Ellen H. (Ellen Henrietta) Richards - Euthenics, the science of controllable environment

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EUTHENICS

THE SCIENCE OF CONTROLLABLE
ENVIRONMENT

A PLEA FOR BETTER
LIVING CONDITIONS AS A FIRST STEP
TOWARD HIGHER HUMAN
EFFICIENCY

The national annual unnecessary loss of capitalized net earnings is about $1,000,000,000.

Report on National Vitality

By ELLEN H. RICHARDS
Author of Cost of Living Series, Art of Right Living, etc.

SECOND EDITION

WHITCOMB & BARROWS
BOSTON, 1912

Copyright 1910
By Ellen H. Richards
Thomas Todd Co., Printers
14 Beacon St., Boston

FOREWORD

Never has society been so clear as to its several special ends, never has so little effort been due to chance or compulsion.

Ralph Barton Perry, The Moral Economy.

N ot through chance, but through increase of scientific knowledge; not through compulsion, but through democratic idealism consciously working through common interests, will be brought about the creation of right conditions, the control of environment.

The betterment of living conditions, through conscious endeavor, for the purpose of securing efficient human beings, is what the author means by Euthenics .

Human vitality depends upon two primary conditionsheredity and hygieneor conditions preceding birth and conditions during life.

Eugenics deals with race improvement through heredity.

Euthenics deals with race improvement through environment.

Eugenics is hygiene for the future generations.

Euthenics is hygiene for the present generation.

Eugenics must await careful investigation.

Euthenics has immediate opportunity.

Euthenics precedes eugenics, developing better men now, and thus inevitably creating a better race of men in the future. Euthenics is the term proposed for the preliminary science on which Eugenics must be based.

This new science seeks to emphasize the immediate duty of man to better his conditions by availing himself of knowledge already at hand. As far as in him lies he must make application of this knowledge to secure his greatest efficiency under conditions which he can create or under such existing conditions as he may not be able wholly to control, but such as he may modify. The knowledge of the causes of disease tends only to depress the average citizen rather than to arouse him to combat it. Hope of success will urge him forward, and it is the duty of lovers of mankind to show all possible ways of attaining the goal. The tendency to hopelessness retards reformation and regeneration, and the lack of belief in success holds back the wheels of progress.

Euthenics is to be developed:

• 1. Through sanitary science.
• 2. Through education.
• 3. Through relating science and education to life.

Students of sanitary science discover for us the laws which make for health and the prevention of disease. The laboratory has been studying conditions and causes, and now can show the way to many remedies.

A knowledge of these laws, of the means of conserving mans resources and vitality, which will result in the wealth of human energy, is more and more brought within the reach of all by various educational agencies.

The individual must estimate properly the value of this knowledge in its application to daily life, in order to secure efficiency and the greatest happiness for himself and for the community.

Right living conditions comprise pure food and a safe water supply, a clean and disease-free atmosphere in which to live and work, proper shelter, and the adjustment of work, rest, and amusement. The attainment of these conditions calls for hearty coperation between individual and communityeffort on the part of the individual because the individual makes personality a power; effort on the part of the community because the strength of combined endeavor is required to meet all great problems.

FOOTNOTES:

Eutheneo, (eu, well; the, root of tithemi, to cause). To be in a flourishing state, to abound in, to prosper.Demosthenes. To be strong or vigorous.Herodotus. To be vigorous in body.Aristotle.

Euthenia, . Good state of the body: prosperity, good fortune, abundance.Herodotus.

Report on National Vitality, p. 49.

EUTHENICS

BETTER ENVIRONMENT FOR THE HUMAN RACE

CONTENTS

PAGE

The opportunity for betterment is real and practical, not merely academic

Individual effort is needed to improve individual conditions. Home and habits of living, eating, etc. Good habits pay in economy of time and force

Community effort is needed to make better conditions for all, in streets and public places, for water and milk supply, hospitals, markets, housing problems, etc. Restraint for sake of neighbors

Interchangeableness of these two forms of progressive effort. First one, then the other ahead

The child to be raised as he should be. Restraint for his good. Teaching good habits the chief duty of the family

The child to be educated in the light of sanitary science. Office of the school. Domestic science for girls. Applied science. The duty of the higher education. Research needed

Stimulative education for adults. Books, newspapers, lectures, working models, museums, exhibits, moving pictures

Both child and adult to be protected from their own ignorance. Educative value of law and of fines for disobedience. Compulsory sanitation by municipal, state, and federal regulations. Instructive inspection

There is responsibility as well as opportunity. The housewife an important factor and an economic force in improving the national health and increasing the national wealth

CHAPTER I

The opportunity for betterment is real and practical, not merely academic.

Men ignore Natures laws in their personal lives. They crave a larger measure of goodness and happiness, and yet in their choice of dwelling places, in their building of houses to live in, in their selection of food and drink, in their clothing of their bodies, in their choice of occupations and amusements, in their methods and habits of work, they disregard natural laws and impose upon themselves conditions that make their ideals of goodness and happiness impossible of attainment.

Prof. George E. Dawson, The Control of Life through Environment.

And is it, I ask, an unworthy ambition for man to set before himself to understand those eternal laws upon which his happiness, his prosperity, his very life depend? Is he to be blamed and anathematized for endeavoring to fulfill the divine injunction: Fear God and keep His commandments, for that is the whole duty of man? Before he can keep them, surely he must first ascertain what they are.

Adam Sedgwick. Address, Imperial College of Science and Technology,
December 16, 1909. Nature, December 23, 1909, p. 228.

In my judgment, the situation is hopeful. To realize that our problems are chiefly those of environment which we in increasing measure control, to realize that, no matter how bad the environment of this generation, the next is not injured provided that it be given favorable conditions, is surely to have an optimistic view.

Carl Kelsey, Influence of Heredity and Environment upon Race Improvement.

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