worded story, but has to
have more than half the words spelled for her.
Knows very few of her number combinations. Re-
tains a great many interesting facts connected witty
nature work.

THE STORY OF DEBORAH 7

The reader will see that Deborah's teachers have
worked with her faithfully and carefully, hoping for
progress, even seeing it where at a later date it became
evident that no real advance had been made. Note the
oft-repeated " She could if she would, " or " If she would
only pay attention," and similar expressions, which
show the unwillingness of the teachers to admit even
to themselves that she is really feeble-minded. In the
earlier records it was noted that Deborah was not fond
of music, while in later reports it is shown to be her one
great accomplishment. To-day she is a woman of
twenty-two. The consensus of opinion of those who
have known her for the last fourteen years in the In-
stitution is as follows r —

"She is cheerful, inclined to be quarrelsome, very
active and restless, very affectionate, willing, and
tries ; is quick and excitable, fairly good-tempered.
Learns a new occupation quickly, but requires a half
hour or twenty-four repetitions to learn four lines.
Retains well what she has once learned. Needs
close supervision. Is bold towards strangers, kind
towards animals. Can run an electric sewing ma-
chine, cook, and do practically everything about the
house. Has no noticeable defect. She is quick and
observing, has a good memory, writes fairly, does
excellent work in wood-carving and kindergarten, is
excellent in imitation. Is a poor reader and poor at

8 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

numbers. Does fine basketry and gardening. Spell-
ing is poor ; music is excellent ; sewing excellent ;
excellent in entertainment work. . Very fond of
children and good in helping care for them. Has a
good sense of order and cleanliness. Is sometimes
very stubborn and obstinate. Is not always truth-
ful and has been known to steal, although does not
have a reputation for this. Is proud of her clothes.
Likes pretty dresses and likes to help in other cot-
tages, even to temporarily taking charge of a group."

The children at the Training School write letters to
Santa Claus asking for such things as they want for
Christmas. Here are Deborah's requests each year,
beginning with '99, when she was ten years old : —

"'99. — Book and harmonica.

'oo. — Book, comb, paints, and doll.

'oi.--Book, mittens, toy piano, handkerchief,
slate pencil.

'02. — Wax doll, ribbon, music box.

'03. — Post cards, colored ribbons, gloves and
shears.

'04. - - Trunk, music box, Fairy Tales, games,
ribbons, big doll.

'05. -- Ribbons of different colors, games, hand-
kerchiefs, music box, Fairy Tales.

'06. - - Pair of stockings, ribbons, rubbers.

'07. — Watch, red ribbon, brush and comb, paper.

'08. — Three yards of lawn, rubbers.

THE STORY OF DEBORAH 9

'09. — Nice shoes, pink, dark blue, and white rib-
bons.

'10. — Money for dentist bill.

'n. — Rubbers, three shirts, blue scarf, three
yards linen, two yards lawn for fancy work.

It will be remembered that in her history, number
was mentioned as being one of her strong points. In-
deed, she had a great deal of thorough drill in this
branch. In a recent testing to determine how much
of this she still retained, or whether the work had been
of any value as mental discipline, the results were nega-
tive. It was discovered that she could neither add
nor subtract, except where it was a question of con-
crete objects connected with her daily life. For ex-
ample, she can set a table and wait on it very nicely.
She can put the right number of plates at the head of
the table, if she knows the people who are to sit there,
but at a table with precisely the same number of stran-
gers, she fails in making the correct count.

At a recent test made before a prominent scientist,
the question was asked, "How many are 12 less 3 ?"
She thought for a moment, looked around the room and
finally answered, "Nine." "Correct," said her ques-
tioner. "Do you know how I did it ?" she asked,
delighted at her success. "I counted on my fingers."

io THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

Some of the questions asked her and her answers are
as follows : —

Q. There are ten people to eat dinner. Seven
have eaten. For how many must you keep din-
ner warm ?
A. Three.

Q. Suppose you had eight ergographs and sell
six. How many would be left ?
A. (after twenty-eight seconds' pondering). Two.
Q. Suppose you had eight Deltas and gave two
away. What would you have left ?
A. Five.

Q. "Suppose there are eight at the table and two
leave. How many would remain ?
A. (after thirteen seconds). Six.

By the Binet Scale this girl showed, in April, 1910,
the mentality of a nine-year-old child with two points
over; January, 1911, 9 years, I point; September, 1911,
9 years, 2 points; October, 1911, 9 years, 3 points.
She answers correctly all of the questions up to age 7
except the repetition of five figures, where she transposes
two of them. She does not read the selection in the
required time, nor does she remember what she reads.
In counting the stamps, her first answer was "ten cents, "
which she later corrected. Under age 9, none of her
definitions are "better than by use" — "Fork is to eat

THE STORY OF DEBORAH n

with," "Chair to sit on," etc. She can sometimes ar-
range the weights in their proper order and at other
times not. The same is true of putting the three words
into a sentence. She does not know money. Her
definitions of abstract terms are very poor, in some
cases barely passable, nor can she put together the dis-
sected sentences. She rhymes "storm" with "spring,"
and "milk" with "mill," afterwards using "bill,"
"will," "till."

In the revised questions, she does not draw the design
which is Question 2 in age 10, nor does she resist sug-
gestion, Question 4 in age 12. To the first part of
Question 5, age 12, she answered, "A bird hanging from
the limb," and to the second part, "Some one was very
sick."

This is a typical illustration of the mentality of a high-
grade feeble-minded person, the moron, the delinquent,
the kind of girl or woman that fills our reformatories.
They are wayward, they get into all sorts of trouble
and difficulties, sexually and otherwise, and yet we
have been accustomed to account for their defects on
the basis of viciousness, environment, or ignorance.

It is also the history of the same type of girl in the
public school. Rather good-looking, bright in appear-
ance, with many attractive ways, the teacher clings to

12 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

the hope, indeed insists, that such a girl will come out
all right. Our work with Deborah convinces us that
such hopes are delusions.

Here is a child who has been most carefully guarded.
She has been persistently trained since she was eight
years old, and yet nothing has been accomplished in the
direction of higher intelligence or general education.
To-day if this young woman were to leave the Institu-
tion, she would at once become a prey to the designs of
evil men or evil women and would lead a life that would
be vicious, immoral, and criminal, though because of her
mentality she herself would not be responsible. There
is nothing that she might not be led into, because she
has no power of control, and all her instincts and ap-
petites are in the direction that would lead to vice.

We may now repeat the ever insistent question, and
this time we indeed have good hope of answering it.
The question is, "How do we account for this kind of
individual ? The answer is in a word "Heredity, "
bad stock. We must recognize that the human family
shows varying stocks or strains that are as marked and
that breed as true as anything in plant or animal life.

Formerly such a statement would have been a guess,
an hypothesis. We submit in the following pages
what seems to us conclusive evidence of its truth.

CHAPTER II

THE DATA

THE Vineland Training School has for two years
employed field workers. These are women highly
trained, of broad human experience, and interested in
social problems. As a result of weeks of residence at
the Training School, they become acquainted with the
condition of the feeble-minded. They study all the
grades, note their peculiarities, and acquaint them-
selves with the methods of testing and recognizing
them. They then go out with an introduction from
the Superintendent to the homes of the children and
there ask that all the facts which are available may be
furnished, in order that we can know more about the
child and be better able to care for him and more wisely
train him.

Sometimes all necessary information is obtained from
the one central source, but more often, especially where
the parents are themselves defective, many visits to
other homes must be made. Parents often send the field
worker to visit near and distant relatives as well as

13

i4 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

neighbors, employers, teachers, physicians, ministers,
overseers of the poor, almshouse directors, etc.
These must be interviewed and all the information
thus obtained must be weighed and much of it verified
by repeated visits to the same locality before an
accurate chart of the particular child's heredity can be
made.

In determining the mental condition of people in the
earlier generations (that is, as to whether they were
feeble-minded or not), one proceeds in the same way as
one does to determine the character of a Washington
or a Lincoln or any other man of the past. Recourse
is had to original documents whenever possible. In the
case of defectives, of course, there are not many original
documents. Oftentimes the absence of these, where
they are to be expected, is of itself significant. For
instance, the absence of a record of marriage is often
quite as significant as its presence. Some record or
memory is generally obtainable of how the person lived,
how he conducted himself, whether he was able to make
a living, how he brought up his children, what was his
reputation in the community ; these facts are frequently
sufficient to enable one to determine, with a high degree
of accuracy, whether the individual was normal or
otherwise. Sometimes the condition is marked by the

THE DATA 15

presence of other factors. For example, if a man was
strongly alcoholic, it is almost impossible to determine
whether he was also feeble-minded, because the reports
usually declare that the only trouble with him was that
he was always drunk, and they say if he had been sober,
he would have been all right. This may be true, but
on the other hand, it is quite possible that he was feeble-
minded also.

After some experience, the field worker becomes ex-
pert in inferring the condition of those persons who are
not seen, from the similarity of the language used in
describing them to that used in describing persons whom
she has seen.

In Deborah's case, the woman first visited was the one
who interested herself in the child and its mother when
the latter had just given birth to her baby in the alms-
house. From this woman was learned the subsequent
history of Deborah's mother as given in the first part of
this description. But references, supplied by her, soon
led to further discoveries. The present family was
found living within twenty miles of what was afterwards
learned to be its ancestral home and in a region that was
neither the slums of a city nor the wild desolation of the
extreme rural community, but rather in the midst of a
populous farming country, one of the best districts in

16 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

the State. Thorough and carefully conducted in-
vestigations in the small town and among the farmers
of this region showed that the family had always been
notorious for the number of defectives and delinquents
it had produced ; and this notoriety made it possible
to trace them back for no less than six generations.

It was determined to make a survey of the entire
family and to discover the condition, as far as possible,
of every person in each generation.

The surprise and horror of it all was that no matter
where we traced them, whether in the prosperous rural
district, in the city slums to which some had drifted, or
in the more remote mountain regions, or whether it was
a question of the second or the sixth generation, an ap-
palling amount of defectiveness was everywhere found.

In the course of the work of tracing various members
of the family, our field worker occasionally found her-
self in the midst of a good family of the same name,
which apparently was in no way related to the girl
whose ancestry we were investigating. In such cases,
there was nothing to be done but to beat a retreat and
start again in another direction. However, these cases
became so frequent that there gradually grew the con-
viction that ours must be a degenerate offshoot from
an older family of better stock. Definite work was

LAST HOME OF MILLARD KALLIKAK.

ESTHER, DAUGHTER OF " DADDY " KALLIKAK

THE DATA 17

undertaken in order to locate the point at which the
separation took place. Over and over, the investiga-
tion was laid aside in sheer despair of ever being able
to find absolute proofs or to establish missing links in
the testimony. Then some freshly discovered facts,
that came often quite unexpectedly, would throw new
light on the situation, and the work would be resumed.
The great-great-grandfather of Deborah 1 was Martin
Kallikak.1 That we knew. We had also traced the
good family, before alluded to, back to an ancestor be-
longing to an older generation than this Martin Kalli-
kak, but bearing the same name. He was the father
of a large family. His eldest son was named Frederick,
but there was no son by the name of Martin. Conse-
quently, no connection could be made. Many months
later, a granddaughter of Martin revealed in a burst of
confidence the situation. She told us (and this was
afterwards fully verified) that Martin had a half brother
Frederick, — and that Martin never had an own brother
"because," as she now naively expressed it, "you see,
his mother had him before she was married." Deeper
scrutiny into the life of Martin Kallikak Sr., which was
made possible through well-preserved family records,
enabled us to complete the story.

1 All names, both Christian and sur-names, are fictitious.
c

1 8 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

When Martin Sr., of the good family, was a boy of
fifteen, his father died, leaving him without parental
care or oversight. Just before attaining his majority,
the young man joined one of the numerous military
companies that were formed to protect the country at
the beginning of the Revolution. At one of the taverns
frequented by the militia he met a feeble-minded girl
by whom he became the father of a feeble-minded son.
This child was given, by its mother, the name of the
father in full, and thus has been handed down to pos-
terity the father's name and the mother's mental capac-
ity. This illegitimate boy was Martin Kallikak Jr.,
the great-great-grandfather of our Deborah, and from
him have come four hundred and eighty descendants.
One hundred and forty-three of these, we have con-
clusive proof, were or are feeble-minded, while only forty-
six have been found normal. The rest are unknown or
doubtful.

Among these four hundred and eighty descendants,
thirty-six have been illegitimate.

There have been thirty-three sexually immoral per-
sons, mostly prostitutes.

There have been twenty-four confirmed alcoholics.

There have been three epileptics.

Eighty-two died in infancy.

THE DATA 19

Three were criminal.

Eight kept houses of ill fame.

These people have married into other families, gen-
erally of about the same type, so that we now have on
record and charted eleven hundred and forty-six in-
dividuals.

Of this large group, we have discovered that two
hundred and sixty-two were feeble-minded, while one
hundred and ninety-seven are considered normal, the
remaining five hundred and eighty-one being still un-
determined. ("Undetermined," as here employed,
often means not that we knew nothing about the person,
but that we could not decide. They are people we can
scarcely recognize as normal ; frequently they are not
what we could call good members of society. But it
is very difficult to decide without more facts whether
the condition that we find or that we learn about, as in
the case of older generations, is or was really one of
true feeble-mindedness.)

