RACE DECLINE. 



175 



The fecundity of graduate marriages, the total numher of children 

 born (gross fertility) is a trifle less than that of the average native 

 marriage, rarely above, as in the Princeton class of '76, .with 3.2 

 children: it is 2.55 for the Yale classes 1860-80, 2.4 for Brown '72, 

 2.07 for Harvard 1872-80, 2 for Bowdoin 1875 and '77 as compared 

 to 2.7 for the native American family of Massachusetts according to 

 the refined statistics of Kuczynski, which show a greater fecundity for 

 the native population than is proved by my studies in St. Louis and 

 those of Dr. Chadwiek in Boston, 2.1 and 1.8 respectively.* Even 

 granted so high a fecundity as 2.7 for the average native family, the 

 surviving children under this assumption are only 1.9 to the family; 

 the lower death rate for children of the cultured and well-to-do — 10 

 per cent, in college graduate families against 28.5 per cent, for the 

 lower classes — reverses the relative status when we consider the actual 

 family size ; the number of surviving children, the net fertility : this is 

 greater for the graduate family (see Table II.) ; and it is the surviving 

 children who serve to reproduce the population. 1.9 (1.92 precisely) 

 is the largest possible number for the native population of Massa- 

 chusetts, as compared to 2.7 for Princeton, 2.28 for Yale, 2.26 for 

 Brown, 1.86 for Harvard 1872-80, 1.88 for Bowdoin. . 



Table Il.f 

 Death Rate in Families of Professional and Laboring Classes. 



Parentage. 



3015 College Graduates 



Population f Native Born, 

 of Mass. I Foreign Born. 



Denmark J Upper Class 



( Artisan and Laboring Class. 



Ti.>i.i;n i Military or Upper Class. 

 jjernn. ^ ^jj children 



United States. 



■ Europe. 



* My own data are obtained direct from the mother and will more correctly 

 represent existing conditions than figures like those of Kuczynski secured by 

 additions for possible omissions to state registration records. I must add that 

 they show, on an average, the number of children borne in 10 years of mar- 

 riage, which should be very near the total. 



tThis table does not quite indicate what I wish to show, as the mortality 

 rate compared with that of the graduate family is not the mortality in families 

 of the lower and laboring classes, but in those of the entire population, which 

 includes the educated and professional classes. 



