90 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



pelling for a limited period and imder suitable stimuli. Postponement 

 from prudential motives and the general conditions of modern life lead 

 readily to their atrophy. This occurs first in the dominating and 

 super-educated classes, and the model they set is followed in widening 

 circles. Fui-ther it is noteworthy that there is no primitive instinct 

 to have children; the instincts of mating, home-building and the care 

 of the young suffice in the earlier stages; later the chief sanctions have 

 been religious and tribal, and these are waning, largely through the 

 influence of our educational methods. The reinforcement of instincts 

 and impulses by rationally devised sanctions appears to be the only 

 hope there is for the family and so far as can be seen now for the race. 



Next after the rationalistic attitude implanted by our present 

 methods of education and the diversion of the interests of children 

 and young people from home life, the most serious injury to the family 

 from the school is probably economic in character. It is said that a 

 boy is legally of age at twenty-one, because for the first seven years 

 of his life he is a charge to his parents, for the second seven years he 

 is self-supporting and during the third seven years he repays the out- 

 lay for the first period. However this may be, there is no doubt but 

 that children are more welcome when they add to the family income 

 than when they take from it. A definite relation exists between the 

 economic demand and the supply of children. A leading economist 

 has argued that the population of the United States would be the 

 same had there been no immigration. There are more children in 

 farming communities and in factory towns than elsewhere; laws 

 against child labor decrease the number of children. 



As sentimental vegetarianism, if general, would exterminate most 

 of the domestic animals, so humanitarian efforts for the welfare of 

 children tend to exterminate them. The school is the most potent fac- 

 tor. When the well-to-do and professional classes must support their 

 boys until the age of twenty-five and their daughters until twenty-two 

 — a thousand dollars a year for each is not regarded as an excessive 

 allowance — the limit of economic possibility is soon reached. And 

 the burden on the poor is relatively as great when they send their 

 children to school to the age of twelve or sixteen, after which they go 

 off to shift for themselves. It looks as though the state would need 

 to add to free schools not only free books, free sports, free transporta- 

 tion, free food and free clotlies, but pajnnent to parents for the time 

 of their children — an ominous outlook for society. Charitable and 

 state institutions other than schools, such as hospitals and old-age 

 pensions, make children less desired. It is an old saying that a father 

 can support seven children, but seven children can not support one 

 father; still every father does believe that his children will come to his 

 aid when needed. If he sends them off to school to be taken care of 



