270 



The Journal of Heredity 



married men and 50 married women. 

 The study was limited to those who 

 had been married for at least 10 years, 

 and whose families therefore should be 

 nearly complete. This reduced the 

 number to 387 men and 28 women. 



The 387 men had altogether 806 

 children, or an average of 2.08 each. 

 The 28 women has 26 children, or less 

 than one apiece. 



The latter figures perhaps indicate 

 that children are much more of a handi- 

 cap to a professional woman than they 

 are to a professional man, since most of 

 their care usually' devolves upon the 

 woman. More weight can be laid on 

 the figures for the men; they confirm 

 J. McKeen Cattell's researches, which 

 showed that the two-child family is 

 now practically standardized among 

 American men of science. 



A study made at the University of 

 Wisconsin a few years ago showed, ac- 

 cording to O. E. Baker, that the mar- 

 ried members of that faculty had about 

 2.5 children each. This is a high fig- 

 ure for the professorial class, and is prob 

 ably reached in very few universities. 



It is scarcely necessary to point out 

 that the two-child system is inadequate 

 to ensure even the bare maintenance of 

 a given section of the population. 

 When a certain amount of premature 

 mortality, and the failure of some to 

 marry, are taken into account, it becomes 

 evident that the group which limits 

 itself to two children per family will 

 steadily decline in nvimbcrs. If mo- 

 rality and intellectuality arc, as we be- 

 lieve, due largely to heredity, then the 

 amount of them in the population will 

 become less each year. 



SCMIi UNLI.MITUD FAMILIES 



There has been no such diminution 

 in the fertility of groups that are not 

 conspicufms for morality. It was found 

 (according to O. E. Baker) that feel)ic- 

 mindcd persons who applied for relief 

 to the Associated Charities of Madison, 

 Wis., had families of 6.2 children, on 

 the average. 



To cite Ijut one more study on this 

 side of the ledger, A. H. Estabrook 



finds in his study of the great "Juke" 

 family, a clan of several thousand im- 

 beciles, criminals and ne'er-do-wells, 

 that the women who ha\'e children have 

 on the average 4.3 apiece. This is 

 about twice the number bome by the 

 college professors' wives. 



Now mere quantity of children is of 

 little concern to the eugenist. If the 

 Juke women and their like were bearing 

 no children, we could be well satisfied 

 with the average of two from the col- 

 lege professors. It is the relative birth 

 rate that occupies the eugenist 's at- 

 tention, and he cannot help feeling 

 alarm at such tendencies as these 

 figures indicate. 



Certainly the college professors are 

 in many cases not to be criticised for 

 their small families; they must rather 

 be commended for refusing to bring 

 into the world more children than they 

 can properly care for. The fault is 

 more that of society than that of the 

 individual. If society does not want 

 to see the amount of morality dimin- 

 ishing with each generation, it must 

 take some steps to get a larger birth 

 rate from such a class as that of the 

 college professors, and it should also 

 take whatever steps are possible to 

 reduce the racial contributions of the 

 germinally anti-social — at least such as 

 are mentally defective. These two 

 problems make up nearly the whole of 

 national eugenics. A good start has 

 been made on the second, but httle or 

 nothing has been done on the first, 

 which is really the more important. 



The solution of the first is not a 

 matter to be settled by the geneticist. 

 but rather by the economist and 

 sociologist. The geneticist can only 

 point out the problem and emphasize 

 as much as possible the urgency of its 

 solution. Unless economic and social 

 changes permit and encourage people 

 of superior morality and intelligence 

 to have more children, eugenics can 

 make little progress. For the class of 

 people typified by the college professor, 

 children are today a liability. It is the 

 task of the statesmanship of the future 

 to make them an asset. 



