The writer had for some years prior to 1925 conducted at the University of Vermont a course in Heredity. Lacking definite information about Vermont families, it was impossible to answer many of the questions propounded by students and people in the audiences whom the writer was asked to address on this subject. The people of every community, every state, are apt to consider themselves as set apart, hardly subject to the same natural laws as those of other communities. It was all very well to bring forth the results of studies on the Jukes, the Kalakaks, Nams and other graphic examples of degeneracy and, by contrast, the successive generations of notables among the Jonathan Edwards or Hirschoff families; but Vermont students and Vermont audiences wanted Vermont facts. Living conditions and the environment in Vermont are in some ways peculiar. Does this peculiar environment alter natural laws that in other environments produce definite types of human minds and bodies?

The World War draft boards seemed to discover more physical and mental defectives in Vermont than elsewhere. Davenport's tabulations, made for the Surgeon General, put Vermont in a very bad light, near the bottom of the list of states, in regard to the mental levels and many physical defects such as asthma, spinal curvature, etc., discovered by the medical examiners among the draftees. This report had rather wide circulation and Vermont's reputation suffered. It seemed to the writer rather important to attempt an investigation of the statements from another angle, namely, family studies of Vermont's population.

Various progressive states had enacted laws, or had attempted legislation looking forward to the improvement of their population in future years. In not a few other respects Vermont's reputedly conservative people had taken the lead in the past. It seemed desirable to look into the matter of social legislation in Vermont as a means of raising the level, physical as well as mental of her future children.

A most suggestive, thought-provoking pedigree chart came to the writer's notice. Prepared by a State Department of Welfare investigator, it set forth a. large proportion of defective, delinquent and dependent individuals in a family of which one or two persons had found their way into a state institution. This was a sort of Vermont Juke's picture. Would it not be valuable to produce other charts, not only of families in which the three "d's" were the most prevalent characteristics, but in the higher types of families in which contributors to the upbuilding of the state and her institutions were conspicuous and numerous?

Privately contributed funds becoming available, it was determined to set about an attempt to answer some of the multitude of questions suggested. As exact and dependable a body of information as could be gathered, bearing upon supposedly heritable characteristics, both good and bad, was to be gathered and made available for every sort of study and every kind of practical, forward-looking movement. The material so gathered during the eleven years of operation is now available for study by students and social workers. It is housed in the Robert Hull Fleming Museum of the University of Vermont and in the custody of Doctor Henry H. Perkins, Director of the Museum.

It was felt that it was highly important to keep this study divorced from any public agency or any voluntary institution. Sectarian alliances were carefully avoided. It was therefore thought wise, as well as found convenient, to connect the new organization with the department and the institution with which the writer was already connected, nominally at least a state institution, an educational institution, a non-sectarian institution. It accordingly fell naturally into place as an adjunct to the Department of Zoology of the University of Vermont, in which department the course in Heredity, already mentioned, was being given.

It was well recognized that a good many people in Vermont would have to be consulted and their advice and guidance frequently sought and many of them might appropriately be formed into an advisory committee. The President of the University, a representative or two from one of the important welfare organizations of the state, the State board of Health, prisons and state hospitals, departments of education and of public welfare could all appropriately and valuably aid in the carrying on of any such enterprise. Without exception the plan seemed to commend itself to these representatives and they readily consented to serve as members of an advisory group. With slight alterations this remained the personnel of the Advisory Committee through the entire period of the Eugenics Survey.

Through the kindness of the Vermont Children's Aid Society the Survey was fortunate in securing the immediate and valuable aid of an experienced and well-trained investigator, Miss Harriett Abbott, one of the society's field workers. She was field worker for the Survey from 1925 to 1928. At various times one or two assistants were given her and an office, with a secretary was maintained from an early date. Clerical assistance services of a skilled draftsman, and the cooperation of persons skilled in mental testing; and in statistical work were brought from time to time. For two years an assistant field worker was employed.

In any such study as this, or rather such a series of more or less disconnected studies, it would be exceedingly hard to find workers fully trained and possessing all the qualifications of experts. The survey was most fortunate in several of those who were employed during the eleven year period.

