MATRIMONIAL VIEWS OF UNI- 

 VERSITY STUDENTS 



Harrison R. Hunt 



University of Mississippi 



THE presence of a substantia) per- 

 centage of intellectually superior 

 people, such as statesmen, scien- 

 tists, captains of industry, clergymen, 

 etc., is doubtless essential to the prog- 

 ress and prosperity of any race. 

 Psychological and eugenical evidence 

 indicates that intellectual capacity is 

 inherited, and that environment merely 

 furnishes the opportunity for the un- 

 folding of innate mental powers. The 

 future progress of a race, therefore, 

 depends to a very large extent upon the 

 rate of reproduction among its men- 

 tally superior individuals as compared 

 with this rate among the mediocre or 

 inferior. If, with the increase in num- 

 bers, there is either a relative or abso- 

 lute decrease of able people, the race 

 must suffer from lack of the adequate 

 leadership which only such persons can 

 provide. 



It appears highly probable that the 

 inborn mentality of college and uni- 

 versity students is on the average 

 higher than that of the population at 

 large. This view is supported by the 

 results of the mental tests in the 

 United States Army during the late 

 war.* The studies of Johnson and 

 Stutzman,' Phillips, » Banker,^ etc., 

 show a surprisingly low birth rate 

 among university and college gradu- 

 ates. An excellent review of these 

 facts may be found in Popenoe and 

 Johnson's Applied Eugenics.' The sit- 

 uation is far from encouraging to one 

 who is interested in human progress. 



MATRIMONIAL IDEAS OF PRESENT 

 COLLEGE STUDENTS 



Current investigations on the birth 

 rate among college alumni must be con- 

 fined to persons who graduated not less 

 than twenty years ago, for assuming 

 that man and wife are usually about the 

 same age, alumni of a later date, if 

 married, may yet have children. Con- 

 sequently from such data one is unable 

 to pass accurate judgment on the 

 eugenic or dysgenic influences which 

 have been operative in recent years. 

 The writer believes it is important to 

 discover what the college student of 

 today thinks about matrimony and the 

 family, for the ideas of intelligent young 

 men and women influence their future 

 conduct. 



It is doubtful whether sufficient in- 

 formation of this kind could be ob- 

 tained by personal conferences with 

 students; they would probably hesitate 

 to express themselves freely on all 

 the c}uestions asked. The temptation 

 to make facetious answers must also 

 be eliminated, as far as possible. 

 Written questionnaires, to be returned 

 to the investigator unsigned, constitute 

 the best means of obtaining such data. 



In April 1920 the writer mailed a 

 matrimonial questionnaire to each one 

 of the five hundred and fifty-five 

 students then registered in the Uni- 

 versity of Mississippi. One set of 

 questions was sent to the men, 

 another to the women, 

 naires are reproduced 



Both question- 

 below. Each 



^ Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, vol. XV. 



'Johnson, R. H., and Stutzman, Bertha: "Wellesley's Birth Rate." Journal of Heredity, 

 vol. VI, pp. 250-253, 1915. 



3 Phillips, John C. "Harvard and Yale Birth Rates." Harvard Graduate's Magazine, vol. 

 XXV, no. 97, pp. 25-34, Sept. 1916. Also, Journal of Heredity, vol. 7, pp. 565-569, 1916. 



^ Banker, H. J. "Coeducation and Eugenics." Journal of Heredity, vol. 8, pp. 208-214, 1917. 



6 The Macmillan Co., New York, 1918. 



H 



