264 MENTAL AND PHYSICAL RESULTS. 



creases. In many cases it comes from a desire to stay "in society," 

 and to avoid the cares and responsibilities of parenthood. In other 

 cases there are other causes which need not be dilated upon. It 

 would seem as if this form of sterility should receive the strongest 

 condemnation, but I am not disposed to look at the matter in that 

 light. Persons who deliberately shirk responsibility are not a 

 desirable kind, and the world will not be improved by perpetuating 

 them. As to other causes, I may remark that each individual 

 knows something about himself that the world at large does not 

 know, and when we see a person who deliberately avoids becoming 

 a parent I know of no reason why we should not take such a person 

 at his own estimate and conclude that he is not as good stock as- he 

 appears, and that the sooner that the particular breed is eliminated 

 the better. 



FAMILY LIMITED BY SOCIAL CONDITIONS. 



It is doubtless true that the increasing complexity of society 

 places a premium on sterility and a punishment upon fertility. Not 

 only is there the added burden of more mouths to feed and backs 

 to clothe, but landlords discriminate agains tenants having children, 

 and there is, in our large cities, a class of social parvenus 

 who hold up their hands in holy horror at a family of more than 

 two or three. Arguments in favor of larger families are without 

 avail, and plans of offering premiums to mothers are not prac- 

 ticable. There is, however, a plan that will not only meet the diffi- 

 culty, but is simple justice to those who undertake the cares and 

 responsibilities of rearing our future citizens. In every represen- 

 tative government, each person is presumed to have a voice in 

 selecting its legislators, and consequently in making the laws which 

 govern the community in which he lives. In practice this is re- 



