5i2 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



PHYSICAL DEGENERACY OR RACE SUICIDE?* 



By SIDNEY WEBB 

 I. 



u T~F only the devastating torrent of children could be arrested for 

 -*- a few years," wrote one of the most sympathetic friends of 

 progress, not so very long ago, voicing the opinion of the economists 

 from Malthus to Fawcett, " it would bring untold relief." 1 Not many 

 years have passed, and his aspiration is fulfilled. One of his Majesty's 

 Inspectors of Schools, lately revisiting, after some interval, a public 

 elementary school in the center of London, remarked that, since he 

 was there before, the * babies' class ' had ceased to exist. Between 1896 

 and 1905 the total population of the County of London is estimated to 

 have increased by 300,000 persons. But the total number of children 

 between three and five years of age who were scheduled by the vigilant 

 school-attendance officers positively fell from 179,426 to 174,359. That 

 this scheduling was fairly exhaustive is shown by the fact that there 

 were almost exactly 5,000 fewer children of that age recorded in the 

 London census of 1901 compared with that of 1891. Nor is this either 

 an isolated or a temporary phenomenon. All over England and Wales 

 the birth rate is falling steadily, in a decline which has already lasted 

 thirty years, and which shows no sign of slackening. In 1876, to every 

 100,000 of the population there were born 3,630 babies. In 1904, to 

 every 100,000 of the population there were born only 2,790 — absolutely 

 the lowest number on record since birth registration began. 2 



What does this continuous fall in the birth rate mean ? What will 

 be its results upon our economic and social relationships — what upon 

 the future of the race? What ought we to do, and what can we do, 

 to ward off whatever there is of evil in these results? These are ques- 

 tions which seem to be of greater importance to the community than 

 the ephemeral issues of party politics. Yet those in authority are slow 

 to tackle them. The subject has accordingly been under investigation 

 during the past year by a committee of the Fabian Society; and the 

 present article sets forth some of the results — formulated, however, by 

 the present writer in his own way, for which the society as a whole has 

 no responsibility. 



* From the London Times. 



1 ' The Service of Man,' by J. Cotter Morison, preface, p. xx. 



2 Sixty-seventh Annual Report of the Registrar-General, 1906, p. xix. 