The director, although not on salary, should have had more specific training. He found it necessary to "feel his way along" as one topic after another came up. His only training was from books and attendance at conferences and national meetings on Eugenics and Heredity. He was, however, a member of the Board of Directors of the American Eugenics Society and in quick succession became vice-president and president which office he held for three years.

Mrs. Martha Wadman, who followed Miss Abbott as field worker, had been trained in giving intelligence tests, a circumstance which enabled her to conduct successfully an investigation of the mental levels of the inmates in the Riverside Reformatory for Women and a variety of other studies. She was also experienced in several phases of social work having been employed by several different organizations.

Overlapping the services of Miss Abbott, whose qualifications have been mentioned previously, and of Mrs. Wadman, we had in our employ a young woman who came directly to us from the Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor, Miss Frances E. Conklin. She had been engaged in technical and statistical work in that office and so was able to contribute a different kind of experience from that of our other employees.

Miss Elin Anderson, with a Master's degree from a Canadian institution, completed her studies in the New York School of Social Work shortly before her engagement with us. Her intellectual qualities are best indicated by the statement that her work on the Fifth Annual Report and the book "We Americans" received very high praise in unquestionably competent quarters. The book received a thousand dollar award as the best book in its field during the year 1937.

The first and only regular secretary employed in the office was Anna Rome. Coming to us directly from high school she immediately showed ability and earnest purpose to understand the aims of the survey, and her knowledge and grasp of its problems improved year by year. She not only functioned as office secretary but was of great assistance a variety of other exacting capacities. She was one of the regular investigators in the Migration Study of the Three Towns, and during the times when the annual reports and the book were being prepared for publication, she developed considerable literary and editorial skill. She also gave public addresses on various matters connected with the progress of the Survey.

Inasmuch as the information gathered by the survey was generally of a highly confidential nature and voluminous as well, adequate filing, indexing and cross-indexing had to be devised and faithfully carried out in order to keep the material from getting into the wrong hands or being lost in hopeless disorder. This involved much labor and expensive equipment.

It was found difficult but imperative to steer a middle course between secrecy and ballyhoo. The work of the investigators, after the first two or three years, was greatly facilitated by the previous knowledge on the part of the public that such a study was being made. On the other hand it was necessary to avoid antagonizing people by telling the public too much about their private affairs.

From the beginning, the investigator and director were frequently asked to talk publicly about their work, and whenever possible such opportunities were utilized. In this way it was hoped that public opinion could be aroused in favor of suitable action that might prove helpful in making the way easier for further activities. A great many well trained persons firmly believed that without this educational campaign it would have been impossible to accomplish a number of things that could be set down to the credit of the Survey. The outstanding instance of this was the passage in 1931 of the Eugenical Sterilization Law, in that the adoption of this measure was to no little degree due to the understanding of the principles involved by a great many people who had come in contact with the publicity of the Survey. There can be no doubt that education was greatly needed to combat the almost universal ignorance of the principles involved in eugenical sterilization and of the methods employed, but especially of the results which follow sterilization. It was particularly difficult to persuade the advocates of such a law that punishment for crimes could be entirely omitted from the grounds for sterilization. Opponents of the measure were definitely less strong in their opposition when they learned that no provision for punishment was to be included in the bill.

It should further be noted in this connection that the chief proponents of the bill were either members of the Advisory Committee or persons who had been in close touch with the operations of the Survey.

To the sterilization law must be added certain important reforms in our penal institutions, handling of the medical examinations in the schools of the state and reform in marriage laws. All of these have been advocated by the Survey and no doubt facilitated by the studies and publicity which it carried on.

Newspaper articles and letters to the editors, papers presented at the meetings of scientific organizations and radio broadcasts were added to the talks before societies and groups. The problems of human heredity appear to be of interest to the public generally, and our audiences and readers showed a genuine desire for accurate up-to-date information. Indeed, in spite of the existence of many mistaken ideas in regard to the methods by which characteristics are transmitted, and particularly the kinds of things that are transmitted, it is evident that people do a good deal of thinking on subject and acquire definite notions. This is no place for a dissertation on the principles of heredity or eugenics. I am merely trying to say that the public is ready for an educational campaign and in its turn can be of such assistance in gathering accurate information about conditions in the community.

