2i6 WALTER F. WILCOX 



housekeeping is a sort of domestic slavery, and that it is best 

 to remain unmarried until some one offers who has the means 

 to gratify their educated tastes. They desire to take a more 

 active part than women have hitherto done in the management 

 of the affairs of the community, to have wider interests, and to 

 live broader lives than their mothers and grandmothers have 

 done. 



''It is a strong argument against this theory of the causa- 

 tion of the lowered birth rate for this country, that the greatest 

 diminution in the rate has apparently occurred in the agricul- 

 tural states, and especially among the colored population in the 

 south. It appears to be probable that this greater diminution 

 in these states is due, to some extent at least, to greater errors 

 in the data from which the rates are calculated, both in the 

 count of the living infants and in the returns of the born and 

 died during the year. It is also probable that voluntary pre- 

 vention of conception had been far more common in the 

 northern and eastern states for a number of years preceding 

 1880 than it was in the south, but that after 1880 it has in- 

 creased in the south, producing a relatively greater effect in 

 reduction of rates, although the absolute rates are still de- 

 cidedly higher than they are in the New England states. 



"If this view of the case is correct, the birth rate will not 

 only continue low in the United States as compared with 

 former years, but it will probably become lower. On the other 

 hand, so long as the present tendency of the people to aggregate 

 in cities continues, as it is likely to do until our coal supplies 

 begin to shrink perceptibly, with a corresponding increase in 

 the cost of power for purposes of manufacture and of transpor- 

 tation, so long the death rates are likely to increase, and, 

 therefore, the rate of increase in population due to excess of 

 births over deaths will diminish. * * * 



'This state of things has occurred before in the world's 

 history in certain regions, as, for instance, in southern and 

 western Europe during the decline of the Roman empire; and 

 if the increase of population has not been checked, as it then 

 was, the world would now be overcrowded. 



"It does not appear to me that this lessening of the birth 

 rate is in itself an evil, or that it will be worth while to attempt 



