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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. 



THE BIRTH RATE AGAIN. 

 The Popular Science Monthly has 

 printed several articles on the birth 

 rate, and especially on the relation of 

 higher education to the decreasing size 

 or' the family, as the subject appears to 

 be of such consequence that it should 

 be brought within the range of scien- 

 tific treatment. It is, however, unfor- 

 tunately true that the statistics are 

 fiagmentary and ambiguous, and that 

 the opinions and theories are subject 

 to such large personal equations as to 

 make them almost valueless. It ap- 

 pears to be the case that only about 

 one half of the alumna? of the eastern 

 colleges for women marry, and that 

 they have on the average only about 

 two children. One hundred alumnse 

 would thus leave in their places only 

 fifty daughters, twenty-five grand- 

 daughters and twelve or thirteen great- 

 granddaughters. But it is not at all 

 certain that this disastrous state of 

 affairs is due to the college education. 

 It is probable that the marriage rate 

 is lowered by the postponement of mar- 

 riage to an older age and the ease of 

 earning a living otherwise; but there 

 are no available data to prove that the 

 college graduate is less likely to marry 

 than her sister who stays at home. 

 She apparently does not have a smaller 

 family than the Harvard graduate, who 

 marries into the same class. It may 

 be surmised reasonably that the higher 

 education of woman is a minor factor 

 in the decrease of the birth rate, but 

 that the low marriage rate and small 

 birth rate of college alumna? are pri- 

 marily due to physiological infertility 

 of the New England stock and to eco- 

 nomic infertility of the upper middle 

 classes. 



While these matters are being dis- 

 cussed here without an adequate foun- 

 dation of facts, a very thorough statis- 

 tical study of the decline in the birth 

 rate of New South Wales has been 

 made by the government statistician, 

 Mr. T. A. Coghlan. It has usually 

 been assumed that the birth rate will 

 be high in a new country, where there 

 is room and work for all comers. This 

 was in fact the case in Australasia 

 until about 1880. The birth rate was 

 then about thirty-eight per thousand 

 inhabitants, and tlie average number 

 of children in each family was about 

 5.4. In 1901 the birth rate in New 

 South Wales had fallen to 27.6 and the 

 average number of children in each 

 family to 3.6. Between 1871 and 1880 

 to every thousand marriages there were 

 5,384 children, between 1891 and 1900 

 there may be expected to be 3,636 chil- 

 dren. Mr. Coghlan calculates that of 

 the 1,748 unborn children, the loss of 

 301 may be attributed to postponement 

 of marriage, of 236 to barrenness and 

 of 1,211 to decreased fertility. 



Dr. Engelmann has argued in this 

 journal and President Thomas of Bryn 

 Mawr claimed in her address before 

 the St. Louis Congress that a delay in 

 the age of marriage does not appre- 

 ciably affect the birth rate; but Mr. 

 Coghlan shows that this is an impor- 

 tant factor. When the average number 

 of children is 3.6, a woman marrying 

 at the age of twenty may expect to 

 have five children, at the age of twenty- 

 eight three children, at the age of 

 thirty-two two children and at the age. 

 of thirty-seven one child. An unex- 

 pected social condition is revealed by 

 the fact that of the 94,708 first births 

 in New South Wales in 1891-1900, 