In 1803, Martin Kallikak Jr., otherwise known as
the "Old Horror," married Rhoda Zabeth, a normal
woman. (See Chart II.) They had ten children, of
whom one died in infancy and another died at birth
with the mother. Of those who lived, the oldest was
Millard, the direct ancestor of our Deborah. He

20 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

married Althea Haight, and they had fifteen children,
of whom more later.

The next born of Martin Jr. was Nathan, known in
the community as "Daddy" (see Chart III),1 who died
at the advanced age of ninety-three. He was the father
of six children. One of his sons was a criminal, a horse
thief, who also stole a flock of sheep which the owner all
unwittingly helped him to drive away. Three other
children of "Daddy" married and themselves had
children. These are all families about whose mentality
it is difficult to decide. They are all peculiar, but more
respectable than some other branches of this family.
One is dead. The sixth, a daughter, is feeble-minded
and sexually immoral. She married a man who was
feeble-minded and alcoholic. Of her six children, two
at least are feeble-minded. Whether her husband is
the father of all of the children is very doubtful. Sex-
ual immorality and alcoholism are prevalent in this
family. One of the sons married a feeble-minded
woman who came from feeble-minded stock. They
had six children, all of whom were feeble-minded. One
of these is of the Mongolian type, an interesting fact, as
it shows that this particular form of arrest of develop-
ment may occur in a defective family.
llt is important to trace out in detail these relationships on the charts.

THE DATA 21

Martin Jr.'s third child was James (Chart II), who
went away, and we know nothing about him.

Martin Jr.'s fourth child, "Old Sal" (Chart IV), was
feeble-minded and she married a feeble-minded man.
Two of their children are undetermined, but one of
these had at least one feeble-minded grandchild ; the
other, an alcoholic man, had three feeble-minded grand-
children, one of whom is in the Training School at Vine-
land. She is thus a cousin of Deborah — a fact not
known until this study was made. The two other
children of Old Sal were feeble-minded, married feeble-
minded wives, and had large families of defective chil-
dren and grandchildren, as will be seen in the chart.

The fifth child of Martin Jr. was Jemima (Chart V),
feeble-minded and sexually immoral. She lived with a
feeble-minded man named Horser, to whom she was
supposed to have been married. Of her five children,
three are known to have been feeble-minded, two are
undetermined. From these again, have come a large
number of feeble-minded children and grandchildren.
Jemima had an illegitimate son by a man who was high
in the Nation's offices . This son married a feeble-
minded girl and they had feeble-minded children, and
grandchildren.

The sixth child of Martin Jr., known as "Old Moll"

22 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

(Chart VI), was feeble-minded, alcoholic, epileptic, and
sexually immoral. She had three illegitimate children
who were sent to the almshouse, and from there bound
out to neighboring farmers. -One of these turned out
normal, one was feeble-minded, and the other undeter-
mined. Neither of the two older ones had any chil-
dren. The third child, a daughter, was tubercular, but
nothing is known of her descendants, except that there
were several children and grandchildren.

The seventh child of Martin Jr. was a daughter,
Sylvia (Chart VII), who seemed to be a normal woman.
She was taken very young by a good family who brought
her up carefully. She later married a normal man.
Although we have marked her normal, she was always
peculiar. All her children and grandchildren were
either normal or are undetermined.

The youngest child of Martin Jr. who lived to grow
up was Amy Jones, also normal. (Chart VIII.) She,
too, was taken into a good family and married a normal
man, and lived to be very old. Two of Amy's children
died in infancy. Of two others, one was normal and
one feeble-minded. This latter married a normal man
and had one feeble-minded and immoral daughter;
five other children are undetermined.

We now return to Martin Jr.'s oldest son, Millard

THE DATA 23

(Chart IX), to take up the story of his descendants, of
whom our girl Deborah is one.

Millard married Althea Haight about 1830. They
had fifteen children born in the following years : 1830,
1831, 1832, 1834, 1836, 1838, 1840, 1841, 1843, 1845,
1847, 1849, 1851, 1854, l856. The mother died in 1857.
This mother, Althea Haight, was feeble-minded. That
she came from a feeble-minded family is evidenced by
the fact that she had at least one feeble-minded brother,
while qf her mother it was said that the "devil himself
could not live with her." The feeble-minded brother
had six children, of whom three are known to have been
feeble-minded. He had seven grandchildren who were
feeble-minded, and no less than nine feeble-minded great-
grandchildren. (These are not shown on the chart.)

The oldest child of Millard and Althea was a daugh-
ter who grew up a feeble-minded and immoral woman.
She had several husbands, but only one of her children
lived to be old enough to marry. This one, a daughter
of illegitimate birth, married a man of good family who
was a confirmed alcoholic. Their children are all un-
determined, except one who was normal.

The second child of Millard, a daughter, was a bad
character. We know of one illegitimate and feeble-
minded son who married a feeble-minded and immoral

24 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

girl. They had four children, but all died in infancy.
This wife was also the mother of an illegitimate son, who
was feeble-minded and sexually immoral.

The third child of Millard was Justin (Chart IX, sec-
tion E), the grandfather of our Deborah. His family
we shall discuss later.

According to Mendelian expectation, all of the chil-
dren of Millard Kallikak and Althea Haight should have
been feeble-minded, because the parents were such.
The facts, so far as known, confirm this expectation, with
the exception of the fourth child, a daughter, who was
taken into a good family and grew up apparently a
normal woman. She married a normal man and they
had one son who was normal. He married a normal
woman and they have two children, a boy and girl,
who are normal and above average intelligence.

The fifth child was Albert, feeble-minded, who died
at twenty-five, unmarried.

The sixth child was Warren, who had four children,
three of whom were feeble-minded and of very doubtful
morality. Each of the three had feeble-minded chil-
dren. One of these, Guss by name, was specially loose
and much mixed in his marital relations.

The seventh child was Lavinia, who died unmarried
at the age of thirty-nine. She had been brought up

THE DATA 25

in a good family and never manifested any of those
characteristics that indicate feeble-mindedness.

The eighth was Cordelia, who died at nine ; condition
unknown.

The ninth was Prince, who died at four years.

The tenth was Paula, feeble-minded; married and
had four children. Her husband and children are un-
determined.

Then comes Gregory, the eleventh, who was feeble-
minded and alcoholic. He married an alcoholic and
syphilitic woman, mentality difficult to determine.
They had seven children, of whom two were feeble-
minded, syphilitic, alcoholic, and sexually immoral.
One died of delirium tremens, the other of alcoholism,
leaving a long line of descendants. The other children
died young, except one daughter who has a feeble-
minded grandchild who cannot speak.

The twelfth child was Harriet, feeble-minded, twice
married, but without children.

The thirteenth, Sanders, who was drowned as a
young man, was feeble-minded and sexually immoral.

The fourteenth was Thomas, feeble-minded, alcoholic,
and sexually immoral. He died from over self-indul-
gence. He was married and had a daughter, but her
condition as well as her mother's is unknown.

26 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

The last child was Joseph, feeble-minded. He
married his first cousin, Eva Haight, who was also
feeble-minded. They had five children, two dying in
infancy, and the rest feeble-minded. Of their nineteen
grandchildren, five died in infancy, one is undetermined,
and the remaining thirteen are all feeble-minded.

Millard Kallikak married for his second wife a nor-
mal woman, a sister of a man of prominence. She
was, however, of marked peculiarity. By her, he had
three children ; two died in infancy. The one who
grew to manhood was alcoholic and syphilitic. He ran
off with the wife of his nephew, who was about his
own age. His mental condition is undetermined. He
was killed by an accident a few years later.

We now return to the third born of this family, Jus-
tin Kallikak, the grandfather of our Deborah (Chart
IX, section E). He was feeble-minded, alcoholic, and
sexually immoral. He married Eunice Barrah, who be-
longed to a family of dull mentality. Her mother and
paternal grandfather were feeble-minded, and the grand-
father had a brother that was feeble-minded. That
brother had at least six descendants who were feeble-
minded. The father, also, had a brother feeble-minded
who had eleven children, grandchildren, and great-
grandchildren who were feeble-minded. (Not shown).

THE DATA 27

The children of Deborah's grandparents, Justin and
Eunice, were as follows : first, Martha, the mother of
our Deborah, whose story has already been partly told.
This woman is supposed to have had three illegitimate
children before Deborah was born. They died in in-
fancy. The next younger half sister of Deborah was
placed out by a charitable organization when very
young. From their records we learn that in five years
she had been tried in thirteen different families and by
all found impossible. In one of these she set the barn
on fire. When found by our field worker, she had
grown to be a girl of twenty, pretty, graceful, but of
low mentality. She had already followed the instinct
implanted in her by her mother, and was on the point
of giving birth to an illegitimate child. She was sent
to a hospital. The child died, and then the girl was
placed permanently in a home for feeble-minded. An
own brother of this girl was placed out in a private
family. When a little under sixteen, his foster mother
died and her husband married again. Thus the boy
was turned adrift. Having been well trained, and
being naturally of an agreeable disposition, he easily
found employment. Bad company, however, soon led
to his discharge. He has now drifted into one of our
big cities. It requires no prophet to predict his future.

28 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

The last family of half brothers and sisters of Deborah
are, at present, living with the mother and her second
husband. The oldest three of these are distinctly
feeble-minded. Between them and the two younger
children there was a stillbirth and a miscarriage. The
little ones appear normal and test normal for their ages,
but there is good reason to believe that they will develop
the same defect as they grow older.

Besides the mother of Deborah, Justin and Eunice
had ten other children, of whom six died in infancy.
One of the daughters, Margaret, was taken by a good
family when a very small child. When she was about
thirteen, she visited her parents for a few weeks. While
her mother was away at work, her father, who was a
drunken brute, committed incest with her. When the
fact became known in her adopted home, she was placed
in the almshouse. The child born there soon died, and
she was again received into the family where she for-
merly lived. The care with which she was surrounded
prevented her from becoming a vicious woman. Al-
though of dull mentality, she was a good and cheerful
worker. When about thirty-five, she married a respect-
able workingman but has had no children by him.

Another daughter, Abigail, feeble-minded, married
a feeble-minded man by whom she had two feeble-

THE DATA 29

minded children, besides a third that died in infancy.
She later married a normal man.

The next child of Justin and Eunice was Beede, who
is feeble-minded. He married a girl who left him be-
fore their child was born. He lives at present with a
very low, immoral woman.

The youngest child of Justin and Eunice was a son,
Gaston, feeble-minded and a horse thief ; he removed
to a distant town where he married. He has one child ;
mentality of both mother and child undetermined.

This is the ghastly story of the descendants of Martin
Kallikak Sr., from the nameless feeble-minded girl.

Although Martin himself paid no further attention
to the girl nor her child, society has had to pay the
heavy price of all the evil he engendered.

Martin Sr., on leaving the Revolutionary Army,
straightened up and married a respectable girl of good
family, and through that union has come another line
of descendants of radically different character. These
now number four hundred and ninety-six in direct
descent. All of them are normal people. Three men
only have been found among them who were some-
what degenerate, but they were not defective. Two of
these were alcoholic, and the other sexually loose.

All of the legitimate children of Martin Sr. married

30 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

into the best families in their state, the descendants of
colonial governors, signers of the Declaration of Inde-
pendence, soldiers and even the founders of a great
university. Indeed, in this family and its collateral
branches, we find nothing but good representative citi-
zenship. There are doctors, lawyers, judges, educa-
tors, traders, landholders, in short, respectable citizens,
men and women prominent in every phase of social
life. They have scattered over the United States and
are prominent in their communities wherever they
have gone. Half a dozen towns in New Jersey are
named from the families into which Martin's descend-
ants have married. There have been no feeble-minded
among them ; no illegitimate children ; no immoral
women ; only one man was sexually loose. There has
been no epilepsy, no criminals, no keepers of houses of
prostitution. Only fifteen children have died in in-
fancy. There has been one "insane,*' a case of religious
mania, perhaps inherited, but not from the Kallikak
side. The appetite for strong drink has been present
here and there in this family from the beginning. It
was in Martin Sr., and was cultivated at a time when
such practices were common everywhere. But while
the other branch of the family has had twenty-four vic-
tims of habitual drunkenness, this side scores only two.
The charts of these two families follow.

THE CHARTS

THE CHARTS

CHART I shows the line of descent of the Kallikak
family from their first colonial ancestor. It was Mar-
tin who divided it into a bad branch on one hand and
a good branch o'n the other. Each of these branches
is traced through the line of the eldest son down to a
person of the present generation. On the bad side
it ends with Deborah Kallikak, an inmate of the Train-
ing School at Vineland, on the good side with the son
of a prominent and wealthy citizen of the same family
name, now resident of another State.

Chart II shows the children of Martin Sr. by his wife
and by the nameless feeble-minded girl, and also the
children of Martin Jr.

Then follow Charts III to IX and A to K, giving in
detail each of these two branches, the upper series being
the normal family, the descendants of Martin Kallikak
Sr. through his wife : the lower is the bad family, his
descendants through the nameless feeble-minded girl
who was not his wife.

D 33

34 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

EXPLANATION OF SYMBOLS

Individuals are represented by squares and circles,
the squares being males, the circles, females. Black
squares and circles (with a white "F") mean feeble-
minded individuals ; N means normal persons.

The clear squares or circles indicate that the mentality
of the person is undetermined.

"d. inf." means died in infancy.

A horizontal or slightly oblique line connects persons
who are mated. Unless otherwise indicated, they are
supposed to have been legally married.

The symbols dependent from the same horizontal
line are for brothers and sisters.