One of the questions most frequently asked has to do with the existence of "pockets of degeneracy." In almost every audience people bring up this matter and assure the speaker that in such and such a community with which they are familiar most of the families are related to one another and that feeblemindedness, insanity, or criminal behavior have been getting worse and worse until that community is a noisome sore in the state. Most such reports turn out on investigation to be considerably exaggerated. As will be pointed out shortly a number of investigations were conducted by the Vermont Survey but no study was made, and none seemed likely to be profitable looking toward the discovery of such festering areas of degeneracy if they exist.

It has been intimated that the people might be of considerable assistance by discovering local conditions and accurately reporting upon then. This is true because when conditions are really understood it is usually possible to do something about them. Aroused public opinion is entirely capable of bringing about great improvement, not only in the environment in which people grow up and live, but also in the kind of marriage that takes place and in the education of young people in the more important aspects of breeding and living. If every family in a little state like Vermont could became conscious of the possibilities of improvement through wise legislation and the enforcement of wise laws, and, more particularly, if every family could be made to realize what the family itself is capable of doing to improve its own stock within a generation or two there would be little cause to worry about the quality of the Vermont People.

With such a policy in and in the hope of making a beginning however small, in the direction of accomplishing these things, the Vermont Survey undertook both to gather pertinent facts and to make them known as widely as possible through the state. It musts be repeated, however, that the confidence of the people who gave information about their families was carefully safeguarded. Where families were described for purposes of illustration, recognizable earmarks were carefully hidden from view.

A pedigree chart stemming from inmates of a state institution has already been mentioned. In order to avail itself of the special knowledge, training and skill of the first field worker, the first work undertaken was to make further pedigree studies comprising a considerable number of families in which some form of defect was pretty general and pronounced. Perhaps the most frequent reason for including a particular family in this rather uncomplimentary list was pauperism, although many forms of criminality, blindness and deafness of the congenital sorts, mental disturbances and deficiencies also figured in the family chosen.

Full and careful records were made of all individuals about whom information could be collected and these records were indexed and cross-indexed to secure maximum availability.

Charts were made of sixty-two families and some of these families were selected for a description in the First Annual Report issued in January 1927. More than forty-six hundred individuals were included, going back in some cases six or seven generations.

The earlier generations having long since passed out of the picture, it was necessary to set down the records as they could be obtained from living members of the family, prison records, poor master's lists and many other official and semi-official sources.

Out of the forty-six hundred individuals, seven hundred sixty-six had definite poor relief records. Three hundred and eighty were pretty conclusively shown to be or to have been feebleminded, while one hundred and nineteen had been, or were at time, in prison. In addition to these known cases there were unquestionably many others that would have been included had the facts been accessible.

This study indicates one thing with particular definiteness, namely, that a family which several generations ago made itself conspicuous in the community by reason of a particular type of defect was almost sure to show that same type of defect through several generations. This case can also be stated from the other end, namely, that whenever the Vermont Survey worked backwards from people then living, who were marked by one of these stigmata, their ancestors were found to have been marked in the same way. How much of this was due to a continued bad set of environmental conditions does not really matter. Eugenics is very little concerned with the academic question whether environment or heredity causes a particular characteristic. Deficient and delinquent parents furnish the wrong environment for their children just as inevitably as they pass on contaminated germ plasm. The fate of the children is the same. If the quality of the stock can be improved, people will, and in some way or other manage to secure at least a minimum of improvement in the environment. None of us would want one of our children to be brought up by feebleminded or insane foster parents and it would make no difference in our firmness in refusing, whether the particular kind of feeblemindedness or insanity was of the hereditary type or was brought about by an accident, illness or poor food.

In addition to the indexing and filing of the records in the forty-six hundred cases, careful pedigree charts were produced and the different types of deficiencies, etc., were shown by appropriate symbols on these charts. As originally produced, some of these charts including several hundred individuals were bulky affairs, and for the sake of compactness several were transcribed into the form of circular charts with the several generations shown in the concentric circles, one circle to a generation.

