The Editor: The Birth Rate of Methodist Clergymen 457 



similar social status. J. C. Phillips- 

 found that the average number of 

 surviving children of Harvard graduates 

 is 2.17 and of Yale graduates 2.18. If 

 every married woman who demonstrates 

 any ability to bear children brings three 

 to a marriageable age (says Robert J. 

 Sprague),^ a race will barely remain in 

 equilibrium. If the number of children 

 is smaller than this, the race will 

 decline in numbers. The class of 

 Methodist clergymen is, therefore, just 

 about reproducing its own numbers. 



HOUSEHOLDS WITHOUT CHILDREN 



The number of childless marriages, 

 11% of the total, is striking. Part of 

 these are represented as childless in the 

 returns because any children that were 

 born had died before the book was 

 compiled; therefore the actual number 

 of barren marriages is less than here 

 shown. How much less, it is impossible 

 to say. If it be supposed that in one- 

 half of such marriages, children were 

 produced but died (a wholly arbitrary 

 assumption), this would reduce the 

 number of naturally barren marriages 

 to 5.5%. A. O. Powys calculated, from 

 the vital statistics of New South Wales'* 

 that in a population of Anglo-Saxon 

 mothers of child-bearing age, not more 

 than 2 or 3% are naturally barren; but 

 conceivably a somewhat higher per- 

 centage would be bairen in North 

 America. It seems safe to conclude 

 that absolutely childless marriage is 

 very rarely desired by Methodist clergy- 

 men. Such barren marriages as are 

 found are probably not the result of 

 voluntary avoidance of children. The 

 record of the Methodist clergymen con- 

 trasts in this respect with the record 

 of Harvard graduates (decade of 1881- 

 90) who show 23.4% of childless 

 marriages, or of Yale graduates (21%). 



But if the wives of Methodist clergy- 

 men are not avoiding motherhood 

 altogether, they at least appear to be 

 limiting their families to small size. 



The great preponderance of one-, two-, 

 and three-child families at once suggests 

 birth control. When an unlimited fam- 

 ily all over the world tends to consist 

 of at least five children, there is more 

 than a coincidence in the appearance 

 of so many two-child families among 

 intellectual people everywhere. 



Of course, these small families might 

 rather be due to the inferior health of 

 the mother, or to some other biological 

 cause than voluntary birth control. 

 The data do not lend themselves so 

 well as might be desired to a decision on 

 this point. It seems possible, however, 

 to throw some light on it by a com- 

 parison of the families of those who 

 married once with the families of those 

 who married twice. For this purpose 

 a separate count was made of all 

 individuals who married twice, and 

 whose second marriage occurred not 

 later than 1900. This practically en- 

 sures that the family is now complete. 

 No more children are likely to be born. 



FIRST AND SECOND MARRIAGES 



To make sure that both marriages 

 existed long enough to be produdtive, 

 the interval between the two marriages 

 was noted. There were some surprising 

 results — in a number of cases the inter- 

 val was half a century. On the average, 

 it was 11.5 years. The median line 

 was eight years: that is, the second 

 wedding came less than eight years after 

 the first, in just as many cases as it came 

 more than eight years after the first. 

 Naturalh , the first wife must have died 

 several years before the second marriage. 

 But, when all allowances are made, it is 

 evident that the first marriages lasted 

 long enough to make possible the birth 

 of several children, while none of the 

 second marriages had lasted less than 

 fifteen years. 



Now if the clergyman's small family 

 is due to debility of his wife, and to that 

 alone, then the man who has been twice 



2 Phillips, John C. A Study of the Birth Rate in Harvard and Yale Graduates. Harvard 

 Graduates^ Magadne, September, 1916, pp. 25-34. This comparison is probably too favorable to 

 the Methodists, for they are scattered all over the United States, while the college graduates 

 referred to are concentrated in the East, where the birth rate is probably lower than in the West. 



* Sprague, Robert J. Education and Race Suicide. Journal of Heredity, vi, pp. 158-162, 

 April, 1915. 



^ Powys, A. O. Data for the Problem of Evolution in Man. On Fertility, Duration of 

 Life and Reproductive Selection. Biometrika, iv, pp. 233-286 (1905). 