A vertical line connecting this horizontal line with
an individual or with a line connecting two individuals,
indicates the parent or parents of the fraternity.

Letters placed around the symbol for an individual
are as follows : A — Alcoholic, meaning decidedly in-
temperate, a drunkard; B — Blind; C — Criminalistic ;
D — Deaf; E — Epileptic ; I-- Insane; Sy — Syphilitic;
Sx — Sexually immoral ; T- -Tuberculous.

A short vertical line dependent from the horizontal
fraternity line indicates a child whose sex is unknown.
An F at the end of the line indicates that such child
was feeble-minded.

THE CHARTS 35

N ? or F ? indicates that the individual has not been
definitely determined, but, considering all the data, it
is concluded that on the whole, the person was probably
normal or feeble-minded, as the letter signifies.

A small d. followed by a numeral means died at
that age ; b. means born, usually followed by the date.

A single figure below a symbol indicates that the sym-
bol stands for more than one individual — the number
denoted by the figure, e.g. a circle with a "4" below it,
indicates that there were four girls in that fraternity,
represented by that one symbol.

The Hand indicates the child that is in the Institu-
tion at Vineland, whose family history is the subject of
the chart.

A black horizontal line under a symbol indicates that
that individual was in some public institution at state
expense.

The fact that the parents were not married is indi-
cated either by the expression "unmarried" or by the
word "illegitimate," placed near the symbol for the
child.

CASPAR.

A. 1736.

d. 1765.

d. 1770.

THE LAWFUL WIFE,

MARTIN

KALLIKAK, SR.

4. 1837.

FREDERICK. MARTIN

KALUKAK JR.

JUSTIN.

MARTHA.

DEBORAH

CHART I.
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CHAPTER III

WHAT IT MEANS

THE foregoing charts and text tell a story as instructive
as it is amazing. We have here a family of good Eng-
lish blood of the middle class, settling upon the original
land purchased from the proprietors of the state in
Colonial times, and throughout four generations main-
taining a reputation for honor and respectability of
which they are justly proud. Then a scion of this fam-
ily, in an unguarded moment, steps aside from the
paths of rectitude and with the help of a feeble-minded
girl, starts a line of mental defectives that is truly
appalling. After this mistake, he returns to the tradi-
tions of his family, marries a woman of his own quality,
and through her carries on a line of respectability equal
to that of his ancestors.

We thus have two series from two different mothers
but the same father. These extend for six generations.
Both lines live out their lives in practically the same
region and in the same environment, except in so far as
they themselves, because of their different characters,
changed that environment. Indeed, so close are they

so

WHAT IT MEANS 51

that in one case, a defective man on the bad side of the
family was found in the employ of a family on the
normal side and, although they are of the same name,
neither suspects any relationship.

We thus have a natural experiment of remarkable
value to the sociologist and the student of heredity.
That we are dealing with a problem of true heredity,
no one can doubt, for, although of the descendants of
Martin Kallikak Jr. many married into feeble-minded
families and thus brought in more bad blood, yet Mar-
tin Jr. himself married a normal woman, thus demon-
strating that the defect is transmitted through the
father, at least in this generation. Moreover, the
Kallikak family traits appear continually even down
to the present generation, and there are many qualities
that are alike in both the good and the bad families,
thus showing the strength and persistence of the an-
cestral stock.

The reader will recall the famous story of the Jukes
family published by Richard L. Dugdale in 1877, a
startling array of criminals, paupers, and diseased per-
sons, more or less related to each other and extending
over seven generations.

Dr. Winship has undertaken to compare this family
with the descendants of Jonathan Edwards, and from

52 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

this comparison to draw certain conclusions. It is a
striking comparison, but unfortunately not as con-
clusive as we need in these days. The two families
were utterly independent, of different ancestral stock,
reared in different communities, even in different States,
and under utterly different environment.

The one, starting from a strong, religious, and highly
educated ancestor, has maintained those traits and
traditions down to the present day and with remarkable
results ; the other, starting without any of these ad-
vantages, and under an entirely different environment,
has resulted in the opposite kind of descendants.

It is not possible to convince the euthenist (who
holds that environment is the sole factor) that, had the
children of Jonathan Edwards and the children of "Old
Max" changed places, the results would not have been
such as to show that it was a question of environment
and not of heredity. And he cites to us the fact that
many children of highly developed parents degenerate
and become paupers and criminals, while on the other
hand, some children born of lowly and even criminal
parents take the opposite course and become respect-
able and useful citizens.

In as far as the children of "Old Max" were of
normal mentality, it is not possible to say what might

WHAT IT MEANS 53

not have become of them, had they had good training
and environment.

Fortunately for the cause of science, the Kallikak
family, in the persons of Martin Kallikak Jr. and his
descendants, are not open to this argument. They
were feeble-minded, and no amount of education or
good environment can change a feeble-minded individual
into a normal one, any more than it can change a red-
haired stock into a black-haired stock. The striking
fact of the enormous proportion of feeble-minded in-
dividuals in the descendants of Martin Kallikak Jr.
and the total absence of such in the descendants of his
half brothers and sisters is conclusive on this point.
Clearly it was not environment that has made that
good family. They made their environment ; and their
own good blood, with the good blood in the families
into which they married, told.

So far as the Jukes family is concerned, there is
nothing that proves the hereditary character of any of
the crime, pauperism, or prostitution that was found.
The most that one can say is that if such a family is
allowed to go on and develop in its own way unmolested,
it is pretty certain not to improve, but rather to propa-
gate its own kind and fill the world with degenerates
of one form or another. The formerly much discussed

54 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

question of the hereditary character of crime received
no solution from the Jukes family, but in the light of
present-day knowledge of the sciences of criminology
and biology, there is every reason to conclude that
criminals are made and not born. The best material
out of which to make criminals, and perhaps the ma-
terial from which they are most frequently made, is
feeble-mindedness.

The reader must remember that the type of feeble-
mindedness of which we are speaking is the one to which
Deborah belongs, that is, to the high grade, or moron.
All the facts go to show that this type of people makes
up a large percentage of our criminals. We may argue
a priori that such would be the case. Here we have a
group who, when children in school, cannot learn the
things that are given them to learn, because through
their mental defect, they are incapable of mastering
abstractions. They never learn to read sufficiently
well to make reading pleasurable or of practical use to
them. The same is true of number work. Under our
compulsory school system and our present courses of
study, we compel these children to go to school, and
attempt to teach them the three R's, and even higher
subjects. Thus they worry along through a few grades
until they are fourteen years old and then leave school,

WHAT IT MEANS 55

not having learned anything of value or that can help
them to make even a meager living in the world. They
are then turned out inevitably dependent upon others.
A few have relatives who take care of them, see that
they learn to do something which perhaps will help in
their support, and then these relatives supplement
this with enough to insure them a living.

A great majority, however, having no such interested
or capable relatives, become at once a direct burden
upon society. These divide according to temperament
into two groups. Those who are phlegmatic, sluggish,
indolent, simply lie down and would starve to death, if
some one did not help them. When they come to the
attention of our charitable organizations, they are
picked up and sent to the almshouse, if they cannot be
made to work. The other type is of the nervous, ex-
citable, irritable kind who try to make a living, and not
being able to do it by a fair day's work and honest
wages, attempt to succeed through dishonest methods.
"Fraud is the force of weak natures." These become
the criminal type. The kind of criminality into which
they fall seems to depend largely upon their environ-
ment. If they are associated with vicious but intelli-
gent people, they become the dupes for carrying out
any of the hazardous schemes that their more intelli-

56 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

gent associates plan for them. Because of their stupid-
ity, they are very apt to be caught quickly and sent to
the reformatory or prison. If they are girls, one of the
easiest things for them to fall into is a life of prostitu-
tion, because they have natural instincts with no power
of control and no intelligence to understand the wiles
and schemes of the white slaver, the cadet, or the in-
dividual seducer. All this, we say, is what is to be
expected. These are the people of good outward ap-
pearance, but of low intelligence, who pass through
school without acquiring any efficiency, then go out into
the world and must inevitably fall into some such life
as we have pictured.

Let us now turn to our public institutions. These
have not yet been sufficiently investigated, nor have
we adequate statistics to show what percentage of their
inmates is actually feeble-minded. But even casual
observation of our almshouse population shows the
majority to be of decidedly low mentality, while care-
ful tests would undoubtedly increase this percentage
very materially.

In our insane hospitals may also be found a group
of people whom the physicians will tell you are only
partially demented. The fact is they properly belong
in an institution for feeble-minded, rather than in one

WHAT IT MEANS 57

for the insane, and have gotten into the latter because
an unenlightened public does not recognize the difference
between a person who has lost his mind and one who
never had one.

In regard to criminality, we now have enough studies
to make us certain that at least 25 per cent of this class
is feeble-minded. One hundred admissions to the Rah-
way Reformatory, taken in order of admission, show
at least 26 per cent of them distinctly feeble-minded,
with the certainty that the percentage would be much
higher if we included the border-line cases.

An investigation of one hundred of the Juvenile
Court children in the Detention Home of the City of
Newark showed that 67 per cent of them were distinctly
feeble-minded. From this estimate are excluded children
who are yet too young for us to know definitely whether
the case is one of arrested development. This point
once determined would unquestionably swell the per-
centage of defect.

An examination of fifty-six girls from a Massachusetts
reformatory, but out on probation, showed that fifty-
two of them were distinctly feeble-minded. This was
partially a selected group, the basis being their trouble-
someness ; they were girls who could not be made to
stay in the homes that were found for them, nor to do

58 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

reasonable and sensible things in those homes, which
fact, of itself, pointed toward feeble-mindedness.

The foregoing are figures based on actual test examina-
tions as to mental capacity. If we accept the estimates
of the mental condition of the inmates made by the
superintendents of reformatories and penal institutions,
we get sometimes a vastly higher percentage ; e.g. the
Superintendent of the Elmira Reformatory estimates f
that at least 40 per cent of his inmates are mental
defectives.

Indeed, it would not be surprising if careful examina-
tion of the inmates of these institutions should show
that even 50 per cent of them are distinctly feeble-
minded.

In regard to prostitutes, we have no reliable figures.
The groups of delinquent girls to which we have al-
ready referred included among the numbers several
that were already known as prostitutes. A simple
observation of persons who are leading this sort of life
will satisfy any one who is familiar with feeble-minded-
ness that a large percentage of them actually are de-
fective mentally. So we have, as is claimed, partly
from statistical studies and partly from careful obser-
vation, abundant evidence of the truth of our claim that
criminality is often made out of feeble-mindedness.

WHAT IT MEANS 59

Mr. Winship in his comparison of the Jukes and Ed-
wards families has strengthened our claim in this re-
spect. In all environments and under all conditions,
he shows the latter family blossoming out into distin-
guished citizens, not primarily through anything from
without but through the imperious force within. Since
we may conclude that none of the Edwards family,
who are described by Dr. Winship, were feeble-minded,
therefore none of them became criminals or prostitutes.
But here again his argument is inconclusive because he
does not tell us of all the descendants.

With equal safety it may be surmised that many of
the Jukes family (perhaps the original stock, indeed)
were feeble-minded and therefore easily lapsed into the
kind of lives that they are said to have lived.

In the good branch of the Kallikak family there were
no criminals. There were not many in the other "side,
but there were some, and, had their environment been
different, no one who is familiar with feeble-minded
persons, their characteristics and tendencies, would
doubt that a large percentage of them might have be-
come criminal. Lombroso's famous criminal types,
in so far as they were types, may have been types of
feeble-mindedness on which criminality was grafted
by the circumstances of their environment.

60 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

Such facts as those revealed by the Kallikak family
drive us almost irresistibly to the conclusion that be-
fore we can settle our problems of criminality and paup-
erism and all the rest of the social problems that are
taxing our time and money, the first and fundamental
step should be to decide upon the mental capacity of
the persons who make up these groups. We must
separate, as sharply as possible, those persons who are
weak-minded, and therefore irresponsible, from intelli-
gent criminals. Both our method of treatment and our
attitude towards crime will be changed when we discover
what part of this delinquency is due to irresponsibility.

If the Jukes family were of normal intelligence, a
change of environment would have worked wonders
and would have saved society from the horrible blot.
But if they were feeble-minded, then no amount of
good environment could have made them anything
else than 'feeble-minded. Schools and colleges were
not for them, rather a segregation which would have
prevented them from falling into evil and from procre-
ating their kind, so avoiding the transmitting of their
defects and delinquencies to succeeding generations.

Thus where the Jukes-Edwards comparison is weak
and the argument inconclusive, the twofold Kallikak
family is strong and the argument convincing.

WHAT IT MEANS 61

Environment does indeed receive some support from
three cases in our chart. On Chart II, two children
of Martin Jr. and Rhoda were normal, while all the
rest were feeble-minded. It is true that here one parent
was normal, and we have the right to expect some nor-
mal children. At the same time, these were the two
children that were adopted into good families and
brought up under good surroundings. They proved
to be normal and their descendants normal. Again,
on Chart IX-a, we have one child of two feeble-minded
parents who proves to be normal — the only one
among the children. This child was also taken into a
good family and brought up carefully. Another sister
(Chart IX-b) was also taken into a good family and,
while not determined, yet "showed none of the traits
that are usually indicative of feeble-mindedness." It
may be claimed that environment is responsible for
this good result. It is certainly significant that the
only children in these families that were normal, or at
least better than the rest, were brought up in good
families.

However, it would seem to be rather dangerous to
base any very positive hope on environment in the
light of these charts, taken as a whole. There are too
many other possible explanations of the anomaly, e.g.