A single example chosen from the forty-four families that were described in the first report is that of the Huntington's Chorea family. This dreadful malady, one of the very worst types of insanity, is so definitely familiar as to be outstanding among mental defects as hereditary. Probably the disease itself is not actually transmitted, but weaknesses which make the onset of the disease probable in a high percentage of the descendants are unquestionably of the inherited type. It will be important to renew the attack upon this study at an early date in order to find out what is happening to the descendants of those who became afflicted with Huntington's Chorea in this particular family. The disease appears later in life than most kinds of psychoses, so that people may marry and have several children, although they are destined to become victims themselves and accordingly act as carriers of the same defects or weaknesses so that their children also are, in a good many instances, destined to become inmates of an institution. Twelve years have elapsed since the last checkup on the members of this chorea family.

As an example of the application of eugenics by putting into practice some of the recommendations that grow out of the survey, it seems fairly clear in the case of the afflicted family the communities in which its members live ought to take steps to discourage marrying and producing children under such dangerous conditions. We have been asked why the survey itself did not undertake to put such appropriate measures into operation. A moment's thought, however will make it apparent that a survey is not an authorized agency for carrying out its own recommendations. Its purpose is fact finding, although in the case of the Vermont Survey, there was added somewhat the unusual feature of' public education. But administration was plainly outside of its territory.

During the first year of the Survey it was determined to ask experts for their assistance to investigate the findings of the War Draft Boards. These boards, it will be remembered, according to Dr. Davenport's voluminous reports analyzing them, showed Vermont in a very unfavorable light, being next to the bottom of the list of states in the number of young men of draft age disqualified from war services or accepted with reservations on account of mental disability. The National Committee for Mental Hygiene was invited by the Governor of the state to send their investigators to cooperate with the Eugenics Survey. They consented to cooperate by detailing a group to Vermont for a period of some months. Three trained workers under Dr. H. E. Chamberlain, a psychiatrist of note, established themselves in several places, selected by the writer in consultation with members of the Advisory Committee. They studied almost exclusively the children in the schools of these sample areas. One of the most active industrial towns, a rural area near another industrial center, and certain schools in Burlington were studied. In addition, subnormal young people in the Brandon State School and the students in the Vermont Industrial School, were given mental tests, personality examinations, and aptitude tests.

The report of this special commission has not been published but is filed with the Eugenics Survey Records. It shows that the reasonably fair sampling of Vermont young people who were studied showed mental levels of the same average as had been determined for the children of other sections of the country. Children of racial origin other than the Old American stock fully as well as those whose families had lived in this country for several generations. This finding seemed conclusively to disprove practically the only suggestion which had been made in an attempt to determine the cause of the "high incidence" of feeble-mindedness among the young men of Vermont. This suggestion was that one of the largest groups of people of foreign derivation appeared frequently to be of low mentality. Dr. Chamberlain's observations did not in the least bear out this solution nor for that matter the conclusions of the war draft examiners.

No attempt has been made to account for the rejection of draftees in Vermont for reasons of low mentality. It was probably due to a combination of circumstances, but plainly it did not at all indicate a general mental level lower than in other states. It was inevitable that the standards of judgment in regard to any kind of defect, and especially mental defect, would vary markedly amongst the draft boards in various areas, and that may partly account for it.

The investigators made a number of frank criticisms about the schools and institutions in which they worked, and their recommendations have been given consideration by the Department of Education and Public Welfare. Certain of their recommendations have been put into effect and others will be, as soon a practicable. A constantly growing number of "special classes" for retarded children and more frequent and thorough medical examinations, strongly advised by the group, have already been established.

One of the most widely commended pieces of work undertaken by the Survey was the elaborate study of environmental conditions in the more rural sections of the state. This study was set up by the director in conference with the Social Science Research Council. A generous grant from one of the heavily endowed Foundations made possible the establishment of an office and the employment of a director and a small staff. For three years a group of nearly thirty committees and subcommittees of qualified Vermonters investigated a great variety of phases of life in Vermont. The report, consisting of an impressive volume entitled "Rural Vermont: By Two Hundred Vermonters," embodies the findings and the recommendations of perhaps the largest, most highly qualified and intelligent body of people ever brought together and working for such a long period on any social problem.

