Race Suicide: Bishop Afraid of Declining Birth Rate: Marriage of the Unfit. An interesting discussion took place at the Church Congress at Cambridge on the subject of heredity and social responsibility with special reference to the feeble-minded and parentage. … Dr. G. E. Shuttleworth … … Mrs. Pinsent (Birmingham) a member of the Royal Commission on the Care of the Feeble-minded, uttered a warning voice. Our altruistic feelings and efforts by improving the environment of the poorer classes were perpetuating the unfit; while at the same time the reproduction of the higher types was neglected, and the average standard of humanity lowered. We ought, (she argued) put the mentally defective under continuous control to prevent their increase. Efficient members of society must be encouraged to have larger families. There should be the recreation of the old ideal of a living faith in the paramount duty of fatherhood and motherhood. We needed in the future to give direct State encouragement to the reproduction of the better stocks. At present we were encouraging the degenerate to perpetuate themselves at the expense of the desirable citizens, who were rated and taxed to supply the degenerates with facilities for breeding (prolonged cheers). …
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Referenced
GRO0245 Devonport: Ellen Frances Parker: 1866 – 1949