62 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

these cases may have been high-grade morons, who, to
the untrained person, would seem so nearly normal,
that at this late day it would be impossible to find
any one who would remember their traits well enough to
enable us to classify them as morons.

We must not forget that, on Chart IX-e, we also have
the daughter of Justin taken into a good family and
carefully brought up, but in spite of all that, she proved
to be feeble-minded. The same is probably true of
Deborah's half brother.

We have claimed that criminality resulting from
feeble-mindedness is mainly a matter of environment,
yet it must be acknowledged that there are wide differ-
ences in temperament and that, while this one branch
of the Kallikak family was mentally defective, there
was no strong tendency in it towards that which our
laws recognize as criminality. In other families there
is, without doubt, a much greater tendency to crime, so
that the lack of criminals in this particular case, far
from detracting from our argument, really strengthens
it. It must be recognized that there is much more lia-
bility of criminals resulting from mental defectiveness
in certain families than in others, probably because of
difference in the strength of some instincts.

This difference in temperament is perhaps nowhere

WHAT IT MEANS 63

better brought out than in the grandparents of Debo-
rah. The grandfather belonging to the Kallikak family
had the temperament and characteristics of that family,
which, while they did not lead him into positive crim-
inality of high degree, nevertheless did make him a
bad man of a positive type, a drunkard, a sex pervert,
and all that goes to make up a bad character.

On the other hand, his wife and her family were
simply stupid, with none of the pronounced tendencies
to evil that were shown in the Kallikak family. They
were not vicious, nor given over to bad practices of any
sort. But they were inefficient, without power to get
on in the world, and they transmitted these qualities
to their descendants.

Thus, of the children of this pair, the grandparents of
Deborah, the sons have been active and positive in their
lives, the one being a horse thief, the other a sexual
pervert, having the alcoholic tendency of his father,
while the daughters are quieter and more passive.
Their dullness, however, does not amount to imbecility.
Deborah's mother herself was of a high type of moron,
with a certain quality which carried with it an element
of refinement. Her sister was the passive victim of her
father's incestuous practice and later married a normal
man. Another sister was twice married, the first time

64 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

through the agency of the good woman who attended to
the legalizing of Deborah's mother's alliances, the last
time, the man, being normal, attended to this himself.
He was old and only wanted a housekeeper, and this
woman, having been strictly raised in an excellent
family, was famous as a cook, so this arrangement
seemed to him best. None of these sisters ever ob-
jected to the marriage ceremony when the matter was
attended to for them, but they never seem to have
thought of it as necessary when living with any man.
The stupid helplessness of Deborah's mother in re-
gard to her own impulses is shown by the facts of her
life. Her first child had for its father a farm hand ; the
father of the second and third (twins) was a common
laborer on the railroad. Deborah's father was a young
fellow, normal indeed, but loose in his morals, who,
along with others, kept company with the mother while
she was out at service. After Deborah's birth in the
almshouse, the mother had been taken with her child
into a good family. Even in this guarded position,
she was sought out by a feeble-minded man of low
habits. Every possible means was employed to sep-
arate the pair, but without effect. Her mistress then
insisted that they marry, and herself attended to all the
details. After Deborah's mother had borne this man

WHAT IT MEANS 65

two children, the pair went to live on the farm of an
unmarried man possessing some property, but little
intelligence. The husband was an imbecile who had
never provided for his wife. She was still pretty, al-
most girlish — the farmer was good-looking, and soon
the two were openly living together and the husband
had left. As the facts became known, there was con-
siderable protest in the neighborhood, but no active
steps were taken until two or three children had been
born. Finally, a number of leading citizens, headed
by the good woman before alluded to, took the matter
up in earnest. They found the husband and persuaded
him to allow them to get him a divorce. Then they
compelled the farmer to marry the woman. He agreed,
on condition that the children which were not his
should be sent away. It was at this juncture that
Deborah was brought to the Training School.

In visiting the mother in her present home and in
talking with her over different phases of her past life,
several things are evident; there has been no malice
in her life nor voluntary reaction against social order,
but simply a blind following of impulse which never
rose to objective consciousness. Her life has utterly
lacked coordination — there has been no reasoning
from cause to effect, no learning of any lesson. She

66 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

has never known shame; in a word, she has never
struggled and never suffered. Her husband is a
selfish, sullen, penurious person who gives his wife
but little money, so that she often resorts to selling soap
and other things among her neighbors to have something
to spend. At times she works hard in the field as a
farm hand, so that it cannot be wondered at that her
house is neglected and her children unkempt. Her
philosophy of life is the philosophy of the animal.
There is no complaining, no irritation at the inequalities
of fate. Sickness, pain, childbirth, death — she ac-
cepts them all with the same equanimity as she accepts
the opportunity of putting a new dress and a gay ribbon
on herself and children and going to a Sunday School
picnic. There is no rising to the comprehension of the
possibilities which life offers or of directing circum-
stances to a definite, higher end. She has a certain
fondness for her children, but is incapable of real solici-
tude for them. She speaks of those who were placed
in homes and is glad to see their pictures, and has a
sense of their belonging to her, but it is faint, remote, and
in no way bound up with her life. She is utterly help-
less to protect her older daughters, now on the verge
of womanhood, from the dangers that beset them, or to
inculcate in them any ideas which would lead to self-

WHAT IT MEANS 67

control or to the directing of their lives in an orderly
manner.

The same lack is strikingly shown, if we turn our
attention to the question of alcoholism in this family.
We learn from a responsible member of the good branch
of the family that the appetite for alcoholic stimulants
has been strong in the past in this family and that sev-
eral members in recent generations have been more or
less addicted to its use. Only two have actually al-
lowed it to get the better of them to the extent that they
became incapacitated. Both were physicians. In the
other branch, however, with the weakened mentality,
we find twenty-four victims of this habit so pronounced
that they were public nuisances. We have taken no
account of the much larger number who were also ad-
dicted to its use, but who did not become so bad as to
be considered alcoholic in our category.

Thus we see that the normal mentality of the good
branch of the family was able to cope successfully with
this intense thirst, while the weakened mentality on the
other side was unable to escape, and many fell victims
to this appalling habit.

It is such facts as these, taken as we find them, not
only in this family but in many of the other families
whose records we are soon to publish, that lead us to

68 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

the conclusion that drunkenness is, to a certain extent
at least, the result of feeble-mindedness and that one
way to reduce drunkenness is first to determine the
mentally defective people, and save them from the
environment which would lead them into this abuse.

Again, eight of the descendants of the degenerate
Kallikak branch were keepers of houses of ill fame, and
that in spite of the fact that they mostly lived in a rural
community where such places do not flourish as they do
in large cities.

In short, whereas in the Jukes-Edwards comparison
we have no sound basis for argument, because the fam-
ilies were utterly different and separate, in the Kallikak
family the conclusion seems thoroughly logical. We
have, as it were, a natural experiment with a normal
branch with which to compare our defective side. We
have the one ancestor giving us a line of normal people
that shows thoroughly good all the way down the gen-
erations, with the exception of the one man who was
sexually loose and the two who gave way to the appe-
tite for strong drink.

This is our norm, our standard, our demonstration of
what the Kallikak blood is when kept pure, or mingled
with blood as good as its own.

Over against this we have the bad side, the blood of

WHAT IT MEANS 69

the same ancestor contaminated by that of the name-
less feeble-minded girl.

From this comparison the conclusion is inevitable
that all this degeneracy has come as the result of the
defective mentality and bad blood having been brought
into the normal family of good blood, first from the
nameless feeble-minded girl and- later by additional
contaminations from other sources.

The biologist could hardly plan and carry out a more
rigid experiment or one from which the conclusions
would follow more inevitably.

CHAPTER IV

FURTHER FACTS ABOUT THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

ALTHOUGH the foregoing facts, figures, and charts
show conclusively the difference between good heredity
and bad and the result of introducing mental deficiency
into the family blood, yet because it is so difficult actu-
ally to appreciate the situation, because facts and figures
do not have flesh and blood reality in them, we give in
this chapter a few cases, graphically written up by
our field worker, to show the differences in the types
of people on the two sides of the family. These are
only a few of the many, but are fairly typical of the
condition of things that was found throughout the
investigation. On the bad side we have the type of
family which the social worker meets continually and
which makes most of our social problems. A study
of it will help to account for the conviction we have
that no amount of work in the slums or removing the
slums from our cities will ever be successful until we take
care of those who make the slums what they are. Un-
less the two lines of work go on together, either one is
bound to be futile in itself. If all of the slum districts

70

FACTS ABOUT THE KALLIKAK FAMILY 71

of our cities were removed to-morrow and model tene-
ments built in their places, we would still have slums in
a week's time, because we have these mentally defec-
tive people who can never be taught to live otherwise
than as they have been living. Not until we take care
of this class and see to it that their lives are guided
by intelligent people, shall we remove these sores from
our social life.

There are Kallikak families all about us. They are
multiplying at twice the rate of the general population,
and not until we recognize this fact, and work on this
basis, will we begin to solve these social problems.

The following pictures from life have been prepared
by our field worker, Miss Elizabeth S. Kite, and besides
giving an idea of the family, they will also show some-
thing of her method, and enable the reader to judge of
the reliability of the data.

On one of the coldest days in winter the field worker
visited the street in a city slum where three sons of
Joseph (Chart IX, section D) live. She had previously
tested several of the children of these families in the
public school and found them, in amiability of charac-
ter and general mentality, strikingly like our own
Deborah, lacking, however, her vitality. There was

72 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

no fire in their eyes, but a languid dreamy look, which
was partly due, no doubt, to unwholesome city environ-
ment. In one house she found the family group — six
human beings, two cats, and two dogs — huddled in a
small back room around a cook stove, the only fire in
the house. In this room were accumulated all the
paraphernalia of living. A boy of eleven, who had
been tested in the school previously, was standing by
the fire with a swollen face. He had been kept home
on this account. In a rocking-chair, a little girl of
twelve was holding a pale-faced, emaciated baby. In
the corner two boys were openly exposing themselves.
The mother was making her toilet by the aid of a comb
and basin of water, set on the hearth of the stove ; a pot
and kettle were on top. The entrance of the field
worker caused no commotion of any kind. The boy
with the swollen face looked up and smiled, the mother
smiled and went on with her toilet, the girl with the baby
smiled, the boys in the corner paid no attention. A
chair was finally cleared off and she sat down, while
everybody smiled. She learned that the husband made
a dollar a day and that the girl next older than the
child of twelve was married and had a baby. Another
younger girl was at school, the family having been at
last able to provide her with shoes. The girl of twelve

FACTS ABOUT THE KALLIKAK FAMILY 73

should have been at school, according to the law, but
when one saw her face, one realized it made no differ-
ence. She was pretty, with olive complexion and dark,
languid eyes, but there was no mind there. Stagna-
tion was the word written in large characters over
everything. Benumbed by this display of human
degeneracy, the field worker went out into the icy
street.

A short distance farther on, she came to the home
of another brother. The hideous picture that pre-
sented itself as the door opened to her knock was one
never to be forgotten. In the first home, the type was
no lower than moron. One felt that when winter was
over and spring had come, the family would expand
into a certain expression of life — but here, no such
outlook was possible, for the woman at the head of this
house was an imbecile. In one arm she held a fright-
ful looking baby, while she had another by the hand.
Vermin were visible all over her. In the room were a
few chairs and a bed, the latter without any washable
covering and filthy beyond description. There was no
fire, and both mother and babies were thinly clad.
They did not shiver, however, nor seem to mind. The
oldest girl, a vulgar, repulsive creature of fifteen, came

74

into the room and stood looking at the stranger. She
had somehow managed to live. All the rest .of the
children, except the two that the mother was carrying,
had died in infancy.

The following is a story of Guss, whose position will
be found on Chart IX, section A.

When young, he married a normal girl who belonged
to a decent family, but had no education. After a few
months the mother of our Deborah came to visit them.
She was then a young girl, ready to associate with any
man who would look at her. The two behaved so
badly that the wife turned her out. This was the first
knowledge the wife had of the character of her husband.
She lived with him ten years or more. In that time
he did not average three months' work out of twelve,
so she had, practically, to support him and her ever
increasing family. She knew that he was untrue to her,
but there was no way to prove it. At last she seemed
to grasp the situation. She began to believe that there
was something wrong with him mentally, — wrong with
the whole family, — so she decided to leave him. She
took her six living children, rented another house and
turned him adrift. He went at once to live with a
feeble-minded girl belonging to a low-grade family of

FACTS ABOUT THE KALLIKAK FAMILY 75

the neighborhood. Soon after this girl's child was born
he left her, becoming promiscuous in his relations. At
one time, he and two of his cousins spent the best part
of two days and nights in a tree to elude the police,
who were searching for them and another man, all of
whom had been accused by a girl then in confinement.
When the other man was caught and made to marry
the girl, they came down.

In 1904, this scion of the Kallikak family, Guss, went
off with a gypsy camp and was married to one of the
women. For some time he stayed with the camp, fol-
lowing them into another State. In the neighborhood
where they located, a murder was committed which
was fastened upon the gypsies and finally settled upon
him. A great sensation was raised in the papers about
it. He was arrested, but finally cleared of the charge,
though not until he was effectually cured of his love for
gypsy life.

