POPULATION 



4761 



POPULATION 



meant the total number of men, women and 

 children that compose the nation. The great 

 truth contained in Bacon's thought is just be- 

 ginning to be recognized. It is only in our 

 day that it has been fully realized that the 

 greatest asset of a nation is its number of 

 healthy and happy men and women, and that 

 its greatest source of future wealth is its boys 

 and girl>. 



Number and Rate of Increase. During the 

 century following 1814 the population of the 

 world more than doubled. Never before had 

 such a rapid increase in population taken place. 

 It is estimated that in the first decade of the 

 nineteenth century the world had, in round 

 numbers, 700,000,000 inhabitants, while in 1914, 

 the year of the beginning of the War of the 

 Nations, the population was about 1,690,000,000. 



The following table gives (in millions) the 

 population of the continents according to the 

 estimates of leading statisticians: 



For the half century preceding the year 1914 

 the rate of increase in several of the most rap- 

 idly-growing countries was as follows: 190 per 

 cent in the United States, ninety per cent in 

 Russia in Europe, sixty-two per cent in Ger- 

 many, fifty-nine per cent in England, forty-six 

 per cent in Hungary, forty-one per cent in 

 Austria and ten per cent in France. For the 

 whole of Europe the increase during that half 

 century was fifty per cent, in spite of the fact 

 that a large number of people left that conti- 



to settle in other parts of the world, < 

 cially in America. At the present time Argen- 

 tina is increasing its population faster than any 

 other country in the world; the United States 



Birth Rate. The increase in the population 

 the world has taken place in spite of the 

 fact that thr birth rate in most civilized coun- 

 tries has been steadily declining during the 

 last few decades. To offset this there has 

 been a gradual decrease in the number of chil- 

 who die before they attain their first 

 inlay. Yet the number of these innocent 

 timi of cliM-a-r. poverty and ignorance is 

 still .'ippallmgly high. 



Span of Life. Another factor that works for 



ise of population is the fact that th 



span of life has lengthened; that is, that the 



mr number of years each person lives is 



greater now than at any other tune. People 



have a better chance to-day to live a longer 

 life than ever before. This is due to the prog- 

 ress made by the science of medicine and to 

 the greater attention paid both by individuals 

 and by public authorities to hygiene. 



Sex. Considering the population of the 

 whole world, there are more males than fe- 

 males, the percentage being 50.3 per cent males 

 and 49.7 per cent females. In Europe alone, 

 however, the women outnumbered the men 

 even before the War of the Nations shockingly 

 decreased man power. This disproportion be- 

 tween the sexes was especially pronounced 

 among the nations of Western Europe Eng- 

 land, Sweden, Norway, France and Germany. 

 The greater number of men in North America 

 and Australia, which have been benefited by 

 the large immigration from the above men- 

 tioned countries, is not sufficient to make up 

 for the deficiency in the European countries, 

 and so the white race as a whole shows a tend- 

 ency to develop communities where women 

 form the majority of the population. 



Urban and Rural Population. A striking 

 change has taken place in the distribution of 

 the population during the last hundred years. 

 This consists in the massing of people in great 

 towns, which have shown a phenomenal growth. 

 This movement of the people from the country 

 to the cities is due to the great industrial de- 

 velopment of the nineteenth and twentieth cen- 

 turies. The percentage of people living in 

 towns has shown steady advance not only in 

 Europe, but in less densely-populated parts of 

 the world, as Canada, Australia and the United 

 States. For example, only one-fifth of the 

 population of England and Wales lived in cities 

 in 1800, as against nearly four-fifths in 1910. 

 In Germany less than one-tenth of the popula- 

 tion were city dwellers in 1800, as compared 

 with three-fifths in 1910. In France the in- 

 crease was not so great ; there only two-fifths of 

 the population lived in towns in 1910, as com- 

 pared with one-tenth in 1800. In the Unit. .1 

 States this movement shows the greatest de- 

 velopment. In 1800 the proportion of those 

 living in citu\s formed only 3.8 per cent of thr 

 total population; in 1910 nearly half of the 

 inhabitants 46.3 per cent of the total popula- 

 tion werr living in cities. See CITY. O.B. 



Consult Woodruffs Expansion of 1 

 Weber's Growth of Cities in the Nineteenth Cen- 

 tury. 



HHnitMi Mihj,, ,, reader Is referred to 



the following articles in these volumes : 

 M.il.y Lif- Kxt. nslon 



Life, Length of 