The assistance of State Departments, Bureaus of the Federal Government, welfare organization of national scope, and experts in many fields, was freely contributed and made possible the intensive scientific investigation of a majority of the factors influencing human life in rural Vermont.

The reason why the Eugenics Survey undertook to organize a comprehensive survey of rural Vermont was that, in order to get a clear picture of the factors of human heredity, it is absolutely necessary to know as much as possible about the condition in which present and future children are living and going to live. In order to produce the best type of future citizens, the best possible surroundings and training, medical care and education must be provided them. If the many hindrances to a normal growth and development which inevitably exist in any community could be eliminated, the better chances for inherited good qualities of body and mind.

The recommendations of Country Life Commission (the name of the organization which made the Rural Survey) were many. The committees handled their problems with skill and wisdom. They attacked them with courage and made public their findings with candor and frankness. It is highly gratifying to find many of these recommendations already bearing fruit. All committees were instructed by the director and his aids to plan for a long-time program for their particular branch of life in the state. They were told to look ahead half a century. It is only six years since the report was published but it would be possible to show that a very encouraging number of the improvements and changes advised in that report have been made.

The committee on educational facilities and the committee on agriculture were two of the largest groups, each having several subcommittees. A soil survey of the state was made in cooperation with the State Department of Agriculture and the Federal Department of Agriculture. Farmers are enabled to choose their crops more wisely because of the publication of that report. The Educational Committee made many recommendations, not a few of which have been adopted, particularly in the rural schools. Another permanent monument to the Country Life Commission is the relief map of Vermont which has been put to a great deal of practical use. This relief model is a permanent exhibit in the Geology Department of the Robert Hull Fleming Museum of the University of Vermont, in Burlington, Vermont.

Inquiries from all over the United States and from many foreign countries, coupled with expressions of approval of the soundness of the program, show clearly that students everywhere agree that the type of study that was made here in Vermont could well be made the basis for similar studies in every part of the world. Right here in Vermont a number of communities have taken it upon themselves to investigate conditions within their own boundaries on the same plan as that followed by the Rural Survey. Only certain phases of living conditions, such as, housing condition, facilities for recreation for adults and for young people, religious opportunities, etc., have been studied in this way, but the program is a sound one. Any community with enough energy and intelligence to make a frank and full investigation of its own conditions and opportunities and to make recommendations looking toward their improvement, is following the plan of the Rural Survey and is in the way of and on the road to a constructive program stretching over a period of years, which cannot fail ultimately to produce important results. Concentrated effort carried on by a large group of people, representing not one but many organizations, will do things to a community that need to be done in addition to effecting this extremely important result: cooperation for civic welfare.

The Country Life Commission made a contribution to the life of Vermont that had never anywhere been made before so far as is known. This was the bringing together of many people of all sects, political persuasions, and personal interests in a unified program of self-analysis and thinking in common. The subjective effect upon the more than two hundred people involved cannot fail to produce good results, not only at the time work was done, but even more as time goes on.

Having been responsible for the plan of the comprehensive survey of rural Vermont and having contributed its director to the Executive Board and to the office staff (he was elected executive secretary vice-president of the Vermont Commission on Country Life), the Eugenics Survey then took its place as one of the working parts of the somewhat elaborate machine. One of the major committees was the Committee on the Human Factor, and the parent organization became one of its subcommittees. Certain definite problems, approved by the Advisory Committee of the Eugenics Survey, and the Commission as well, were undertaken during the three year period. The first of these was:

By "key family" is meant a family which had been an important factor in the life of a local group for several generations. In some cases this family had been a continual drag upon the community, influencing its history and development in the wrong direction. Its contribution was a continued production of low grade citizens. It drained the treasury of the town or village by drafts upon the Poor Relief funds. It brought the town into disfavor because of breeding criminals, mental degenerates, or insane. In some cases it made not one but all of these "contributions."

