Johnson and Stutzmann: Wellesley's Birth-Rate 



251 



investigation of the honor girls before 

 Phi Beta Kappa was estabhshed at 

 Welleslcy. These honors consisted of 

 Durant and Wellesley scholarshi]3s, 

 which carry no stipend and are therefore 

 awarded by the faculty solely for excel- 

 lence in studies. The previous findings 

 in regard to Phi Beta Kappa girls are 

 confirmed by this newer study, as 

 follows : 



(b) The parents have in most cases 

 had sufficient economic efficiency to be 

 able to afford a college course for their 

 daughters. 



Now, these select women, who should 

 be having at least the 3.7 children 

 each, which Spraguc^ calculates are 

 necessary to maintain a stationary 

 population, are only giving to the race 

 .83 of a child each. Their reproduc- 



WELLEfLEY COLLEGE 

 Graduates of '01, '02, '03, '04, Status of Fall of 1912 



The extraordinary inadequacy of the 

 reproductivity of these college graduates 

 can hardly be taken too seriously. 

 These women are in general, and from a 

 eugenic point of view, clearly of superior 

 quality, for 



(a) They have survived the weeding- 

 out process of grammar school and high 

 school. 



(b) They have survived the repeated 

 elimination by examinations in college. 



(c) They represent the number left, 

 after those with lower mental abilities 

 have grown tired of the mental strain 

 and dropped out. 



(d) Some have forced their way to 

 college against obstacles, because seek- 

 ing its mental activities, congenial 

 to their natures. 



IS (e) Some have gone to college because 

 their excellence has been discovered by 

 teachers or others who have strongly 

 urged it. 



All these attributes cannot be wholly 

 mere acquisitions, but must be in some 

 degree inherent. Furthermore, these 

 girls are not only superior in themselves , 

 but are ordinarily from superior parents, 

 because 



(a) Their parents have in most cases 

 cooperated by desiring this mental 

 training for their daughters. 



tivity is only 2234% of being adequate 

 merely for replacement. 



There are at least three causes for 

 this abnormally low birth-rate, viz. : 



(1) Lack of coeducation. 



(2) The failure of their education to 

 make them desirous of having homes of 

 their own and efficient in these homes. 



(3) Excessive limitation of the stu- 

 dents' opportunities for social life. 



Sprague expresses a doubt whether 

 any adequate data in regard to the 

 influence of coeducation on the marriage 

 and birth rates have yet been collected. 

 But we see no reason for rejecting the 

 results of Miss Shinn's investigation 

 (Century Magazine, October, 1895), 

 desirable as further studies may be. 

 She found that nearly 50% of the 

 coeducational women married before 

 the age of 30, but only 40% of the 

 women from separate colleges. If one 

 thinks this difference small, let him 

 remember that even 1%, carried over a 

 long period of time, would produce a 

 great effect in a cimiulative process 

 such as evolution. 



Furthermore co-education produces 

 a larger percentage of marriages with 

 college men. 



Separate colleges for women, in the 

 United States, are from the viewpoint 



3 Sprague, Robert J., Education and Race Suicide. Journ.\l of Heredity (Organ of the 

 American Genetic Association), Vol. VI, No. 4, pp. 158-162, Washington, D. C., April, 1915, 



