80 WHAT IS EUGENICS? 



naturally careless and take little thought for the future. 

 And the thoughtlessness of these couples also often makes 

 them poor. We cannot wish any one to be improvident. 

 We must not hope for the appearance of larger families in 

 consequence of parents becoming more careless. 



What makes people limit the size of their families is really 

 not being rich, but feeling poor. The rich man wishing to 

 be richer feels poorer than the poor man contented with his 

 poverty. People feel poor in every rank of society. We 

 want the well-to-do to feel less poor, not to be poorer. It 

 is the feeling that they cannot live up to the standard 

 customary in their class that tempts a couple to keep the 

 strain of family life within bounds by having few children. 

 We want every sldlled artizan, for example, with four or 

 more children, to feel it easier than at present to live in the 

 same way that he sees other artizans living. This would 

 lessen the fear of producing a family large enough to main- 

 tain the breed. How can this result be brought about ? 



Bachelors and childless couples have more money to 

 spend as they like than have those parents with whom they 

 most often associate. It is the childless, therefore, who 

 take a leading part in setting the pace in unnecessary 

 expenditure. If we could take money away from all 

 having no children, the customary expenditure on luxuries 

 would in consequence be diminished. This would make it 

 easier for parents to live up to the customary standard of 

 their class. It would be made still easier for them to do so 

 if the money taken from the childless were to be put into 

 their pockets. If the strain of family life were thus to be 

 eased, couples would in consequence have more children. 

 Moreover, if these transfers of money from the childless to 

 parents were to be made separately in any one class, no 

 other class would be injured thereby. And all this points 

 to several ways of increasing the size of families when that 

 would be desirable. 



The first plan to be considered is that known as family 

 allowances ; a system under which many millions of work- 

 men in Europe receive their remuneration. The methods 