In 1907, — and here comes the most infamous part
of "the story, — a minister married Guss to his own first
cousin, a woman of questionable character. The wit-
nesses were Guss's sister and her husband. Every one
concerned, except the minister, knew that around the
corner, in a little street, so near that at certain hours
of the day the shadow of the church spire under which

76 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

they were standing fell upon it, was a house in which
Guss's lawful wife was living and working to support
his children. The minister, too, might have known,
had he taken the least trouble, and thus have been
spared the ignominy of uniting two such beings with
this travesty of the blessing of heaven. Soon after
their union, this couple ceased to live together — Guss
going off with another woman and his wife with another
man.

The field worker was not able to locate Guss, but she
found that a minister farther up the State had, in 1910,
married his late wife to the man with whom she was
living. The couple, however, had gotten wind that
some one was looking for them, so when the field
worker arrived, she found that they had moved on,
leaving no address.

The following story shows the continuation of these
conditions into the next generation : -

It was considered desirable to see the illegitimate soil
of Guss, who had been born to the feeble-minded girl
after Guss had been turned adrift by his lawful wife.
This child had had, when young, a severe attack of
scarlet fever which deprived him of his hearing. He
had been admitted into a home for deaf children, but
the mother had taken him out. It was learned that

FACTS ABOUT THE KALLIKAK FAMILY 77

this girl had married her own cousin and that the pair
were living on the outskirts of a country town, with
this deaf boy and four of their own children.

Arrived at this place, the field worker first sought the
school where these children were supposed to go, hoping
to obtain some light on the question of their mentality
and also to learn their school record. She found that
they so seldom attended school that the teacher could
give very little information regarding them. By dint
of persistent inquiry, the family was discovered liv-
ing in the back shed of a dilapidated country tene-
ment.

It was a bitter, cold day in February and about
eleven in the morning when the field worker knocked
at the door. Used as she was to sights of misery and
degradation, she was hardly prepared for the spectacle
within. The father, a strong, healthy, broad-shoul-
dered man, was sitting helplessly in a corner. The
mother, a pretty woman still, with remnants of ragged
garments drawn about her, sat in a chair, the picture
of despondency. Three children, scantily clad and
with shoes that would barely hold together, stood about
with drooping jaws and the unmistakable look of the
feeble-minded. Another child, neither more intelligent
nor better clad, was attempting to wash a few greasy

78 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

dishes in cold water. The deaf boy was nowhere to be
seen. On being urgently requested, the mother went
out of the room to get him, for he was not yet out of bed.
In a few moments she returned. The boy with her
wore an old suit that evidently was made to do service
by night as well as by day. A glance sufficed to estab-
lish his mentality, which was low. The whole family
was a living demonstration of the futility of trying to
make desirable citizens from defective stock through
making and enforcing compulsory education laws.
Here were children who seldom went to school because
they seldom had shoes, but when they went, had neither
will nor power to learn anything out of books. The
father himself, though strong and vigorous, showed by' his
face that he had only a child's mentality. The mother
in her filth and rags was also a child. In this house
of abject poverty, only one sure prospect was ahead,
that it would produce more feeble-minded children
with which to clog the wheels of human progress. The
laws of the country will not permit children ten years
old to marry. Why should they permit it when the
mentality is only ten ? These and similar questions
kept ringing through the field worker's mind as she
made her way laboriously over the frozen road to the
station.

FACTS ABOUT THE KALLIKAK FAMILY 79

Early in the course of this investigation, it had been
learned that the father of Deborah's mother had come,
when a young man, to the prosperous rural community
where his daughter was living at the time of our in-
vestigation. The informant could not say whence he
had come, but the name of a person was given who was
supposed to know. Many fruitless attempts to find
this person were made before the object was attained.
When at last discovered, she turned out to be an elderly
lady of refinement and culture. Strangely enough,
long afterwards it was learned that she was connected
with the good side of the Kallikak family, but was all
unconscious of the relationship which existed between
it and the degenerate branch. She was delighted to
go back in memory and recall impressions made on her
mind in youth.

She had been raised in B , a town at the foot of a

mountain chain upon whose top the grandfather of
Deborah's grandfather, Martin Kallikak Jr., had always
lived. When she was a little girl, he was a very old
man. She remembered being taken to drive, when a
child, and seeing the old hut on the mountain, where he
lived with his strange daughters, "Old Moll," "Old
Sail, " and Jemima. The dilapidated dwelling, with its
windows bulging with rags, formed a picture she had

8o THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

never forgotten. There were in her mind floating
memories of great scandals connected with these women
and their lonely mountain hut. The father went by
the name of the "Old Horror," and as she remembered
him, he was always unwashed and drunk. At election
time, he never failed to appear in somebody's cast-off
clothing, ready to vote, for the price of a drink, the
donor's ticket.

This information, coming when it did, seemed amaz-
ing and carried with it the probability of establishing
the certainty of defect transmitted through five genera-
tions. But the town in question was remote and the
probability of finding any living person able to give
accurate information seemed so slight that nothing
further was done in this direction for many months.

In the meantime, the families of the fifteen brothers
and sisters of Deborah's grandfather had been worked
out, and the names of several living relatives back in
the mountain ascertained. The time was ripe.

Appealing for a night's lodging at the home of a re-
tired farmer, the field worker was fortunate enough to
be received. As the hostess was showing her to a room,
she asked tentatively, "You have lived in B— - a
long time ?" "About sixty-five years," was the pleas-
ant reply. " So, then, you know something of most of

FACTS ABOUT THE KALLIKAK FAMILY 81

the old families ?" "There are not many old residents

of B with whose history I am not familiar." Then

followed a few cautious questions in regard to the Kal-
likak family which drew forth answers that soon con-
vinced the field worker she was on solid ground and
could advance without wasting time in needless pre-
cautions. At this juncture, the supper bell rang. In
the dining room the acquaintance of the host was
made. When the meal was over, the couple turned
their united attention to the problem put before them.
"Why," the host began, when he comprehended what
was wanted, "do you know that is the worst nest
you're getting into, in the whole country ? The moun-
tains back here are full of these people ; I can point out
to you where every one of them lives." Then he
turned to the table and began to sketch a map of the
mountain roads which must be followed next day. In
the midst of this he paused, as though an idea had come
to him, then he said hesitatingly, "You see, it's
really impossible for a stranger like you to find all these
people. Some of them live on obscure back roads that
you could hardly get at without a guide. Now, my
time is of no value, and if you will permit me, I will
gladly serve in that capacity myself." Needless to
say, his services were thankfully accepted, with the

82 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

result that nearly two hundred persons were added to
Deborah's family chart.

This proved, however, only the beginning of the
study that has been made of the family in the vicinity

of B . Numerous visits to many homes, always

from the center of the genial couple's house, have made
the field worker such a well-known figure among these
people, that they long ago forgot what little surprise
they may have felt at her first visit. "You're one of
the family ?" was frequently asked her at the begin-
ning. "No, not really, only as I know so many of
your cousins and aunts and uncles, I thought, since I

was in B , I would like to know you." This usually

sufficed, but if it did not, the field worker was able so to
inundate the questioner with information about his
own relatives, that before she was through, he had for-
gotten that anything remained unanswered. The re-
lation once established, no further explanation was
necessary. She was able to go in and out among them,
study their mentality, awake their reminiscences, until
finally the whole story was told.

Besides members of the family, numerous old people
were here and there discovered who were able to add
materially to the information otherwise obtained.
One shrewd old farmer who was found tottering in from

FACTS ABOUT THE KALLIKAK FAMILY 83

the field proved to be of especial service in determining
the mental status of Martin Kallikak Jr. In introduc-
ing herself, the field worker had spoken of her interest
in Revolutionary times and of having come to him be-
cause she had been told that he was well informed as
to the history of the locality. "Yes," he said, with
excusable pride, as he led the way to the kitchen steps
descending into the garden, "not much has happened
in this place for the last seventy years in which I have
not taken an active part. Do you see that tree there ?"
and he pointed to a fine maple that threw its luxuriant
shade over the path that led to the barn. "The day my
wife and I came here sixty years ago, we planted that
tree. It was a little sapling then, and see what it has
become!" After much more talk she cautiously put
the question, "Do you remember an old man, Martin
Kallikak, who lived on the mountain edge yonder ?"
"Do I?" he answered. "Well, I guess! Nobody'd
forget him. Simple," he went on; "not quite right
here," tapping his head, "but inoffensive and kind.
All the family was that. Old Moll, simple as she was,
would do anything for a neighbor. She finally died —
burned to death in the chimney corner. She had come
in drunk and sat down there. Whether she fell over
in a fit or her clothes caught fire, nobody knows. She

84 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

was burned to a crisp when they found her. That was
the worst of them, they would drink. Poverty was
their best friend in this respect, or they would have
been drunk all the time. Old Martin could never stop
as long as he had a drop. Many's the time he's rolled
off of Billy Parson's porch. Billy always had a barrel
of cider handy. He'd just chuckle to see old Martin
drink and drink until finally he'd lose his balance and
over he'd go ! But Horser — he was a case ! I saw
him once after I'd heard he was going to marry Jemima.
I looked him over and said, 'Well, if you aren't a fine-
looking specimen to think of marrying anybody ! '
and he answered, ' I guess you're right — I aren't much,
but I guess I'll do fer Jemima.'

"Such scandals as there were when those girls were
young!" he continued. "You see, there was a fast

set of young men in B in those days, lawyers, who

didn't care what they did. One of them got paid back,
though, for Jemima wanted to put her child on the
town, and they made her tell who was its father. Then
he had to give something for its support, and she gave it
this man's full name. I saw him one day soon after-
ward and he was boiling with rage. All the comfort
I gave him was to say, 'I don't see but what you're
getting your just deserts, for if anybody wants to play
with the pot, they must expect to get blackened !'

FACTS ABOUT THE KALLIKAK FAMILY 85

"By the way ! Do you know that old Martin had
a half brother Frederick — as fine a man as the coun-
try owned — who lived about twenty miles from here ?
You see, Martin's mother was a young girl in Revolu-
tionary times when Martin's father was a soldier.
Afterwards he went back home and married a respect-
able woman."

"Did you ever see the mother of old Martin ?" the
field worker asked. "No, she was dead before my time,
but I have heard the folks talk about her. She lived
in the woods not far from here. Dear me !" he went
on, "it's been so long since I've thought of these people
that many things I forget, but it would all come back
to me in time."

Two daughters of Jemima lived in B . A little

study of Chart V, sections A and B, will place them in
their relation to the rest of the family and give the
chief facts of their lives. Little more need be added.
One of them was early put out to service and later
married a cobbler to whom she has borne many chil-
dren. She is not known to have had any illegitimate off-
spring, but if she escaped, her daughter has made up for
her deficiency in this respect. The other sister grew
up in the mountain hut with her mother, and was living
there when her grandfather died. Her husband and

86 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

most of her children are defective, but there are two by
unknown fathers who are normal. One of these, a
girl of considerable ability, supports herself and mother
in a decent way and is respected by her townspeople.
The mother is tall, lean, angular, much resembling
Jemima, except that the latter was even more mascu-
line. Many are the living inhabitants of B — —to whom
the old woman was a well-known figure, for she often
came down into the town bringing berries to sell, her
large feet shod with heavy boots, her skirts short, while
her sharp, angular features were hidden in the depths
of a huge sunbonnet. She thus formed a striking pic-
ture that could not easily be forgotten.

A third daughter of Jemima had gone to Brooklyn to
live, and the question kept repeating itself, "What will
she be like ? " and thi's all the more because of the uncer-
tainty of the parentage on the father's side. Perhaps
he was a normal man. Perhaps this will prove to be
a normal woman and so break the dead monotony of
this line of defectives.

In a back tenement, after passing through a narrow
alley, the home of this woman was found. It was about
ten o'clock in the morning. After climbing a dark and
narrow stairway, one came to a landing from which
a view could be had of the interior of the apartment.

FACTS ABOUT THE KALLIKAK FAMILY 87

In one room was a frowsled young woman in tawdry
rags, her hair unkempt, her face streaked with black,
while on the floor two dirty, half-naked children were
rolling. At the sight of a stranger, they all came for-
ward. The field worker made her way as best she
could, across heaps of junk that cluttered the room,
to a chair by an open window through which a breath
of outside air could be obtained. On the bureau by
the window a hideous diseased cat was curled in the
sunshine. The mother, Jemima's daughter, was not at
home, but the woman who had presented herself was
her daughter, and these were the grandchildren. The
woman's feeble-mindedness made it possible to ask her
question after question, such as could not have been
put to a normal person. Her answers threw a flood of
light upon the general depravity of life under such
conditions. When the mother at last arrived, she
proved to be of a type somewhat different from any-
thing before encountered in this family. She appeared
to be criminalistic, or at least capable of developing
along that line. Unfortunately, the visit could not
either be prolonged or repeated, so that no satisfactory
study was made.

In the city, the individual is lost in the very im-
mensity of the crowd that surrounds him, so that his

88 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY-

individual actions, except such as he himself chooses to
reveal or can be made to reveal, are lost to the people
about him ; therefore there was little hope of obtaining
much side light on the problem here presented. During
the short interview the older woman showed unmistak-
able signs of wanting to appear respectable in the midst
of her depravity, something quite characteristic of the
high-grade moron type in the family. She was friendly
and distinctly more intelligent than her daughter, but
there was little more will power or ability to cope with
the problems of life. One of her daughters had disap-
peared off the face of the earth a few years before —
there had been a baby — that was all they knew. She
was working at Coney Island. One day she came home
and, when she left the next morning, it was the last they
ever saw of her. A brother of the girl had also disap-
peared in much the same way.

