EDUCATION AND RACE SUICIDE 



Women's Colleges Have Heavy Responsibility for Disappearance of Old American 

 Stock in the United States Reforms That Are Needed. 



Robert J. Sprvgik 

 Professor of Economics and Sociology, Massachusetts Africultiiral College, Amherst, 



Mass. 



DURING the Iwcntv-five vcars 

 from 1887-1911 the deaths 

 among the native born ]JO]Jula- 

 tion of Massachusetts exceeded 

 the births among the native l)orn 

 parents by an aggregate of 269,918.' 

 During the same ])eriod the total births 

 in families having foreign born parents 

 exceeded the total of deaths by 526,987. 

 The native and foreign birth rates 

 within the Commonwealth have been as 

 follows :- 



18Q0 lyoo 1910 



12.7 



-VS. 6 

 19.0 



14 Q 



42 



18 



49 

 16 



Native birth rate per 1,000 



native born j)opulation. . 

 Birth rate amonj^ foreign 



born jtarents per 1,000 of 



forei<(n born population . 

 Native death rate per 1,000 



native born population . . 

 Death rate of foreign born 



j)er 1,000 of foreign born 



j)oj)ulation 1 7 . ,S 16.6 15.4 



I have no desire to hold up Massa- 

 chusetts as a horrible example of a 

 State committing race suicide. Condi- 

 tions may be just as bad in other 

 industrial and commercial populations, 

 but unfortunately other States have not 

 been wise enough to collect adequate 

 data on these points, whereas the 

 Bay State has led ofT for man\- \-ears 

 with a most efficient and commendable 

 system of vital statistics. 



If this api)arent deficit c)f native births 

 and the surjjlus of foreign births are 

 true to the facts, and if they should be 

 maintained for a number of generations, 

 the writing on the wall is clear, and he 

 who runs may read the fate of the Anglo- 

 Saxon stock in cverv activitv of Massa- 



chusetts life; and if the conditions in 

 this Commonwealth are typical of 

 American industrial populations gener- 

 ally, then it is a National as well as a 

 local problem that faces us. 



How many children must each child- 

 bearing woman, on the average, bring 

 forth in order to sustain the present 

 population, not providing for any in- 

 crease ? 



Let us start with 200 living babies of 

 native stock, of which 103 will on the 

 average be boys and ninety-seven girls, 

 due to the fact that nearly 6 per cent, 

 more boys than girls are born. By the 

 time the girls become twenty years of 

 age at least nineteen will have died, 

 leaving seventy-eight as possible wives. 



It is a little uncertain to say how 

 many of this seventy-eight would not 

 marry, but I have a few data from which 

 to get a general estimate. 



In a selected New England village 

 in 1890 there were forty marriageable 

 girls between the ages of 20 and 35. 

 Today thirty-two of these are married, 

 20 per cent, are spinsters. 



An investigation of 260 families of the 

 Massachusetts Agricultural College .stu- 

 dents shows that out of 832 women over 

 40 years of age 755 or 91 per cent, 

 have married, leaving only 9 per cent, 

 of sjjinsters. This and other observa- 

 tions indicate that the daughters of 

 farmers marr\' more generall\' than those 

 of some other classes. 



In sixty-nine (re])orting) families 

 reijresentcd by the freshman class of 

 Amherst College (1914) there arc 229 

 mothers and aunts over 40 vears of 



' These aggregates arc computed from the annual reports of "Births. Dcitlis and Marriages" 

 issued by the Secretary of State. 



'These statistics are computed from the U. S. Census RejKjrts. 



158 



