142 THE COLLEGE 



case, such as the average age of marriage of these college graduates, 

 the age and other qualifications of the women they marry, and, above 

 all, whether there is the slightest ground for supposing that the post- 

 ponement of marriage one year tyy a man presumably in his prime 

 could materially affect the number of children he is able to beget, 

 if he and his wife wish for the largest attainable family. But a 

 reference to well-known statistics will dispose of the whole argument. 

 In the case of the alleged increase of the age of graduation, and the 

 assumed decrease of college students, the facts themselves were 

 incorrect; here the conclusions are wholly unjustified. The failure 

 of Harvard students to reproduce themselves is not a peculiarity 

 of Harvard graduates as such, but seems to be a characteristic of 

 our American stock, and, above all, of our native Massachusetts 

 stock, to which two thirds of Harvard graduates belong. It seems 

 to be as true of native American factory operatives, farmers, and 

 artisans as of Harvard graduates, and has, therefore, nothing what- 

 ever to do with the length of a college course, or, indeed, with a 

 college education at all. 1 



Should, then, our college course be shortened because our profes- 

 sional courses are long? There were in the year 1902, according to 

 the report of the United States Commissioner of Education, 88,879 



1 See President Eliot, President's Report, Harvard University, 1901-1902, pp. 

 31-32. For additional statistics of the marriage-rate and size of families of college 

 graduates of Yale College see Mr. Clarence Deming, Yale Alumni Weekly, March 

 4, 1903. Professor Thorndike, " Decrease in Size of American Families," Popular 

 Science Monthly, May. 1903, gives similar statistics for New York University, 

 Middlebury, and Wesleyan. Dr. George J. Engelmann, " Education not the 

 Cause of Race Decline," Popular Science Monthly. June, 1903, prints tables for 

 Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Bowdoin, and Brown, and compares them (favorably 

 for college graduates) with similar statistics for other classes of the population. 

 President G. Stanley Hall and Dr. Theodate L. Smith, " Marriage and Fecundity 

 of College Men and Women," Fed. Sem., vol. x, September, 1903, pp. 275-314. 

 President Stanley Hall, Adolescence (Appleton & Co., 1904), vol. n, pp. 590-606, 

 discusses the question of the marriages and children of college men and women, 

 but draws conclusions apparently unjustified by existing data in the case of men 

 college graduates, and certainly wholly unwarranted in the case of women 

 college graduates. These statistics may be compared with similar statistics for 

 Massachusetts and the rest of the United States, Dr. Nathan Allen, " The New 

 England Family," New England Magazine, 1882; F. S. Crum, " The Birth-Rate 

 in Massachusetts " (1850-90), Quarterly Journal of Economics, April, 1897; S. W. 

 Abbott, " Vital Statistics of Massachusetts from 1856-1895;" Dr. Ellis, " Deteri- 

 oration of Puritan Stock and its Causes," privately published by author, New 

 York, 1S94; Kuczynski, " The Fecundity of the Native and Foreign-Born Popula- 

 tion in Massachusetts " (period from 1835-1897), Quarterly Journal of Economics, 

 November, 1901, and February, 1902; Dr. Fred. A. Bushee, American Economic 

 Association Publications, May, 1903; Dr. John S. Billings, " The Diminishing 

 Birth-Rate in the United States," The Forum, June, 1903; Dr. Fred. A. Bushee, 

 " The Declining Birth-Rate and its Cause," Popular Science Monthly, August, 

 1903, " These statistics put the whole native population of Massachusetts in the 

 same position as college graduates, and the question accordingly seems to be one 

 of the upper class, or of the older part of the population, and not simply a question 

 of the educated classes" (see p. 357); Joseph Korosi, "An Estimate of the 

 Degree of Legitimate Vitality, Drawn from Municipal Statistics, Budapest," 

 \\ ith comments by Francis Galton, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, vol. 

 55, December, 1894. 



