1915. Webster’s final novel and the sequel to her 1912 novel Daddy-Long-Legs, Dear Enemy is an epistolary novel which follows the transformation of a socialite into an able and strong superintendent of the orphanage in which the first novel begins. It explores eugenic themes, and embraces, more explicitly than the first novel.

The protagonist, Sallie, attempts to reform the orphanage she is in charge of. In order to do so, she has the children who display physical or mental disability removed to “their proper institutions” (Webster, 1915, p.55). Karen Keely has shown the reforms that Sallie implements along the lines of the cottage system reflect the volunteer work that Webster herself did with New England orphanages (Keely, 2004, p.369). This novel, more than its predecessor, reflects the moderate eugenic views embraced by its author.

Although biological determinism is present, as demonstrated by Sallie sending away the children whom she views as defective in either body or mind, there is also a sense that environment plays a significant role in the shaping of individuals. Sallie strives to instill a sense of responsibility and individualism in the children under her care.

The first explicit mention of eugenics in the book surrounds the protagonist’s reading of Dugdale’s The Jukes, which educates Webster’s audience at the same time that Sallie herself is being educated. The lesson that the protagonist understands is Lamarkian in nature; children are a product of both their heredity and their environment. However, those with bad heredity, even in a good environment, are at a higher risk of degeneracy than those who are of good heredity exposed to a bad environment.

To balance this view Webster also introduces a character, in the form of a physician, who insists on the necessity of testing the children’s mental abilities using the Binet-Simon intelligence test popularized in American by leading eugenicist Henry Goddard. (Keely, 2004, p.371-2) It is this character who provides the protagonist with further reading which she in turn shares with Webster’s audience.

Karen Keely, who has extensively analyzed both Daddy-Long-Legs and Dear Enemy, argues that “Webster uses Sallie to present anecdotal evidence…in favor of eugenics theories that would restrict the reproduction of the feeble-minded, the insane, the criminal, and the alcoholic” (Keely, 2004, p.375). Through Sallie’s whole-hearted embracing of eugenics, and her use of it as a lens through which to view the world, Webster offers a commentary that covers Lamarkian theory, hereditarianism, class, the ethics of euthanasia and sexual sterilization, and the value of human life. (Keely, 2004, p.374-381)

Full text of Dear Enemy by Jean Webster is available online through the Gutenberg Project.

-Leslie Baker

• Keely, K. A. (2004). Teaching eugenics to children: Heredity and reform in Jean Webster's “Daddy-Long-Legs” and “Dear Enemy.” The Lion and the Unicorn, 28(3), 363-389. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/221814261?accountid=12617

• Webster, J. (1915). Dear Enemy. Worcester, Massachusetts: Stone Gate.