HUMAN LONGEVITY IS 



capabilities and attitudes about the problem of getting a living 

 are different from those of any other animal, as we have seen 

 in the preceding lecture. In man's case the pre-reproductive 

 period of life is one of true infancy, in the important sense that 

 practically no children below the age of fifteen are or can be 

 completely self-supporting by their own unaided efforts. Some- 

 body else has to get their livings for them. It does not matter 

 in its general social import whether the parents do this directly 

 and in each instance, or whether the burden is taken over 

 by government and distributed over the whole social body. In 

 either case it is somebody other than the infants themselves that 

 gets their livings for them. And it is interesting to note that in 

 this country there is a strong and widespread body of opinion 

 that regards itself as enlightened, progressive, and humanitarian 

 in contending that the span of human infancy should be pro- 

 longed by law beyond its natural limits. There is a proposed 

 amendment to the Constitution now pending, the consideration 

 of which is still kept alive only by a species of political chicanery. 

 This amendment asserts in principle that children up to the age 

 of eighteen, when in the natural course of events many of them 

 would already be married and breeding, shall be legally forbid- 

 den to take any part whatsoever in the provision of their own 

 livings. The difiiculties that have been encountered in enacting 

 this philosophy into law indicate clearly enough that many 

 people take a dubious view of it. It will not help, however, to 

 call these people who are doubtful of its wisdom bad names, 

 or to infer that they are not quite as well aware as anyone else 

 of the evils and horrors of sweated child labor. They are. Their 

 first and frankest scepticism is over a quite different point, 

 namely as to whether prohibition^ is the wisest way to set about 

 solving social problems, or indeed whether it is a wise way at 

 all. They further doubt whether conditioning the child for 

 eighteen years to the notion that it has no responsibilities what- 

 ever for getting its own living is likely to be the best prepara- 

 tion for meeting the sad but unescapable fact of life that even- 

 tually it must get its own living. 



The case is similar in principle for the group that finds itself 