Other communities which had forged ahead, or at any rate held their own in spite of unfavorable location or poor soil, could attribute much of the stimulus to improvement or sound development to the wisdom and persistence of successive generations of its "key families."

These key families were studied in the routine manner, pedigree charts being produced on the basis of thorough studies of the genealogy, migration, occupation, achievements in scholarship, evidence of business or literary excellence or participation in local government or social work. By contrast the influence of of the community environment upon the people in the Key families was examined, especially in the case of individuals who had left the home town and gone to some large city in the hope of reaching wider horizons of opportunity. Vermont, of course, has contributed more executives, successful lawyers and doctors, and leaders in many other fields, to the great centers than is true of states which have had a smaller proportion of people emigrate from their borders. A count of Vermonters included in "Who's Who" shows that her present and former sons are numerous out of all proportion to her population. How have these people achieved their usefullness? To what degree was it due to their inherited family characteristics? A considerable amount of suggestive information was gathered touching these questions.

The "key family" study was a study of towns, of the part played by key families in the development of or retarding the development of the town. Other town studies followed, including a reconnaissance of the towns. By virtue of the work done during the first three years of its life and of the special study, the Eugenics Survey contributed a great deal to the program of the Comprehensive Survey. It was the work of a pathfinder. No similar comparison of the 246 towns of Vermont had ever been made on the basis of their population trends, industrial progress or decline, educational history or any other department of the life of the state. Such an attempt was made in this study and the graphs, statistics and studied conclusions were placed at the disposal of the thirty committees and subcommittees of the Country Life Commission. Running parallel with this study a highly suggestive piece of work was done on the

This was an attempt to evaluate the contributions of a few old families in a particular example of the earlier settled communities of the state.

One of these families having 520 known living descendants, had 260 of them living outside of Vermont, 195 in Vermont but not in the native town, while 65 had remained in the town itself. The migrations were analyzed as follows: (a) Those who had moved from one part of the town to another, (b) those who had moved out of the town to other parts of Vermont, (c) to other New England States and (d) outside of New England. A valuable population study could easily be formulated on the basis of the material in this part of our files. Changes in the birth rate were studied in this connection.

Following naturally upon the studies described above, a piece of work was undertaken early in the second year of the Comprehensive Survey, the publication of which occupied the entire Fifth Annual Report of Eugenics Survey. This has been in great demand by students of sociology, population problem and rural life.

Three towns were carefully selected as exhibiting most of the important characteristics of Vermont. We called these towns Pomona, (a purely farming town with no important concentration into villages) and Sylvania, (one of the towns which was shown the greatest decline in population with a history of former activities in lumbering and lumber manufacturing, but with stony hill farms), Beaufield, (a town which has lived through the whole history of agriculture in the State).

All of the three towns had experienced a fall in population, with a fairly steady decline. The net result is shown in the following, table: 1830-40 1930 Pomona 1048 725 Beaufield 1264 629 Sylvania 1606 (1850) 563

The number of vacant houses in the three towns came to 8% in Pomona, 14% in Beaufield and nearly 25%' in Sylvania. Deserted farms, cellar holes, and abandoned roads occur in corresponding frequency.

This was studied over the twenty year period, 1910-1930. A longer period would have been better if reliable facts could have been obtained. This, however, did not prove practicable. It was hard enough in the relatively short period of eight weeks which it was possible for the two investigators to spend in each of the three towns, to get facts on the twenty year span. The complete failure of the more intelligent people in any community to estimate with any accuracy the number of new families who had moved in, of old families who had departed, or of individuals who changed residences was astounding. In every case the estimates of the inhabitants were so far below the figures discovered as to be valueless.

Town Clerk's records going back more than twenty years have been found very reliable. In many cases the records have been lost or destroyed. It was decided to make no attempt at an analysis of migrations previous to 1910.

