"This . . . . leads to ... . a taking account of stock of the present situation of Vermont, especially her country towns. Is the seed‐bed of the nation being kept up to former excellence? Will the breeding stock of the future be as virile as it has been? If not, is the seed deteriorating in quality or are Vermonters neglecting to keep the soil of their seedbed‐‐the physical and social environment of their children‐‐rich, mellow and weed‐free?"

VERMONT is the most highly rural state in New England. There are few states in the country that have as large a proportion of their population living in small villages and in remote rural areas. The largest towns are scattered so that each one forms the center of a considerable rural area and farming, especially dairying, constitutes the major industry. The result is that the problems of the country community, in social, economic, religious, political, recreational, educational, health and all the other interests become very definitely the problems of the state as a whole. These various problems and several others are now being subjected to a thorough investigation by numbers of trained workers under the Vermont Commission on Country Life. At the meeting of the American Eugenics Society and the Eugenics Research Association at Cold Spring Harbor three years ago I ventured to describe what was then a dream of mine for a concerted study to be made by experts working with committees of local people and covering all rural conditions in Vermont, this study to be built around the Eugenics Survey of Vermont.2 I take genuine satisfaction in being able to say now that the dream has been fulfilled. A three‐year program, carefully planned, is now in the process of execution and the Vermont Commission on Country Life is approaching the close of its second year of activity. The encouragement and wise counsel of some of those present at that meeting three years ago have in no small degree helped to bring this realization. It is being accomplished also through the generous cooperation and assistance of the Social Science Research Council, of one of the large foundations in New York, of the state and federal governmental departments, and many research associations. The Eugenics Survey of Vermont is functioning as one part in a system of more than twenty working parts constituting the Vermont Commission. Its aim is to secure usable data upon the hereditary aspects of what we have called the Human Factor.

The Vermont Commission plans to compass the entire state, and Vermont is small enough in area and in population to make this more nearly possible than it would be elsewhere. Vermont has been to an extraordinary degree welded into oneness of spirit and thought by her strenuous struggle for independence and statehood before, during and after the Revolution. This solidarity pertains also to the ethnic make‐up of Vermont's population. The largest single foreign element is French‐Canadian. In proportion to her total population, Vermont has more

French‐Canadians than has any other state. The French‐Canadian might be termed the "X", the unknown quantity, as regards his racial reactions in his community. Contradictory speculations about him are plenty, but no satisfactory estimate of him has yet been forthcoming. This needs looking into. Less important but sizeable ingredients in this population pudding of ours are the Scotch in the granite area, Italians in the marble industry, Welch where slate is quarried, Poles and Russians in the more active industrial towns. Nevertheless, Vermont remains strongly, perhaps strangely, conservative in this matter of racial derivations. The old stock still predominates.

The early history of Vermont shows that unusual stress has from the earliest times been laid upon education. A number of pioneer steps in education are credited to the early settlers of Vermont, and it is amazing what sacrifices were undergone by these struggling pioneers who when they seemed to be barely able to keep the wolf from the door, literally as well as figuratively, yet contributed large sums for the establishment and maintenance of their schools and colleges. Our University of Vermont, which sponsors this Eugenics Survey, was established in accordance with provisions in the state constitution of 1777, which set up a state‐wide system of schools of all grades, culminating in the state university.

There are numerous private academies still operating on the old‐fashioned lines of classical education. Scattered over the state, these have exerted a marked influence upon the life of the entire commonwealth, an influence undoubtedly stronger years ago than in the present because these institutions furnished then so much larger a part of the interests in their communities.

Because Vermonters live so largely in small villages the depletion of the population of the villages, noticeable all over the country, makes more of an impression here and causes considerable anxiety in regard to the future of the state. Far‐seeing, statesman‐like minds regard it as perhaps a wholesome readjustment, but the average citizen bemoans the days when the village was large enough to maintain a physician and a good school. Deserted farms and cellar‐holes stir up pessimistic sensations in some minds.

The psychological effect of these changes, readjustments, transitions, depends almost entirely upon the breadth of view of the individual who thinks about these matters, but in general it tends to discouragement. The morale of the smaller communities has suffered particularly. It may be that an investigation of the true conditions will result in the discovery of cheerful facts that may be used to good advantage not only in Vermont but in other states as well. At any rate, we are confronted by what we consider a eugenical problem of large import and far‐reaching implications.

