Hunt : College Birth Rate 



141 



The children indicated in Table 8 are 

 from only those families where the 

 total number of children to date (liv- 

 ing and dead) was given on the ques- 

 tionnaires. 



The number of children computed 

 to be the survivors at 23 years, the 

 approximate average age at which 

 their parents graduated (Table 3), is 

 fifty-nine less than the parental group. 

 This number of survivors at twenty- 

 three years is only ninety-one per cent, 

 of the parental group. 



Compare this with the record of the 

 ministerial graduates, Table 9. 



The ministerial group, with its rela- 

 latively high marriage and birth rates, 

 is apparently increasing, for the cam- 

 puted number of children surviving at 

 age of twenty-three years is thirty-six 

 per cent, in excess of the parental 

 group. The birth rates in Table 7 

 should be consulted in connection with 

 Table 9. There is no apparent reason 

 for believing that the clergymen as a 

 group have been naturally more fertile 

 than the other alumni. Conscientious 

 scruples, entirely praiseworthy in the 

 main, may have prevented them from 

 using contraceptive measures to the 

 same extent as the other graduates. 

 It should be noted, however, that the 

 size of the family shows an abrupt de- 

 crease in the second period. 



I suspect that a real process of nat- 

 ural selection has been operating here. 

 The minister, more altruistic and with 

 greater faith in the future than his 

 schoolmates, has ventured to rear more 

 children, even on an inadequate salary. 

 The writer is not aware that love of 

 children, altruism, or any other char- 

 acteristics that would lead to the de- 

 sire for a large family, are inherited ; 

 but if they are inheritable the greater 

 reproductive rate of the ministers may 

 be eugenically significant. Surely, it 

 would be fortunate if the higher moral 

 qualities could be disseminated in a 

 race by the extinction of selfish strains 

 through excessive birth control, and a 

 corresponding increase in altruists. 



Some of the families represented in 

 Table 8 will doubtless be augmented. 

 A part of the women there have not 

 reached the end of the reproductive 

 period. The families in Table 10 are 

 complete, as far as can be determined. 

 The families of male graduates are 

 confined to those in which (1) the 

 husband is dead, or (2) both husband 

 and wife are living, but the wife is not 

 divorced and is 45 years old or older. 

 Obviously a widower or divorced man 

 could marry a woman young enough 

 to bear children. The number of un- 

 married men has been reduced so that 

 the ratio between married and unmar- 

 ried is the same as in Table 8 ; the 

 same is true for the women. 



The number of offspring computed 

 as survivors at the age of twenty-three 

 is, curiously, ninety-one per cent, of 

 the parental group here also. 



This percentage is probably too low, 

 for the following reasons. These 

 children came from parents who were 

 longer-lived, on the average, than the 

 complete body of graduates from 1870- 

 1899. The rather unusual vigor of the 

 parents, manifesting itself as corre- 

 sponding extension of life, has doubt- 

 less been transmitted to some extent 

 to their children. Therefore it may be 

 that these children have the capacity 

 for living longer, on the average, than 

 even the population from which the 

 Northeastern States Mortality Table 

 was computed. But it is hard to be- 

 lieve that the survivors at the age of 

 twenty-three years would much exceed 

 the parental group numerically. The 

 total number of children at birth was 

 only seventeen or eighteen per cent 

 (Tables 8 and 10) in excess of the 

 parent group. The great mortality of 

 infancy (nearly thirteen per cent, dur- 

 ing the first year of life, ordinarily) 

 would surely greatly reduce this ex- 

 cess. 



A studv of the reporting graduates 

 of the classes from 1890-1899 fur- 

 nishes confirmatory, though by itself 

 inconclusive, evidence in favor of the 

 view that the group of graduates 



