ALUMNA'S CHILDREN. 49 



various theories this element in the problem appears. Among later 

 utterances, Dr. Engelmann said, 'Race decline is not due to education, 

 not of the educated man at least. The educated woman is in a dif- 

 ferent class.' Professor Thorndike concludes that 'the condition is due 

 to a decrease in fertility in the racial group to which college men and 

 their wives belong.' In passing we might quote another sentence of 

 his: "The opinion of metropolitan physicians may here be as wide of 

 the mark as the common belief that unwillingness is the cause of the 

 failure of the women of the better class to nurse their own children." 



If you grant me for a time that the cause of the 1.8 — it seems like 

 the judgment of Solomon to speak of tenths of a child ! — be physical 

 inability, what is the cause of this inability among the, let us say, 

 schooled American women, with the rate the lowest among those who 

 have been longest in school? What is the cause of the extirpation of 

 that function which one would think would be of all others promoted 

 by natural selection? Is our system of education an element in this 

 result ? These questions are surely vital in more senses than one. 



Thus far I have been sure of my ground, even if I could not make 

 it clear. Now the way is more obscure, for undoubtedly different in- 

 fluences operate in different classes to undermine the health of our girls. 

 If this weakness of function appears especially among college girls, 

 is then the college course at fault ? The birth rate is only a little lower 

 among the alumnae, and we may find that their disability is due to 

 conditions not directly a part of the college course, which each college 

 woman undergoes and only nearly all other women. Observation has 

 almost universally brought the report that the average girl improves 

 in health during her college course. 



Is then the responsibility in the high school, where the greater 

 part of our girls do their preparatory work? Very many girls break 

 down here, we know. Frequently a high school teacher attributes a 

 high school boy's inaccuracy in arithmetic or his slovenly English to 

 'poor preparation in the grammar grades.' This may or may not be 

 just, but I wish some one could find how much of the poor health in 

 high school and college and during later life is due to the way in which 

 our girls go to the grammar school. 



'The way in which they go.' There is no especial fault in the 

 content of their education, primary, secondary, collegiate or university. 

 There is no need of making their curriculum feminine, lest womanly 

 instincts be dulled. It is the way of taking the schooling, the physical 

 demands of it, that have been responsible for most of the invalids that 

 I have happened to know. Alumna's fate was sealed when she was 

 in the grammar school. 



When the bee larvse are about a week old, you remember, it is de- 

 termined whether they shall become queens or workers. It is simply 



vol. lxv. — 4. 