How much of the fine spirit of the pioneers, their pride of race, trust in religion, faith in the home, regard for knowledge, is to be found in the present generation? What is the prospect of the average rural community (if there is an average one)? Pioneer conditions still obtain in many localities as regards the paucity of different kinds of work open to the young people. The remunerations of labor, the opportunities for recreation, are more limited in the country than in the town. Are the promising young people all migrating to other parts of the country? Are the Vermont villages being "skimmed of the cream" of their population?

This investigation happens to be under the direction of a laboratory‐trained biologist. He looks upon the rural community as a biological organism in which the interactions between the organism, its heredity and its environment show numerous parallels to the kindred processes in plant or animal. Such a view demands an attempt to discover:

(a) The motives of those who have left the state, the kinds of activity in which they have engaged since leaving, their success in their new fields. (b) The motives, vocational choices and achievements of those who have remained. To our minds the question, "Why has John Smith remained in Vermont?" seems just as significant as the more common question, "Why has Tom Jones left his ancestral roof‐tree and his brothers and sisters and migrated to Iowa or Kansas?" (c) The motives of those who have lately come to live in Vermont also call for investigation and, particularly, the way in which their adjustment to their new environment and its adjustment to them have worked out. What contributions have they brought? Have they been welcomed? Have they maintained their racial characteristics? What hindrances have they or their neighbors placed in the way of more complete integration?

Vermont has been called the "seed‐bed of the nation". Who's Who shows that many men of achievement in other states were born in Vermont. One in a thousand, nearly, of Vermont's population has attained the distinction of being important enough, in the opinion of the editors, to warrant giving space to their biographies. The average for other New England states is somewhat lower, being .75 per thousand, and the average the country over is .50. Vermont's figure is .95 per thousand.

This all leads to the present attempt at an appraisal of the human, possibly hereditary, qualities which have contributed to the welfare of the state and to the benefit of outside communities which have adopted Vermonters, a taking account of stock of the present situation of Vermont, especially her country towns. Is the seed‐bed of the nation being kept up to former excellence? Will the breeding stock of the future be as virile as it has been? If not, is the seed deteriorating in quality or are Vermonters neglecting to keep the soil of their seed‐bed‐‐‐the physical and social environment of their children‐‐‐rich, mellow and weed‐free?

The question is whether Vermont is losing ground in comparison with other states and therefore offers fewer inducements to her more ambitious young people to remain at home, and more particularly and as a result of all the above, What can be done about it? Practical measures will have to be left to others, and fortunately the Vermont Commission has plenty of committees whose duty it is to draw up recommendations and plan for their execution. The Eugenics Survey has taken upon itself the somewhat pretentious task of getting hold of some salient facts that can be used by these committees as dependable foundation for a constructive plan, a program of rural betterment, an attempt to raise the standards of civilization in the country places of Vermont.

The first step in this investigation was to decide on the towns for the family study. We aim to spend time enough on each town to make a thorough sampling and, in case of the smaller towns, a nearly complete study of all of the families. This means that the number of towns can be only so large as is necessary to cover the principal types, such as one remote from any center of industry or education, another close to such a center, one in a mountainous part of the state, a valley town, and a series of three or four that lie close to the borders of other states. There ought to be, in the list, one town that has fallen off heavily in population, another that has maintained its level, and a third that has grown considerably. This series of towns will be expected to give a reasonably correct impression of the rural communities of the entire state, representing a typical cross‐section of rural Vermont.

If this study proves as fruitful as the preliminary work seems to indicate, we shall hope to have a dozen or more towns in the completed story, which will probably necessitate at least two full years of work.

The present program is decidedly a change from the earlier studies conducted by the Eugenics Survey. The earlier studies were undertaken with the purpose of utilizing and building upon such material bearing upon eugenics in Vermont as was already at hand, having been gathered in the form of case work studies by welfare institutions and organizations, and of course this material had to do with deficient, delinquent and dependent families. The pedigrees of fifty‐four families were worked up in considerable detail and included five to seven generations per family. Descriptions of over 6,000 persons are in our files.

