ZOOLOGICAL LAWS 521 



alone, for it may be that a certain proportion of them must be ascribed 

 to middle- or upper-class parents. Of course these rude statistics must 

 be corrected by others collected on a large scale all over the country 

 before we can form a final judgment; but I believe that the evidence 

 already to hand makes it improbable that more than a very limited 

 percentage of the children of the working classes have the same ability 

 as the average child of the middle classes. 



In ancient days the chief end of the legislator was to produce a 

 stalwart brood of citizens capable of bearing arms in defense of their 

 country and advancing her material prosperity. Still more ought this 

 to be the aim of our legislators to-day, for under modern conditions 

 great masses of population are huddled together in a manner hardly 

 known to ancient cities. To accomplish this great end, the legislator 

 must not merely look to improved housing of the poor and the develop- 

 ment of the physique of city populations. He must, as far as possible, 

 conform to the principles of the stock-breeder, whose object is to rear 

 the finest horses, cattle or sheep. Amongst wild animals nature selects 

 the fittest for continuing the race, and the wise breeder simply aids 

 nature by selecting still more carefully the best animals. The legis- 

 lator, on his part, ought similarly to foster the increase of the best 

 element in the state, and on the other hand discourage the multiplica- 

 tion of the worst. Yet in our community statesmen of both parties 

 have adopted the very opposite policy. The children of the working 

 classes are educated at the cost of the state, the offspring of the wastrels 

 are given free meals, and already there are demands that they shall be 

 clothed at the expense of the ratepayers, and that the parents shall 

 even be paid for providing them with lodging. It is not impossible 

 that before long these demands will be conceded by either party in 

 the state. The heavy additional expense incurred in this policy falls 

 upon the middle-class ratepayers and taxpayers, who have to feed, edu- 

 cate and clothe their own children at their own expense. I may be 

 said that they can get free education for their children by sending 

 them to the state schools; but this is to level down instead of to level 

 up ; for if they do so they will be lowering the general morale of their 

 own class, the most priceless asset of the nation. The heavy burden 

 of taxation entailed by this policy, falling as it does with special weight 

 on the middle classes, renders it more difficult each year for the young 

 men and the young women in that class to marry before thirty, for 

 they naturally shrink from the expense of bringing up large or even 

 moderate-sized families. We need not, then, wonder at the falling off 

 in the rate of increase of the middle classes. Our legislators are bad 

 stockmasters, for they are selecting to continue the race the most unfit 

 physically and morally, whilst they discourage more and more the 

 increase of what we have proved to be the outcome of a long process 



