(3) An alternative to segregation (for inheritable, but not for communicable, diseases) is sterilization.  The operation when performed on adults seems to have no effects upon character or the enjoyment of life, not even interfering with ordinary sex gratification.  It is not painful, and perfectly harmless, to man; for women there is a risk, which is said, however, to be slight.[Footnote:  Cf.  Dr. E. C. Jones, in Woman’s Medical Journal, December, 1912.] Sterilization permits the unfit to be entirely at liberty, to marry, if they can find mates, and to have all the pleasures of life except that of parenthood.  A number of the American States have passed laws permitting the compulsory sterilization of certain very restricted classes of people undesirable as parents, at the discretion of the proper authorities; and this seems, on the whole, at least in the case of men, the best solution.

(4) Of an entirely different nature is the movement to secure state support for mothers; a movement, however, which is also eugenic in its intent.  At present those parents who are zealous to maintain a high standard of living, those with talents which they are ambitious to develop, and those who realize keenly the care and expense that children need, are deterred from having many, or any; while the shiftless and happy-go-lucky propagate without scruple.  There is, for all except the rich, a premium on childlessness, which the natural desire for parenthood cannot wholly discount.  But this ought not to be so.  Childbearing and rearing is a very necessary and arduous vocation, in which all the best women should be enlisted.  In a socialistic regime the State would as a matter of course pay for this work as well as for all other productive work.  But state endowment of motherhood, the payment of “maternity benefits,” may be practiced apart from industrial socialism.  It may be objected that the removal of economic pressure would bring an undue increase in population and the evils that Malthus feared.  But the tendency of advancing civilization seems to be so strikingly toward a declining birth-rate-a phenomenon unrecognized in this country because of the tide of immigration, but apparent in western Europe-that the net outcome may be attained of a stationary population.  Moreover, the scheme in question would not only tend to increase the number of children born to the prudent among the middle classes, it would enable mothers and prospective mothers to save themselves from that overwork which enfeebles so many children today; it would insure them the means to care properly for the children.  State inspectors would visit homes and examine the children of state supported mothers; the amount granted might vary in proportion to the care apparently given to the children, their cleanliness, health, progress in education, the clothing, food, air, and space provided for them; if the nurture of a child was judged too inadequate, it might, after warning, be removed to