GENETICS AND EUGENICS 841 



Casual observation will make evident that such grouping is likely 

 to be on a basis of eugenicity and dysgenieity. A number of studies 

 have been made of the reproductive rate of groups classified by voca- 

 tion. These studies reveal that passing from the professional and suc- 

 cessful business classes through the various occupations to that of the 

 unskilled, transient, agricultural laborer, the number of children per 

 family rises steadily. 



Family Size in Eugenic Groups 



The vocational group made up of college teachers might be taken as 

 an example of a profession whose members have a low reproductive 

 rate. A recent study made by Kunkel* shows that 4,567 college teach- 

 ers have 5,932 living children, an average of 1.3 children per teacher. 

 Dividing the teachers surveyed into three groups according to age, he 

 found that in the oldest group there is an average of 1.6 children, the 

 middle group averages 1.42, and in the youngest group, which consists 

 of those of less than forty-three years of age, there are 0.86 children 

 per teacher. Since the families of this last group are not complete, the 

 average of the other two groups, or about 1.5 children per family, 

 might be taken to indicate the reproductive rate of faculty families. 



A correspondingly low birthrate is found among other groups whose 

 members would be expected to possess traits that should be preserved 

 for our race. Cattell reports that the average number of children in 

 the families of the persons listed in American 31 en of Science is 1.88. 

 But small families are not limited to college professors and scientists, 

 for those distinguished persons whose names are recorded in Who's 

 Who in America have families averaging only slightly more than two. 



Since the families from which college students come can reasonably 

 be taken as a eugenic group, several studies have been made of the 

 sizes of the families represented on the campuses of various American 

 colleges and universities. The writer kept a record for a ten-year 

 period of the sizes of the families represented by the students of a city 

 university of the Southwest. The average number of children m those 

 families was found to vary from year to year from slightly under 

 three to slightly over three. Since there were no childless families 

 represented, these figures are high for the social stratum concerned. 



*Kunkel, B. W. : A Survey of College Faculties, Bulletin of the Association of 

 American Colleges 23: No. 4, Dec, 1937. 