The field worker left the tenement with the positive
assurance that environment without strict personal
supervision made little difference when it was a ques-
tion of the feeble-minded.

Owing to the courtesy of the County Superintendent
and the intelligent cooperation of the teachers, it was
possible to apply the Binet tests to all the descendants

GREAT-GRANDCHILDREN OF " OLD SAL."

CHILDREN OF Guss SAUNDERS, WITH THEIR GRANDMOTHER.

FACTS ABOUT THE KALLIKAK FAMILY 89

of Martin Kallikak who could be found in the schools.
The request for this had been made in a way to give
no clew to the particular purpose underlying the search.
By selecting from every class one or two bright pupils
to take the tests along with the dull ones, all personal
element was eliminated. As children everywhere are
found to delight in the tests, only those who were not
called out were disappointed.

A morning was spent in a schoolhouse situated on the
top of a bold, rocky ledge that went by the picturesque
name of Hard Scrabble. It was within a quarter of a
mile of the ruins of Martin Kallikak's hut, and a num-
ber of his descendants were enrolled among its pupils.

One of the grandsons of "Old Sal" lived on a farm
near Cedarhill, several miles farther up the ridge. This
man, Guss Saunders by name, had been reported to be
the father of a large family. Nothing, however, had
been learned of him beyond the facts stated, and there-
fore the inference was that he had turned out better
than the rest of his brothers. It had been to determine
this matter that the long ride was undertaken.

Arrived at the farm, the question of the mentality of
this family was quickly answered. Desolation and
ruin became more apparent at every step. The front
of the large farmhouse was quite deserted, but follow-

90 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

ing a few tracks the back door was reached. Such an
unwonted spectacle as a visitor attracted instant atten-
tion. The door opened, revealing a sight to which, alas,
the field worker was only too accustomed. She gazed
aghast at what appeared to her to be a procession of
imbeciles. The tall, emaciated, staggering man at the
head braced himself against a tree, while the rest stopped
and stood with a fixed, stupid stare. Quickly regain-
ing control, the field worker said pleasantly, "Good
afternoon, Mr. Saunders. I hope you don't mind my
intruding on you this way, but you see I am looking up
the children of the neighborhood, and I was sorry not
to find any of yours in the *Cedarhill school to-day.'*
He at once thought he had to do with a school inspector,
and his answer bears no setting forth in print. It was
an incoherent, disjointed, explosive protest against
school laws in general and fate in particular. It was
mixed up with convulsive sobs, while his bleared, swollen
eyes brimmed over with tears. The field worker began
to feel real sympathy for the man, although she knew
that he was drunk and that drunkards are easily moved
to tears. "Oh, I am sorry for you," she said; "your
wife then is dead, is she?" "Yes, she's dead!" he
answered with a wild gesture, "they took her right
out of that room — they said they'd cure her, if I'd let

FACTS ABOUT THE KALLIKAK FAMILY 91

her go. You can see the doctors in B , they know

all about it — they'll tell you what they done — they
took her away, and she never come back — Oh!"
Stifling his sobs, he went on, "And now they say I
am to send my children to school — and what can I do ?
Look there !" pointing to a lump of humanity, a girl
who, at first glance, had thrown her imbecilic shadow
over the whole group, making them all look imbecilic — •
"do you see that girl ? She's always fallin' into fits,
and nobody can't do nothin' with her." Breaking in
here, the field worker said, "But, Mr. Saunders, you
ought not to have the burden and the care of that girl ;
she could be made so happy and comfortable in a place
where they understand such cases. You ought -
The field worker could get no farther. His eyes sud-
denly assumed a wild, desperate look and he burst out,
" No, no ! They'll never get her. They tried it once,
but they didn't get her. They took my wife away and
she never came back — they'll never get her !" A few
soothing words to allay the storm she had uncon-
sciously raised, another expression of sympathy, and the
field worker drove away, pondering deeply the meaning .
of what had been seen and heard.

We have come to the point where we no longer leave
babies or little children to die uncared for in our streets,

92 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

but who has yet thought of caring intelligently for the
vastly more pathetic child-man or child-woman, who
through matured sex powers, which they do not under-
stand, fill our land with its overflowing measure of mis-
ery and crime ? Such thoughts as these filled the mind
of the field worker on the ride home.

Arrived at B , her first care was to obtain an in-
terview with the doctor who had attended Guss's wife
when she died. She found him ready to explain all he
could of the family which he had always known and
attended. "The mother, " he said, "was a kind-hearted,
simple-minded soul, who tended as best she could to the
needs of her family." The epileptic girl, he explained,
had always been a great care, and the doctor himself,
aided by several prominent citizens, had taken the
trouble to complete all necessary arrangements for hav-
ing her admitted to the epileptic colony at Skillman.
The father, however, could never be made to give his
consent. The mother was still quite young when she
was carrying her eleventh child. Some accident hap-
pened which threatened her with a miscarriage. The
doctor was summoned. He saw that it was a serious
case and sent for two other physicians in consultation.
It was decided that an immediate operation was neces-
sary, if the woman's life was to be saved. They sue-

FACTS ABOUT THE KALLIKAK FAMILY 93

ceeded in persuading Guss to allow her to be removed
to the hospital. Their efforts, however, were unavail-
ing ; she died under the operation.

On the outskirts of B lived the owner of the Cedar-
hill farm worked by Guss Saunders. He proved to be
an intelligent man, with an admirably appointed home.
He was keenly alive to the needs of the family, about
which the field worker came to inquire. "The pity
about Guss, " he began, " is that he can never let drink
alone. Why, do you know, if I paid that man wages,
he'd use every cent for rum. I ceased giving him money
long ago, for if I had, the town would have had to look
after his children. I give him credit at the store, and
they supply him with what he needs."

The foregoing glimpses of the defective branch of the
Kallikak family must suffice, though the field worker's
memory and notebook contain many similar instances.

In turning to describe the other branch of the family,
two difficulties confront the writer.

First, the question of identification. The persons
already described are either gone and have left nothing
behind them by which they can be identified, or, if
living, will never recognize themselves in this book.

The opposite is true of the good family. Some of

94

them will recognize themselves, but the public must not
discover them. To insure this, the writer must refrain
from telling the very facts that would give the story its
most interesting touches.

The second difficulty is that a description of the ac-
tivity of a normal family of respectability and useful-
ness is never as interesting as the bizarre experiences of
the abnormal.

Hence the reader will find in the following sketches
only such facts as will show the thoroughly normal and
regular family life of the intelligent citizens of a com-
monwealth.

In a certain village of New Jersey, lying picturesquely
on the crest of a hill, is a graveyard where Martin Kal-
likak Sr. and several of his immediate descendants lie
peacefully at rest. He had in his lifetime a great pas-
sion for the accumulation of land and left large farms
to most of his children. These farms lie in the vicinity
of the aforesaid village. Some of them are still in the
possession of his descendants, while others have passed
into strangers' hands. On the hill above this village
is a stucco farmhouse in a fine state of preservation.
It belonged to Amos — lineal descendant of one of the
colonial governors of New Jersey and to Elizabeth,
daughter of Martin Kallikak Sr. The farm is, at pres-

FACTS ABOUT THE KALLIKAK FAMILY 95

ent, in the possession of the widow of Elizabeth's grand-
son, the latter having been a minister in New York City.
In renting the farm, the family has always retained a
wing of the house, which, although remodeled, still
presents much the same appearance as in the days of
Amos and Elizabeth. There is the same fireplace, the
same high-backed chairs, the clock, desk, and china
cupboard. Every summer the family has come back to
the old place to enjoy the country air, the luscious
grapes and other fruit planted by their ancestor.

On another hill, less than two miles distant, lives a
granddaughter of the same Amos and Elizabeth. Her
father had been, in his day, one of the wealthiest and
most prominent citizens of the community. In an old
desk, part of his inheritance from his mother, was found
a number of valuable papers belonging to the Kallikak
family. One of these is the famous deed of the original
purchase made in 17 — by Casper Kallikak, signed by
the governor of the colony. These papers the daugh-
ter guards with great pride. She is a woman of ability
and manages her large farm with admirable skill. The
splendid old homestead, which has been remodeled and
fitted up with all modern conveniences, was built by
her mother's ancestor. Although she is deeply inter-
ested in all family matters, she has been too much en-

96 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

grossed in business affairs to have given this subject
much attention. A daughter of hers, however, who has
inherited the taste, has been able to make up for her
mother's lack in this respect. The young woman is
now married, and her oldest son bears the united name
of his two ancestors, the colonial governor and Martin
Kallikak.

Miriam, the oldest daughter of Martin Sr., married
a man who was a carpenter and a farmer. Although of
good family, yet, for some unknown reason, he was not
personally acceptable to Martin or his wife. Miriam
died when only thirty-six years old, and her husband
married again. In his will, Martin makes no mention
of his grandchildren by this daughter. They have been
respectable farming people, but have never held the
same social position as the other members of the family.

Martin's third daughter, Susan, married a man de-
scended from a family conspicuous in the colonial his-
tory of New Jersey and which counts among its mem-
bers one of the founders of Princeton University, while
a collateral branch furnished a signer to the Declara-
tion of Independence. One of Susan's sons is still liv-
ing, having attained the advanced age of ninety-eight.
He is a resident of the town that bears his family name
and has always been conspicuous as a loyal and upright

FACTS ABOUT THE KALLIKAK FAMILY 97

citizen. To-day, the old man has quite lost his mental
power but retains his courteous manner and placid
gentlemanly countenance.

In a central region of northern New Jersey, remote
from any direct line of travel, lies a town named for
one of the families connected with the earliest settle-
ment of the colony. This family rose to distinction in
many of its branches, but honors itself chiefly for having
produced one of the most brilliant advocates of the
cause of Independence of which New Jersey can boast.
He was descended on his mother's side from the first
president of Princeton University and took his degree
there before he was sixteen years of age. From this
family, Martin Kallikak's youngest son, Joseph, chose
his wife. It is interesting to note that the descendants
of this pair have shown a marked tendency toward
professional careers. One daughter, however, married
a farmer, and most of her descendants have remained
fixed to the soil. Another daughter married a promi-
nent merchant, and this line, having been fixed in the
city, has produced men chiefly engaged in mercantile
pursuits ; but the sons, of whom there were five, all
studied medicine, and although only one of these be-
came a practicing physician, their children have carried
on the family tradition in this line.

98 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

On the outskirts of another New Jersey town, in a
beautiful old homestead, inherited from his mother,
lives a grandson of Frederick Kallikak, oldest son of
Martin. He is a courteous, scholarly man of the old
school. His home is rendered particularly attractive
by the presence of his southern wife and two charming
daughters. In his possession are numerous articles
belonging to his great-grandfather. This gentleman
manifested such an intelligent interest in giving infor-
mation in regard to his family that it seemed a question
of honor to inform him as to the purpose of the investi-
gation, laying bare the facts set forth in this book.
He proved to be, perhaps, the one man best qualified
in the entire family for entering into an analysis of its
characteristics, and this he did freely, in so far as it
would serve the ends of the investigation.

Another descendant of Martin Kallikak Sr., a grand-
daughter of his youngest child, Abbie, had been pre-
viously informed regarding the same facts. This lady
is a person not only of refinement and culture but is the
author of two scholarly genealogical works. She has,
for years, been collecting material for a similar study
of the Kallikak family. This material she generously
submitted to the use of the field worker. In the end she
spent an entire day in the completion and revision of

FACTS ABOUT THE KALLIKAK FAMILY 99

the normal chart presented in this book. No praise
can be too high for such disinterested self-forgetfulness
in the face of an urgent public need. We owe to these
two persons most of the information which has made
possible the study of the normal side of this family.

Of Martin Kallikak Sr., himself, the record of many
characteristic traits has been preserved. As stated
in another chapter, his father died when he was a lad of
fifteen. The father, in his will, after enumerating cer-
tain personal bequests to his wife, recommends the
selling of the homestead farm, in order to provide for
the education of his children. There is a quaint docu-
ment still in existence, in which Martin Kallikak, hav-
ing attained his majority, agrees to pay £250 to each
of his three "spinster" sisters, still minors, in return for
a quitclaim deed of the homestead farm. This was
a considerable burden for a young man to assume, but
it seems to have given him the impetus which later
made him a rich and prosperous farmer.

He had joined the Revolutionary Army in April,
-1776. Two years later he was wounded in a way to
disable him for further service, and he then returned
to the home farm. During the summer of enforced
idleness he wooed and won the heart of a young woman
of good Quaker family. Her shrewd old father, how-

ioo THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

ever, refused to give his consent. To his objections,
based on the ground that Martin did not own enough
of this world's goods, the young man is recorded as
saying, "Never mind. I will own more land than ever
thou did, before I die," which promise he made true.
That the paternal objection was overruled is proven by
the registry of marriages, which gives the date of Mar-
tin's union with the Quakeress as January, 1779.

The old Bible of Casper Kallikak, one of the family

heirlooms, is in the possession of a Reverend Mr. ,

who is descended from Casper through the line of one
of his daughters. This Bible was bought in 1704 and
is still in an excellent state of preservation, for, although
time-stained, the pages are intact and there still may
be seen in legible handwriting the family record penned
so long ago. On a flyleaf, is a quaint verse in which
old Casper bequeaths the volume to his eldest son,
bidding him, "So oft as in it he doth looke" remember
how his father had "aye been guided by ye precepts in
this booke," and enjoining him to walk in the same safe
way.

