68 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



of marriage until the young people can begin life upon the same plane 

 as their parents, too often resulting in an abandonment of marriage 

 altogether, and almost always in a limitation of the family. Why can 

 not young men and women return to the simpler ideals of " love in 

 a cottage " and leave ostentation, if it be necessary at all, to their 

 elders? The French and Chinese custom of giving financial assistance 

 to children during the first years of marriage is commendable as tend- 

 ing to perpetuate families of ability, but the method of bestowing dots 

 has the counterbalancing disadvantage of reacting unfavorably upon 

 the parents, by a restriction of the number of children in a zeal to en- 

 large the dowry. 



Unfortunately those youths who are destined for the more exacting 

 professions are now obliged to spend a long unproductive period in edu- 

 cation. While the past generation of A.B.'s, after leaving college at 

 about twenty, found immediately open to them some field of profes- 

 sional usefulness, the young man of the present is compelled more and 

 more to supplement his bachelor's degree by some definite technical 

 training, or, if he seeks livelihood in the academic world, he must 

 usually add to his previous study years of advanced research. Mar- 

 riage is thus unduly delayed among the young men of greatest social 

 value. Our universities, in granting many fellowships too small for 

 the support of a wife, are increasing this tendency. A practise far more 

 favorable eugenically would be the bestowal of the same income upon 

 fewer men and in amounts large enough to insure a living, increasing 

 the sum with marriage and the birth of children. 



The marriage of the finest young women, on the other hand, is 

 often delayed and sometimes even prevented by an exaltation of the 

 " career " at the expense of wifehood and motherhood. This striving, 

 probably propagated more in radical feminist circles than in the col- 

 leges themselves, leads some women of the highest ability and character 

 to remain celibate, or if married to be content with but one or two 

 children. The various movements for the higher education of women, 

 with all their furthering of social progress, are doubtless partly re- 

 sponsible by their emphasis on " culture " and neglect of the training 

 for the work of wife and mother. The large proportion of women pro- 

 fessors and instructors in the women's colleges has the unfortunate effect 

 of exalting " careers " for women. 



While due care must be observed not to lose sight of the qualitative 

 principle in sexual selection, by an encouragement of too early mar- 

 riages, yet it is clear that fecundal selection can work satisfactorily 

 only when the superior men and women marry in time to more than 

 replace themselves by their children. 



The whole factor of reproductive selection, both sexual and fecundal, 

 is, to sum up, a greater power in modern life than lethal, often called 