With the aim of getting at the other end of the population, a study of "key families" was begun more than a year and a half ago. That study undertook to trace the hereditary characteristics of a few families in certain rural towns, which families because of outstanding goodness

or badness economically or socially, had exerted a recognizable influence upon the history of the town itself. Some of these families because of inertia, poor judgment, dissipation of energy, or for downright criminal tendencies acted as a restraint upon progress and nullified the constructive efforts of their neighbors. Others showed characteristics through a succession of generations which made for the improvement of the town. They were intelligent, socially‐minded, willing to accept responsibility, fair and honorable in their dealings with their fellows. It was found, of course, that the older families had usually played a more important part in the economic, social, educational life of the community than had the newcomers.

In order to make a fair and complete estimate of the influence of the old families as compared with the recent importations, it was decided that it would be interesting to make a study of all the families in the town instead of just those three or four that we deemed most signifcant. The present project is therefore a natural outcome of the key family study. We are finding that every family is a key family. If mediocrity is its sole claim upon our attention that very fact may help to explain lack of progress in the town.

One little study now being made throws some light upon the prospects of the old families in Vermont. It is only in its early stages but mention of the results obtained so far seems appropriate at this point. This is a study of the trend in the size of families of University of Vermont students. Questionnaires called for the following figures: The number of persons in the family of each of the four grandparents, of the parents and of the student himself were requested‐‐seven families for each student. The returns to date give unexpected results in the light of similar investigations conducted elsewhere. Vermont students are separated from those coming from other states, rural homes from urban homes, thus giving four categories. Without going into the figures, for other groups than the Vermonters, it is found that the Vermont families showed little decline in the number of children per couple in these three generations, 5.5 for the grandparents, 4.7 for the parents, 4 for the present generation. So far as the birth rate is concerned, therefore, there seems to be less cause for anxiety amongst Vermonters than over the country at large. Furthermore, these families are sending their children, some of them at least, to college, and are therefore to he classed in the more discerning part of the population. Nowadays it takes a good deal of money as well as brains to put a child through college, so that economically, as well, they must be competent.

This project, the Hereditary Factors of Key Families in Rural Communities, may be defined as a combination of economic, geographical, and sociological studies built upon a foundation of human heredity. An elaborate questionnaire, carefully worked out by the assistant in charge of field work, covers the following questions:

1.Is there a pronounced tendency of the children to move away from the farms? 2.Is it the more ambitious and self‐reliant who leave because they, and not the others, have the courage to set out for themselves? 3.Is it, on the other hand, the more capable children who succeed in making the old farm pay and the less persistent or able members of the family who find it necessary to try something else? 4. In the light of the answers to the above questions, are the people who now represent these old families made of as good stuff mentally, socially, industrially, as their forbears? 5.What is the prospect for the future of the little villages and hamlets? 6.Are modern conditions, such as improved homes, summer tourists, etc., exerting a pronounced influence upon the life of the rural community; what is the nature of that influence, and what reaction to these changes, if any, is being shown by the present generation?

These and many other questions are being raised in the attempt to appraise as fairly as possible the contributions of the old established families to the welfare of the community, the state and the nation. The hereditary trends, those qualities that reappear generation after generation, are believed to have had an important effect upon the development of the community and the state. We are undertaking to discover whether or not this is true and to gauge the quality of this influence.

This program of the Eugenics Survey was not chosen in any spirit of presumption. We are not just trying to discover something new and striking to do. The very excellent handbook by Sorokin and Zimmerman, Principles of Rural‐Urban Sociology, and the pamphlet by Miss Emily F. Hoag done in 1921 under the direction of Dr. C. J. Galpin, of the United States Department of Agriculture, have paved the way for a number of efforts in this general direction. The study that I am describing has its aim and object in the field of human heredity as contrasted with an economic or statistical research.

An earnest attempt to utilize the modest equipment and, I hope, modest personnel of the Eugenics Survey for the increasing of knowledge in the field of eugenics and for the future welfare of the State of Vermont in particular has been the motivation of this undertaking. Just how real and practical its benefits will be either to the subject matter of eugenics or to the upbuilding of rural communities remains to be seen, and as in all such work a great deal of it will have to be taken on faith.

1Dr. Perkins read this paper at the annual meeting of the American Eugenics Society and the Eugenics Research Association, May 17. 2The Eugenics Survey of Vermont, established in 1925, is an outgrowth of the course in Heredity at the University of Vermont.