20. Franklin H. Giddings, “Race Improvement Thru Civilization,” Independent (?): 383-84.


Denial that education will be successful in overcoming inherited disabilities as a matter of race or gender. “If the testimony of parents, teachers and physicians may be believed, universal education is putting a terrific strain upon the nervous systems of children, and especially girls and young women,” the author writes. “Of all ways of inflicting such mercy and thereby improving the human breed, probably the least revolting is to increase the exterminating pressure of education and economic progress.”