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CHAP.

The Development of a Hered

itary

Leisure
Class

Should Be
Prevented
by the
Taxation

of Inheritances

Low Fe

cundity of the Suc

cessful in

the Latter

Half of the

Nineteenth
Century

men who constitute the "middle" class. Expenditure is, indeed, about the worst possible basis for assigning individuals their places on the social staircase. A dynastic-military society like Prussia, which most honors and looks up to the higher servants of the state, conserves the fecundity of its capables far better than a democratic society with a strong plutocratic taint.

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SUCCESS

If the heavy taxation of inheritances should do away with the mere rich, while their places on the social dais were taken by the most successful in the higher walks of life, competition would be healthier. No doubt many pace-setters would have the means to live in a style which the less successful could not copy without economizing in children. But in such a society, there would be more credit in achievement and less in ostentation. The inquiry would not be "How much has he?" or "How does he live?" but "What has he done?" The strain of income would be less and the nursery would have a place in the home. There is no question that in the United States during the latter half of the nineteenth century the superior failed lamentably to reproduce themselves. Among the college graduates of the eighteenth century in New England only 2 per cent. remained unmarried, while in the Yale classes 1861-1879 21 per cent. never married, and of the Harvard graduates 1876-1879 26 per cent. remained single. Between the earlier and the later periods the average number of children to a Harvard graduate declined from 3.44 to 1.92, while for Yale graduates the number fell from 3.16 A similar tendency appears in the families of the graduates of other American colleges. Dr. Cattell's investigation of the families of 1000 contemporary men of science shows that on the average they leave less than two surviving children. In 1905 a student of mine asked of each member of a certain state legislature, "How many children did your father have?" and "How many children have you?" The members of the assembly came of families which averaged 71⁄2 children and were fathers of 42 children. The members of the senate came of families of 8 children and were fathers of 3 children!

As a rule, the bright farm boy who becomes a banker, a railroad official, or a professional man, leaves fewer children than his duller brother at the plow tail. The farm family whose

members push on to college and rise into the higher callings does not multiply like the commonplace family which sticks to the soil. The diffusion of stimulus and opportunity upon which we pride ourselves, seine the trout out of the stream just so much the faster. The reason why you meet oftener with gifted individuals among the Russian peasants than in the English countryside is that the latter has been fished out.

CHAP.

of the

Says the superintendent of public instruction of a New Eng- Draining land State commenting on the famous classical academies which ables out preceded the public high school: "Out of these academies Rural went a steady stream of sons and daughters who were, other Population things being equal, always the strongest of the generation, for otherwise they would not have gained this education. They became lawyers, or physicians, or clergymen, or schoolmasters, or business men in the cities, and the girls went with them prevailingly to be their wives. The unambitious, the dull, the unfortunate boys and girls of the old countryside, who could not get to the academy, as a class remained behind and became the dominant stock. And the old academy, having sorted out and sent away the ambitious stock, is now dormant."

Of Late

the Rising Are Think

ing More

of Self

Perpetuation and

Less of

This sort of thing will produce in time a spent and middling race. We may hope, however, that the sinister process will not continue. There is nothing foreordained in the present clash between personal ambition and progeny. In the Orient, in Eastern Europe, in this country until the middle of the last century, s the desire to get on does not kill fecundity. The one thing needful is to get back to the simple life. A family of five children is no serious handicap to male achievement and may come to be a matter of course among the capable if they become sensible enough to despise the game of pecuniary competition and deliberately stand aloof from it. Eugenic ideas have spread abroad only in the course of the last quarter of a century. As they captivate the strong we shall see more of them take pride in their children rather in their Oriental rugs and their motor car. The situation is distinctly better than it was twenty years ago and every year the redemptive forces gain strength.

СНАР.

XXXI

College

Women

Are In

creasing Rapidly

in Number

and Are Drawn from the Superior Stocks

A Great
Increase

Women

Will Be
Deplorable

unless Graduation Is Earlier

THE EMANCIPATION OF WOMEN

Women now enjoy equal access with men to higher educational institutions and the fact that more than a third of our college students are women forecasts a time when the daughter will have as good an opportunity as the son. To-day perhaps one American young woman in forty-five is within college walls. At no distant date the proportion will be one in thirty, one in twenty, perhaps even one in ten!

College women are, of course, a section of a far larger class of girls who are their peers in ability but who, on account of early marriage, competing interests, want of encouragement, or lack of funds, do not attend college. Still it does not seem unreasonable to suppose that the college women are recruited from the brightest 15 or 20 per cent. of each generation of girls. If this is so and if the time is coming when a third or even a half of this élite will attend college, it is a matter of great significance how college affects their reproduction.

College women marry two years later than non-college women of College of the same social class and for this class marriage occurs two or three years later than for women in general. Furthermore, only one out of two college women marries, whereas in the general population nine women out of ten marry. Moreover, the average number of children born to a married alumna of our famous women's colleges in no case runs as high as two, and for some colleges the average is less than one: Since college life occupies a woman's May, her time of greatest physical attractiveness and of strongest mating impulse, it cannot but interfere with reproduction. What then must be the effect upon the superior stocks when one girl in twenty or even one in ten goes to college? The eugenist can welcome such a tide of young women into college halls only in case better teaching in the lower grades enables the average student to graduate at twenty.

A Career
Is More
Unfavor-

able to a Woman's

Mother

But the rush to the colleges is only a part of a vast movement of women to emerge from the home and share in the life of society. Women now look forward to the same opportunities for preparation and achievement that men enjoy. To what exto a Man's tent should they avail themselves of these opportunities? Unlike paternity, maternity plays havoc with a career. The woman who bears five children spaced about 21⁄2 years apart and

hood than

Father

hood

stays at home until the youngest is six years old has invested sixteen years of her life in her family. Whether, by reorganizing household work and by shaping things so that the mother can work four or five hours a day at her profession, we can cut down this investment we do not know. In the present, at least, the cost of a real family is heavy, and the woman who bears it is under a handicap in competing with men.

CHAP.

XXXI

ment''

nistic to

hood

There is, then, a repulsion between motherhood and what is "Achievecalled "achievement." Young women sense this and the gifted Antagodedicate themselves to a career while the others marry. The Mother"pass" woman is much more likely to marry within five years after graduation than the "honors" woman. Of girls who write the examination for a teacher's certificate those who fail will probably marry sooner than those who succeed. If the emancipation of women results in the talented turning away from motherhood to the service of society, talent will be rarer among posterity.

Women

Honor

in the

Superior

Children

The eugenist prefers to see the professions postponed to the Let Gifted nursery. He would have the first-rate women bear gifted chil- Find dren and let the second-rate women become teachers, social workers, physicians and newspaper writers. The right way to check the infecundity of the superior women is not to bar them Their from walks now open to them but to shift the social emphasis. Brilliant girls covet careers because the career is honored. Many of them would be content as mothers if motherhood were equally honored. But this is impossible until superior motherhood is differentiated from commonplace motherhood, which in turn awaits a marking system by which superior children can be discriminated from commonplace children.

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