The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of Feeble-Mindedness, by Henry Herbert Goddard, selected pages (15)

1470. 102 The Kallikak Family Because of his very low-grade condition, he never becomes a parent. It is the moron type that makes for us our great problem. And when we face the question, "What is to be done with them - with such people as make up a large proportion of the bad side of the Kallikak family?" we realize that we have a huge problem. The career of Martin Kallikak Sr. is a powerful sermon against sowing wild oats. Martin Kallikak did what unfortunately many a young man like him has done before and since, and which, still more unfortunately, society has too often winked at, as being merely a side step in accordance with natural instinct, bearing no serious results. It is quite possible Martin Kallikak himself never gave any serious thought to his act, or if he did, it may have been merely to realize that in his youth he had been indiscreet and had done that for which he was sorry. And being sorry he may have thought it was attoned for, as he never suffered from it any serious consequences. Even the people of his generation, however much they may have known about the circumstances, could not have begun to realize the evil that had been done. Undoubtedly, it was only looked upon as a sin because it was a violation of the moral law. The real sin of [end]