It should not be understood that the Eugenics Survey was attempting to produce a plan for repopulating the depopulated towns of Vermont. The most casual reader of the reports of the census cannot help noticing this depopulation. There is an unfortunate tendency to wail over the decadence of the rural community but it is decidedly open to questions whether it is not a healthy change. Changed conditions have made it possible to keep up even a moderate standard of living on many a farm that in the middle of the last century may have been quite adequate. Intelligent people cannot fail to recognize opportunities to do better by themselves and their families and failure to act upon that recognition makes for stagnation.

Pulling against the natural and proper desire for improved conditions we find an intense love of the soil, loyalty to the ancestral home. Perhaps this is more pronounced in a rural community than in the cities in New England than elsewhere. It is a virtue not be condemned or ignored.

The equilibrium between the longing for better things and devotion to the old home is seen in the migrations. Instead of three towns a much larger number could well be investigated. We have been asked "Why did the Eugenics Survey begin so many studies and finish so few?" The answer is that from the beginning the underlying purpose connected with human heredity, to call attention to the need of fact finding studies on the many branches of this subject, to point the way to the best method of organizing such studies, to draw conclusions from as many facts as could be obtained in a comparatively short time with no pretense of having exhausted the possibilities, and of leaving to more capable and more adequately financed organizations a continuation and supplementing of its investigations.

The final effort of the Eugenics Survey of Vermont was to a high degree sociologic, rather than strictly eugenic. It is impossible to separate these two fields of study. Each draws heavily upon the other.

It was decided to undertake an intensive investigation of racial adjustments in a carefully chosen locality and Burlington was elected for a variety of reasons.

A house canvas of the entire city, numbering 23,000 inhabitants was made. This would have been impossible without considerable financial help and the contribution of many days of voluntary services by competent though temporary assistance. The national derivation of every householder in the city was ascertained.

The purpose of the study was to discover in Burlington how successive generations of people of French, Irish, or other origin or ancestry not more than three generations back adjusted themselves to the social, political, economic, religious, and educational factors in their new environment. The reactions between each and all of these foreign-derived groups, and the "Old American stock" are important in any community. The evidence of fusion and cooperative activities in common fields, such in the poor relief and education, supplies one of the most important elements in building a successful community. Such cooperation, such fusion, are quite impossible without a greater degree of mutual understanding between the various ethnic groups than is ordinarily found.

The ultimate purpose of the study having to facilitate the removal of obstacles to greater coordination and mutual understanding the recommendations that bring the book to a close, are worthy of wide reading and careful consideration. No problems exist in Burlington that are in any way different in kind from those of any other community.

The successful effort of Elin Anderson in the direction of these purposes, is evidence by the prompt acceptance of her book by colleges and schools for required reading and reference work by students in a variety of courses. It is gratifying also that the book was selected for the John Anisfield award of 1937.

It should not be overlooked that "We Americans" was the work of the Eugenics Survey rather than of an individual and a good many experts and authorities outside of the Survey and Vermont made numerous important contributions.

The Harvard University Press undertook the publication of "We Americans" and the edition was nearly exhausted within the few months since the date of publication.

In a brief phase at the beginning of this report it was intimated that private funds were used to inaugurate the Eugenics Survey of Vermont. Only two persons have carried the financial burden during the eleven years, both public spirited, socially minded and forward looking women of Vermont. It is not permitted to give their names but it is only due that recognition should hereby be recorded of their great generosity (the project called for from four to six thousand dollars per annum) and even more of their unusual grasp of the significance of such a little known field of endeavor as Eugenics. The writer is firmly convinced that the results amply justified the expenditure of their gifts of money as well as of the time and thought that have been voluntarily given by the Advisory Committee and other friends. The director certainly feels that so far as his own humble contribution goes he has been many times repaid by the recognition accorded to the Survey and hence to the sponsor University and the State of Vermont and by the concrete results, past, present and to be confidently expected in the future.

A number of investigations were undertaken and carried through to a fairly adequate conclusion which have not been mentioned. Some of these have already led to reforms and improvements. Most of them have pointed out definite and pretty obvious paths to be followed by our legislators in social welfare. The extent of the demand for the five reports and the wide area from which they have come, but particularly the variety of people who have requested them, show clearly a gratifying recognition of the value of the work that has been accomplished during the twelve years.