[..........]

[This print is from the National Film and Television Archive] 

[Gaumont British Instructional recorded on full range Present] 

[Heredity In Man] 

[Produced in collaboration with The Eugenics Society] 

[With The Phelps Family, Sir Dan Godfrey, Howard Godfrey, Edith Craig, 

Edward Carrick, Hazel Neilson-Terry, Val Gielgud and John Gielgud

by permission of the Gaumont-British Picture Corporation Ltd.] 

[Narrator Julian S. Huxley M.A.] 

[Directed by J.V. Durden B.Sc. Under the supervision of Julian S. Huxley, M.A. and H.R. Hewer, M.Sc.] 

[A man with his back to the camera walks across a room.]

[Narrator:] What is the bearing of the laws of heredity upon human affairs? 

Eugenics provides the answer so far as this is known. 

Eugenics seeks to apply the known laws of heredity so as to prevent

the degeneration of the race and improve its inborn qualities. 

An example of favorable heredity is shown by the pedigree of the Phelps family,

members of which have been boatsmen on the Thames for generations. 

Nine members of this family have won the race for the famous Doggett’s Coat and Badge. 

On this diagram, the nine winners are shown in white. 

The present head of the family, whose father was a royal waterman, is Bossie Phelps, 

the king's bargemaster. 

Now no longer an active sculler himself, but still a coach for others. 

His son Ted, is ex-world and English champion sculler and also a royal waterman. 

Ted's brother Eric is challenger for the English championship and like Ted, 

he shows the superb physique which has been in his family for generations. 

But other things besides strength and endurance run in families. 

Here is a man, who although normal, comes from a mentally defective family. 

Here is his wife, who is also normal. 

They have had seventeen children. 

Let us examine the pedigree of these children. 

Five of them died in infancy. 

Three are still too young for an opinion to be formed of their mental state,

a boy and two girls. 

Only two of the remaining children are normal. 

A man and a girl. 

The remaining seven children are all mental defectives marked on the pedigree in black. 

Of these, two live at home, a man and a crippled dwarf girl. 

There is one man in an institution, and a woman with the mentality of a child. 

The other three are all girls and they're all in an institution. 

How has this disastrous state of affairs come about? 

If we examine the pedigree of this family, we find that although the father and mother 

of the youngest generation are both normal, the father's brother was insane. 

Their mother was normal, but the father, the grandfather of the youngest generation 

was defective and his two brothers insane. 

Of their parents, the mother was normal but the father defective. 

We thus see how mental deficiency has passed from one generation to another. 

Although the parents of the latest generation are apparently normal. 

In institutions such as this, all over the country, mental defectives are cared for. 

These are children who are helpless in every way and need constant attention. 

Once such children have been born, we must do the best we can for them. 

Who can only be educated up to the point of normal children of seven to 10. 

Not all mental deficiency is hereditary, but heredity accounts for more of the mild feeble-minded types 

such as you see in this group of men exercising in the grounds of the institution. 

If carefully trained, they can be taught simple, routine tasks. 

Here are men in the workshops carpentering. 

Some of them are taught to do the boot-making for the colony. 

While others make clothes for themselves and their fellows. 

Once they have been born, defectives are happier and more useful in these institutions than when at large. 

But it would have been better by far, for them and for the rest of the community,

if they had never been born. 

Let us turn to a happier picture of the power of heredity.

Here is the pedigree of the Godfrey family,

famous as bandmasters in the Brigade of Guards for 120 years.

[Music]

Figures in white indicate the members of the family who have revealed unusual musical ability. 

Here is Sir Dan Godfrey, the musical director, as seen conducting.

[Music]

Many members of this family have musical degrees and are directors of orchestra. 

Let us look at one more of them at work. 

Here is Howard Godfrey.

[Music]

Another famous family is that of the Terrys.

All of the individuals drawn in light color on this pedigree possess exceptional talents

for the stage, music, and art. 

Dame Ellen Terry, a great actress, was one of the most outstanding members of this family. 

Here is her portrait as Lady Macbeth which is now in the Tate Gallery. 

Beside it stands her daughter, Edith Craig, who is an actress and an expert in historical stage costume,

and well-known as a producer of stage plays and pageants. 

Her brother Gordon Craig is recognized both in England and abroad as a genius

who has been a notable pioneer in modern stage design and lighting. 

His son, Edward Carrick, is a stage designer and artist. 

Now let us see some of the other well-known members of this family. 

Ellen Terry's brother, Fred Terry, the famous actor, married Julia Neilson, an actress and singer. 

Their daughter, Phyllis Neilson Terry, is a distinguished actress with a beautiful singing voice. 

Her brother, the late Denis Nielson Terry, had a distinguished career in the theater,

and his daughter Hazel is now at the beginning of her career on the films.

[Director:] Nearly ready? 

[Makeup artist:] Thank you. 

[Director:] Quiet, please. 

Turn it over. [beep beep]

Speed up.

[Producer:] Thirty-three take one.

[Director:] Action.

[The phone rings.]

[Hazel:] Hello? 

Yes? 

No, no, I've not been waiting at all. 

Just one hour, that's all. 

I guess I better meet you, then. 

I'll try to. I'll most likely be late. 

I mean I can't possibly help it. 

All right. Well, I'll do my best. 

All right. Good-bye.

[Narrator:] And then Terry's elder sister Kate was, before her marriage, 

an even more distinguished actress than Dame Ellen Terry. 

One of her daughters is Mabel Terry Lewis, the actress. 

And another daughter, Kate, married Frank Gielgud, a fine amateur pianist. 

Of their children, Val is dramatic producer at the BBC.

[Val Gielgud:] Now are you all ready for the final run-through? 

First light for the announcer in 6A. 

The second light in 6E for music and then the light in 6C for Hilke's first speech. 

All get that? Right. Stand by.

[Narrator:] And John is perhaps our leading romantic actor.

[John:] Yes, I was there all right. 

Half a mile away at the other end of a telescope. 

This is quite true. 

I'm just one of those long-range assassins.

But that doesn't make it any better, does it? 

[Narrator:] In addition, he is a pianist and a stage designer and producer. 

In discussing human genetics, we have to take account of what we call differential fertility. 

In this figure, we have represented the differential rate of increase in a population where originally,

half the individuals are below the average in physical and mental ability and half above it. 

And where couples below the average have three children,

as against two produced by those above. 

In the first generation, there will be three below, two above. 

In the second, four and a half below to two above. 

In the third, six and three-quarter below to two,

and in the fourth, rather over ten to two. 

The lengths of these gray and white strips, represent the average of the population of each group. 

So, you see that in a mere matter of four generations, individuals below the average 

have become more than five times as abundant as those above it. 

And so, if we want to maintain the race at a high level physically and mentally, 

everybody sound in body and mind should marry and have enough children to perpetuate their stock 

and carry on the race. 

Lastly, I would like to thank the distinguished members of the Phelps, Godfrey, Terry, and 

and Gielgud families for their invaluable help. 

Thanks are also due to the warden and medical staff of the Institution for Training Mental Defectives. 

And finally, we want particularly to thank the father and the mother of the family showing mental defect

for their public-spirited cooperation.

[The End]