CHAPTER V

WHAT IS TO BE DONE ?

No one interested in the progress of civilization can
contemplate the facts presented in the previous chapters
without having the question arise, Why isn't some-
thing done about this ? It will be more to the point if
we put the question, Why do we not do something
about it ? We are thus face to face with the problem
in a practical way and we ask ourselves the next ques-
tion, What can we do ? For the low-grade idiot, the
loathsome unfortunate that may be seen in our insti-
tutions, some have proposed the lethal chamber. But
humanity is steadily tending away from the possibility
of that method, and there is no probability that it will
ever be practiced.

But in view of such conditions as are shown in the
defective side of the Kallikak family, we begin to realize
that the idiot is not our greatest problem. He is in-
deed loathsome ; he is somewhat difficult to take care of ;
nevertheless, he lives his life and is done. He does not
continue the race with a line of children like himself.

101

102 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

Because of his very low-grade condition, he never be-
comes a parent.

It is the moron type that makes for us our great
problem. And when we face the question, "What is
to be done with them — with such people as make up a
large proportion of the bad side of the Kallikak family ? "
we realize that we have a huge problem.

The career of Martin Kallikak Sr. is a powerful ser-
mon against sowing wild oats. Martin Kallikak did
what unfortunately many a young man like him has
done before and since, and which, still more unfortu-
nately, society has too often winked at, as being merely
a side step in accordance with a natural instinct, bearing
no serious results. It is quite possible that Martin
Kallikak himself never gave any serious thought to his
act, or if he did, it may have been merely to realize that
in his youth he had been indiscreet and had done that
for which he was sorry. And being sorry he may have
thought it was atoned for, as he never suffered from it
any serious consequences.

Even the people of his generation, however much
they may have known about the circumstances, could
not have begun to realize the evil that had been done.
Undoubtedly, it was only looked upon as a sin because
it was a violation of the moral law. The real sin of

WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 103

peopling the world with a race of defective degenerates
who would probably commit his sin a thousand times
over, was doubtless not perceived or realized. It is
only after the lapse of six generations that we are able
to look back, count up and see the havoc that was
wrought by that one thoughtless act.

Now that the facts are known, let the lesson be
learned ; let the sermons be preached ; let it be im-
pressed upon our young men of good family that they
dare not step aside for even a moment. Let all possible
use be made of these facts, and something will be ac-
complished.

But even so the real problem will not be solved. Had
Martin Kallikak remained in the paths of virtue, there
still remained the nameless feeble-minded girl, and there
were other people, other young men, perhaps not of as
good a family as Martin, perhaps feeble-minded like
herself, capable of the same act and without Martin's
respectability, so that the race would have come down
even worse if possible than it was, because of having a
worse father.

Others will look 'at the chart and say, "The diffi-
culty began with the nameless feeble-minded girl ; had
she been taken care of, all of this trouble would have
been avoided." This is largely true. Although feeble-

104 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

mindedness came into this family from other sources
in two generations at least, yet nevertheless these
sources were other feeble-minded persons. When we
conclude that had the nameless girl been segregated in
an institution, this defective family would not have
existed, we of course do not mean that one single act of
precaution, in that case, would have solved the prob-
lem, but we mean that all such cases, male and female,
must be taken care of, before their propagation will
cease. The instant we grasp this thought, we realize
that we are facing a problem that presents two great
difficulties ; in the first place the difficulty of knowing
who are the feeble-minded people ; and, secondly,
the difficulty of taking care of them when they are
known.

A large proportion of those who are considered feeble-
minded in this study are persons who would not be
recognized as such by the untrained observer. They
are not the imbeciles nor idiots who plainly show in
their countenances the extent of their mental defect.
They are people whom the community has tolerated and
helped to support, at the same time that it has deplored
their vices and their inefficiency. They are people who
have won the pity rather than the blame of their neigh-
bors, but no one has seemed to suspect the real cause

WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 105

of their delinquencies, which careful psychological tests
have now determined to be feeble-mindedness.

The second difficulty is that of caring for this large
army of people. At the lowest estimates of the number
needing care, we in the United States are at present
caring for approximately one tenth of the estimated
number of our mental defectives. Yet many of our
States think that they are now being over-taxed for the
care of these people, so that it is with great difficulty
that legislatures can be induced to appropriate money
enough to care for those already in institutions. It
is impossible to entertain the thought of caring for ten
times as many. Some other method must be devised
for dealing with the difficulty.

Before considering any other method, the writer
would insist that segregation and colonization is not
by any means as hopeless a plan as it may seem to those
who look only at the immediate increase in the tax rate.
If such colonies were provided in sufficient number to
take care of all the distinctly feeble-minded cases in
the community, they would very largely take the place
of our present almshouses and prisons, and they would
greatly decrease the number in our insane hospitals.
Such colonies would save an annual loss in property
and life, due to the action of these irresponsible people,

io6 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

sufficient to nearly, or quite, offset the expense of the
new plant. Besides, if these feeble-minded children
were early selected and carefully trained, they would
become more or less self-supporting in their institutions,
so that the expense of their maintenance would be
greatly reduced.

In addition to this, the number would be reduced, in a
single generation, from 300,000 (the estimated number
in the United States) to 100,000, at least, — and prob-
ably even lower. (We have found the hereditary fac-
tor in 65 per cent of cases ; while others place it as high
as 80 per cent.)

This is not the place for arguing the question or pro-
ducing the statistics to substantiate these statements.
Suffice it to say that every institution in the land has
a certain proportion of inmates who not only earn their
own living, but some who could go out into the world
and support themselves, were it not for the terrible
danger of procreation, — resulting in our having not
one person merely, but several to be cared for at the
expense of the State. These statements should be
carefully considered and investigated before any one
takes the stand that segregation in colonies and homes
is impossible and unwise for the State.

The other method proposed of solving the problem

WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 107

is to take away from these people the power of procrea-
tion. The earlier method proposed was unsexing, asex-
ualization, as it is sometimes called, or the removing,
from the male and female, the necessary organs for
procreation. The operation in the female is that of
ovariectomy and in the male of castration.

There are two great practical difficulties in the way
of carrying out this method on any large scale. The
first is the strong opposition to this practice on the part
of the public generally. It is regarded as mutilation
of the human body and as such is opposed vigorously
by many people. And while there is no rational basis
for this, nevertheless we have, as practical reformers,
to recognize the fact that the average man acts not
upon reason, but upon sentiment and feeling; and as
long as human sentiment and feeling are opposed to this
practice, no amount of reasoning will avail. It may
be shown over and over again that many a woman has
had the operation of ovariectomy performed in order
to improve her physical condition, and that it is just as
important to improve the moral condition as the phys-
ical. Nevertheless, the argument does not convince,
and there remains the opposition as stated.

In recent years surgeons have discovered another
method which has many advantages. This is also

io8 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

sometimes incorrectly referred to as asexualization.
It is more properly spoken of as sterilization, the dis-
tinction being that it does not have any effect on the
sex qualities of the man or woman, but does artificially
take away the power of procreation by rendering the
person sterile. The operation itself is almost as simple
in males as having a tooth pulled. In females it is not
much more serious. The results are generally perma-
nent and sure. Objection is urged that we do not know
the consequences of this action upon the physical, men-
tal, and moral nature of the individual. The claim is
made that it is good in all of these. But it must be
confessed that we are as yet ignorant of actual facts.
It has been tried in many cases ; no bad results have
been reported, while many good results have been
claimed.

A more serious objection to this last method comes
from a consideration of the social consequences. What
will be the effect upon the community in the spread of
debauchery and disease through having within it a
group of people who are thus free to gratify their in-
stincts without fear of consequences in the form of
children ? The indications are that here also the evil
consequences are more imaginary than real, since the
feeble-minded seldom exercise restraint in any case.

WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 109

Probably the most serious difficulty to be overcome
before the practice of sterilization in any form could
come into general use would be the determining of
what persons were proper subjects to be operated upon.1

This difficulty arises from the fact that we are still
ignorant of the exact laws of inheritance. Just how
mental characteristics are transmitted from parent tc
child is not yet definitely known. It therefore becomes
a serious matter to decide beforehand that such and
such a person who has mental defect would certainly
transmit the same defect to his offspring and that
consequently he ought not to be allowed to have off-
spring.

THE MENDELIAN LAW

In 1866 an Austrian monk by the name of Gregor
Mendel discovered and published a law of inheritance
in certain plants, which, after lying practically unknown
for nearly forty years, was rediscovered in 1900 and
since then has been tested with regard to a great many
plants and animals.

Mendel found that there were certain peculiarities
in plants which he termed "unit characters" that were

1 At present eight states have laws authorizing some form of asexu-
alization or sterilization. But in all these cases the practice is carefully
restricted to a few inmates of various specified institutions.

no THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

transmitted from parent to offspring in a definite way.
His classical work was on the propagation of the ordi-
nary garden pea, in which case he found that a quality
like tallness, as contrasted with dwarfness, was trans-
mitted as follows : —

If tall and dwarf peas were crossed, he found in the
first generation nothing but tall peas. But if these
peas were allowed to grow and fertilize themselves, in
the next generation he got tall and dwarf peas in the
ratio of three to one. The dwarf peas in this case bred
true, i.e. when they were planted by themselves and
self-fertilized there was never anything but dwarf peas,
no matter how many generations were tested. On the
other hand, the tall peas were divisible by experiment
into two groups ; first, those that always bred true,
viz. always tall peas ; and secondly, another group that
bred tall and dwarf in the same ratio of three to one ;
and from these the same cycle was repeated. Mendel
called the character, which did not appear in the first
generation (dwarfness), "recessive"; the other (tall-
ness) he called "dominant." The recessive factor is
now generally considered to be due to the absence of
something which, if present, would give the dominant
factor. According to this view, dwarfness is simply
the absence of tallness.

WHAT IS TO BE DONE? in

This law has been found to hold true for many unit
characters in many plants and animals. Since study
in human heredity has been taken up, it has been a
natural question, Does this same law apply to human
beings ? It has been found that it does apply in the
case of many qualities, like color of hair, albinism,
brachydactylism, and other peculiarities. Investiga-
tion has of late been extended to mental conditions.
Rosanoff has shown pretty clearly that the law applies
in the case of insanity, while Davenport and Weeks
have shown evidence that it applies in cases of epilepsy.

Our own studies lead us to believe that it also applies
in the case of feeble-mindedness, but this will be taken
up in a later work to which we have already referred.
We do not know that feeble-mindedness is a "unit
character." Indeed, there are many reasons for think-
ing that it cannot be. But assuming for the sake of
simplifying our illustration that it is a "unit character,"
then we have something like the following conditions.

If two feeble-minded people marry, then we have the
same unit character in both, and all of the offspring will
be feeble-minded ; and if these offspring select feeble-
minded mates, then the same thing will continue. But
what will happen if a feeble-minded person takes a
normal mate ? If feeble-mindedness is recessive (due

ii2 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

to the absence of something that would make for nor-
mality), we would expect in the first generation from
such a union all normal children, and if these children
marry persons like themselves, i.e. the offspring of
one normal and one defective parent, then the offspring
would be normal and defective in the ratio of three to
one. Of the normal children, one third would breed
true and we would have a normal line of descent.

Without following the illustration further, we see
already that it is questionable whether we ought to say
that the original feeble-minded individual should have
been sterilized because he was feeble-minded. We see
that in the first generation all of his children were nor-
mal and in the next generation one fourth of them were
normal and bred true. We should not forget, how-
ever, that one fourth of his grandchildren would be
feeble-minded and that two other fourths had the power
of begetting feeble-minded children. We must not
forget, either, that these are averages, and that for the
full carrying out of these figures there must be a large
enough number of offspring to give the law of averages
room to have full play. In other words, any marriage
which, according to the Mendelian principle, would
give normals and defectives in the ratio of three to one
might result in only one child. That child might hap-

WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 113

pen to be one of the feeble-minded ones, and so there is
propagated nothing but the feeble-minded type. It is
equally true that it might be the normal child, with a
consequent normal line of descendants ; or still again,
it might be one of the intermediate ones that are ca-
pable of reproducing again the ratio of three normal to
one defective, so that the chance is only one in four of
such offspring starting a normal line.

Let us now turn to the facts as we have them in the
Kallikak family. The only offspring from Martin
Kallikak Sr. and the nameless feeble-minded girl was
a son who proved to be feeble-minded. He married a
normal woman and had five feeble-minded children
and two normal ones. This is in accordance with
Mendelian expectation ; that is to say, there should
have been part normal and part defective, half and
half, if there had been children enough to give the law
of averages a chance to assert itself. The question,
then, comes right there. Should Martin Jr. have been
sterilized ? We would thus have saved five feeble-
minded individuals and their horrible progeny, but we
would also have deprived society of two normal indi-
viduals ; and, as the results show, these two normals
married normal people and became the first of a series
of generations of normal people.

ii4 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

Taking this family as a whole, we have the following
figures : —

There were 41 matings where both parents were feeble-
minded. They had 222 feeble-minded children, with
two others that were considered normal. These two
are apparent exceptions to the law that two feeble-
minded parents do not have anything but feeble-minded
children. We may account for these two exceptions
in one of several ways. Either there is a mistake in
calling them normal, or a mistake in calling the parents
feeble-minded ; or else there was illegitimacy somewhere
and these two children did not have the same father as
the others of the family. Or we may turn to the Men-
delian law and we discover that according to that law
there might be in rare instances such a combination of
circumstances that a normal child might be born from
two parents that function as feeble-minded. For prac-
tical purposes it is, of course, pretty clear that it is
• safe to assume that two feeble-minded parents will
never have anything but feeble-minded children.

