126 



THE TREND OF THE RACE 



Canadian element (50 per cent of the foreign born) tends to raise 

 the birth rate of the foreign born population. In their report on 

 infant mortality in Manchester, N. H., in 1914, Duncan and 

 Duke state that, " although foreign born constitute only about 

 42 per cent of the total population, foreign born mothers give 

 birth to 67 per cent of the 1,643 infants." In New York City, 

 according to the report of the New York Department of Health 

 for 1909, the birth rate per thousand of native born women is 

 28.26, while for an equal number of foreign born women it is 

 109.46, or nearly four times as large. ^ 



Hoffmann finds from a study of a number of genealogies of 

 American families, that the average number of children per family 

 sank from nearly 7 in the i8th century to nearly 5 in the first half 

 of the 1 9th century, and further decreased to less than 3 in the 

 latter part of the 1 9th century. The studies of Crum have yielded 

 additional evidence of much the same character. A study was 

 made of the genealogical records of 22 American families contain- 

 ing 12,722 wives and 61,115 children. The chief results are sum- 

 marized in the following table : 



The Decreasing Size of American Families 



The families whose records are included in published gene- 

 alogies represent the older American stock which may be repro- 

 ducing more slowly than that of more recent native Americans. 

 Benjamin Franklin estimated the average number of children in 

 an American family in the i8th century at 7, and from the study 

 of a number of genealogies I have arrived at approximately the 

 same result. 