Again, we find that there were eight cases where the
father was feeble-minded and the mother normal, and
there were ten normal children and ten defective.

There were twelve cases where the father was normal
and the mother feeble-minded, with seven feeble-minded

WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 115

children and ten normal. Both of these are in accord-
ance with Mendelian expectations.

We further find that in the cases where one parent
was feeble-minded and the other undetermined, the
children were nearly all feeble-minded, from which we
might infer that the probabilities are great that the
unknown parent was also feeble-minded.

We shall not go further into this matter in the present
paper, but leave the detailed study of this family from
the Mendelian standpoint for further consideration,
when we take up the large amount of data which we
have on three hundred other families. Enough is here
given to show the possibility that the Mendelian law
applies to human heredity. If it does, then the neces-
sity follows of our understanding the exact mental con-
dition of the ancestors of any person upon whom we
may propose to practice sterilization.

From all of this the one caution follows. At best,
sterilization is not likely to be a final solution of this
problem. We may, and indeed I believe must, use it
as a help, as something that will contribute toward the
solution, until we can get segregation thoroughly es-
tablished. But in using it, we must realize that the
first necessity is the careful study of the whole subject,
to the end that we may know more both about the

ii6 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

laws of inheritance and the ultimate effect of the
operation.

CONCLUSION AND RESUME

The Kallikak family presents a natural experiment
in heredity. A young man of good family becomes
through two different women the ancestor of two lines
of descendants, — the one characterized by thoroughly
good, respectable, normal citizenship, with almost
no exceptions ; the other being equally characterized
by mental defect in every generation. This defect was
transmitted through the father in the first generation.
In later generations, more defect was brought in from
other families through marriage. In the last genera-
tion it was transmitted through the mother, so that we
have here all combinations of transmission, which
again proves the truly hereditary character of the de-
fect.

We find on the good side of the family prominent
people in all walks of life and nearly all of the 496
descendants owners of land or proprietors. On the
bad side we find paupers, criminals, prostitutes, drunk-
ards, and examples of all forms of social pest with which
modern society is burdened.

From this we conclude that feeble-mi ndedness is
largely responsible for these social sores.

WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 117

Feeble-mindedness is hereditary and transmitted as
surely as any other character. We cannot successfully
cope with these conditions until we recognize feeble-
mindedness and its hereditary nature, recognize it early,
and take care of it.

In considering the question of care, segregation
through colonization seems in the present state of our
knowledge to be the ideal and perfectly satisfactory
method. Sterilization may be accepted as a makeshift,
as a help to solve this problem because the conditions
have become so intolerable. But this must at present
be regarded only as a makeshift and temporary, for
before it can be extensively practiced, a great deal
must be learned about the effects of the operation and
about the laws of human inheritance.

INDEX

Abigail, 28.
Albert, 24.
Alcoholism, 18, 26.

of the good side, 29, 30.

in the bad family, 67.

children, 25.

Guss Saunders, a victim, 93.

in the two branches compared, 67.
Almshouse, 28.
Almshouses reduced if feeble-minded

were cared for, 105,
Asexualization, 107.

B , the town mentioned, 79.

Barrah, Eunice, 26.
Beede, 29.

Bible of Casper Kallikak, 100.
Binet tests in the public schools, 71.
used with the Kallikak family, 88, 89.

Charts, heredity, 33-49.

Children of Althea Haight, 23.

Colonies for feeble-minded, 105.

Colonization, not hopeless, 105.

Cordelia, 25.

Cousins many, 26.

Crime, tendency to, different in different

families, 62.
Criminals, 18.

made, not born, 54.

Criminology and feeble-mindedness, 54,
60.

Deborah, admitted to the Training

School, I.
as she is to-day, 7.
her ability in numbers, 9-11.
brought to the Training School, 65.
her cousin in the Training School, 21.
her half brother, 27, 62.
her half brothers and sisters^ 28.
her half sister, 27.
her mother, Martha, characterized,

65.
her mother, Martha, further history,

64.

her Institution records, 2-6.
her Santa Claus letters, 8.

Declaration of Independence, signed by

relatives of this family, 30.
Deed from the governor of the colony

to the Kallikak family, 95.
Degenerates, 29.
Delirium tremens, 25.
Detention home of the Juvenile Court,

number of feeble-minded children

found, 57.

Died in infancy, 18.
Dugdale, Richard L., work of, 51.

Edwards, Jonathan, 51.
Edwards family, 59, 60.
Elmira Reformatory, number of feeble-
minded, 58.
Elopement, 26.
Environment, 6l.

and criminology, 59.

determines criminality, 55.

effect off shown, 22.

same for both branches, 50.
Epileptics, 18.

"Old Moll," 22.
Euthenist, claims, 52.
Explanation of charts, 33-35.

Feeble-minded, number in the entire

group, 19.

number in public institutions, 56.
number in the United States being

cared for, 106.
the dupes of others, 55.
reduction in the number of through

segregation, 105.

Feeble-mindedness, how determined, 14.
difficulty of recognizing, 104.
difficulty of caring for the, 105.
is hereditary, 117.
Field workers, their training and

methods, 13, 82.
Frederick, 17.

half brother to Martin, 85.

Gaston, 29.

Good family, the, 29.

character of descendants, 30.

defective children brought up in, 6l.

119

120

INDEX

Governor of New Jersey, colonial,

relation to Kallikak family, 95.
Gregory, 25.
Guss, 24, 74.
Gypsy camp, 75.

Haight, Althea, 20-23.

Haight, Eva, 26.

Hardscrabble, 89.

Harriet, 25.

Heredity charts, 33-49.

Heredity in Jukes family, 54.

Home for feeble-minded, Deborah's

sister placed in, 27.
Horse thief, 29.
Horser, 21.

his marriage to Jemima, 84.

Ill fame, kept house of, 19, 68.
Illegitimate : child, 27.

children of Martha, 27.

number in bad family, 18.
Incendiarism, 27.
Incest, 28.

Insane hospitals, number of feeble-
minded in, 56.

reduced if feeble-minded were cared

for, 105.
Institutions and feeble-mindedness, 56.

James, son of Martin Jr., 21.
Jemima, 21.

marries Horser, 84.
Jones, Amy, 22.
Joseph, 26.

three sons of, 71, 75.
Jukes family, 51, 60.

heredity question, 53.

study, incomplete, 52.
Justin Kallikak, daughter of, 62.
Justin, son of Millard, 24.
Juvenile Courts, feeble-minded children
found, 57.

Kallikak, "Daddy," 20.

Kallikak family, further facts about, 70.

bad matings in, 114.

stories of the good branch of the,
93-100.

and Mendelian inheritance, 113.
Kallikak, Justin, 26.
Kallikak, Martin, Sr., 17, 29.

a sermon, 102.

joins the militia, 1 8.

his sin, 102.

wife of, 29.

Kallikak, Martin, Jr., 17, 51, 61.

his family compared with the Jukes-
Edwards, 53.

his half brother, Frederick, 85.

should he have been sterilized ? 113.
Kallikak, Millard, 19, 23.

second wife of, 26.
Key to charts, 33-35.
Killed in accident, 26.
Kite, Elizabeth S., 71.

Lavinia, 24.
Lombroso, 59.

Margaret, 28.

Martha, mother of Deborah, 27.
character of her children, 64.

Massachusetts Reformatory, feeble-
minded girls in, 57.

Matings in the Kallikak family, 114.

Mendelian expectation, 24.

Mendelian Law, the, 109.

Mendelism, applied to human inherit-
ance, in.

Mental capacity, necessity of deter-
mining, 60.

Minister who married Guss, 75.

Miscarriage, 28.

Mongolian type, 20.

Morons, 62, 54.

Murder, Guss accused, 75.

Mute, 25.

Nameless feeble-minded girl, 29.
relation to the problem, 103.

Nathan, 20.

Newark, number of feeble-minded chil-
dren in Juvenile Court, 57.

Normal people, in good branch of the
family, 29.

Normal woman in bad family, daughter
of Sylvia, 22.

"Old Horror," 19, 80.
"Old Max," 52.
"Old Moll," 21, 79.

described, 83.

her death, 83.
"Old Sal," 21, 79.

Paula, 25.

Pauperism and feeble-mindedness, 60.
Placing out, 27.
Prince, 25.

Prisons reduced if feeble-minded were
cared for, 105.

INDEX

121

Probation, girls on, 57.

Prominent man, sister of, married Mil-
lard Kallikak, 26.

Prostitutes, 18.

number of feeble-minded, 58.

Prostitution and feeble-mindedness, 56.

Public institutions and feeble-minded-
ness, 56.

Quakeress, married Martin Kallikak, 99.

Rahway Reformatory, number of feeble-
minded in, 57.

Refinement, an element of, seen in
Deborah's mother, 63.

Reformatories, number of feeble-minded

in, 57-
Resident, an old, of B , 81.

Sanders, 25.

Saunders, Guss, grandson of "Old Sal"
visited, 89-91.

School work for defectives, 54.

Segregation and colonization not hope-
less, 105.

Sexually immoral, number in bad

family, 18.
on the good side, 29.
children, 25.

Sheep, flock of, stolen, 20.

Slums, largely caused by defectives, 70.

Sterilization, 107.

as a solution of the problem, 115.
Still birth, 28.
Stupidity, compared with criminalistic

tendency, 63.
Sylvia, 22.

Symbols, explanation of, 33-35.
Syphilitic, 26.

woman, 25.

Temperament, differences of, in the

Kallikak family, 63.
relation to feeble-mindedness and

criminology, 55.
Thomas, 25.
Training School at Vineland, 21.

Deborah brought to, 65.
Traits of the family, reappearance of, 51.

Undetermined, definition, 19.
Vasectomy, 108.

Warren, 24.
Winship, Dr., 51, 59.

Zabeth, Rhoda, 19, 61.

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of the doctor's most unusual and interesting volume, which should find
a royal welcome from the many sufferers for whom it was written." —
Hartford Sunday Post.

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

Publishers £4-66 Fifth Avenue New Tork

BY C. A. HERTER, M.D.,

Professor of Pharmacology and Therapeutics in Columbia University;
Consulting Physician to the City Hospital, New York

The Common Bacterial Infections of the
Digestive Tract

And the Intoxications arising from Them

Cloth, 8vo, 360 pages, $1.50 net; by mail, $1.03

"The methods of investigating the digestive tracjt outlined in this volume
will prove valuable to the practitioner who would determine the presence of
abnormal bacterial processes before the onset of the clinical signs of incurable
or highly refractory states of intoxication — and this is the all-sufficient raison
d'etre for the book. Considerable stress has been laid by the author on
methods developed in his laboratory, in the belief that their painstaking appli-
cation will furnish practitioners with reliable indications as to the progress of
many cases of infection of the digestive tract." — MercKs Archives.

" A very scholarly volume, primarily intended for physicians and students,
yet, because of its grave importance and because the subject it treats of is of
vital interest to all intelligent readers, we are quite certain the book will be
appreciated and read in a far wider circle than its title, which is rather ' pro-
fessional sounding,' might warrant. We call the reader's attention especially
to the last chapter in the book, in which there is expounded much valuable
material of common interest." — Times.

On Infantilism from Chronic Intestinal
Infection

Cloth, izmo, 240 pages, 90 cents net; by mail, $1.02

" Dr. Herter's book is bound to have the effect of broadening our concep-
tion of the subject of infectious diseases of the intestine, and deserves a
wide reading." — George C. Whipple.

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York

Introduction to General Science

BY PERCY E. ROWELL, B.Sc.

Cloth i2mo 302 pages $.75 net

The increasing demand for a thorough, comprehensible, and practical
text-book on the subject is met by Rowell's " Introduction to General
Science." the distinctive features of which are :

1 . The book gives a broad, adequate view of the general field of
science. The elements of physics and chemistry receive particular em-
phasis, but biology, physiography, and several phases of applied science
are duly considered.

2. Despite the necessity for treating various sciences, the book is re-
markable for its continuity of thought. The interrelation of scientific
facts is constantly and clearly pointed out.

3. The treatment is clear-cut, brisk, and thorough, the material well
chosen and up to date, while the general workmanship of the book
renders it attractive and serviceable.

4. There are over 90 laboratory exercises in the book, a number of
them entirely new, and all of them illustrative of the text.

5. Reference reading is encouraged, and lists of carefully selected
standard reference books are suggested. Those teachers, however, who
do not care to take up detailed work of this sort may give a satisfactory
course by using in connection with the book United States Government
bulletins alone, to which definite reference is made in the lists of refer-
ence readings throughout the book.

TEACHERS

call the book "thorough," "practical," " comprehensive," " clear," " sat-
isfactory," " a great aid to the science teacher."

Mr. N. P. Lawson of Taunton, Washington, writes:

"I have examined Rowell's 'Introduction to General Science' quite
carefully. It wears. The more I use it the better I like it. _ There is
room left for the teacher. He doesn't have to crowd himself in. This
book can hardly fail to innoculate any one with the bulletin habit, in
which I am a firm believer. In its encouragement of wide reading and
first-hand acquaintance with books through the excellent references
given, this compact little volume is an education in itself. If I were
with your company I should wish to push this book. I believe in it."

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York

HQ 753 .67

SMC

Goddard, Henry Herbert,

1866-1957.
The Kal 1 ikak f ami ly : a

study in the heredity
AKF-1907