164 THE FAMILY AND THE NATION 



damaged the national credit and composition. Having 

 realized this, it behoves the nation, individually and 

 corporately, to take any and every step to prevent 

 further deterioration, and as far as possible to recover 

 the ground that has been lost. 



The marked decrease in the average size of the 

 family in the successful classes began, as we have seen, 

 about 1875. One generation of those classes, the 

 generation now in early manhood, consists of about 

 half the number of individuals that should be found. 



What are the probable and realized effects of this 

 shortage of men and women of our best stocks com- 

 pared with the growth of the people as a whole ? How 

 is it manifest in contemporary life ? What will be its 

 results on the character and future history of the race ? 



To discover the effects of the absence of these 

 suppressed personalities, it is well to begin our inquiry 

 by investigating what the corresponding people did in 

 old days when they were brought into existence. Of 

 one section of the classes affected, the stable families 

 of the landed gentry, details may be obtained from 

 Peerages and other similar books of reference. 



Two series, each of about one hundred cases, were 

 taken from the Peerage, as in our investigation into 

 the average number of children born to a fertile couple. 

 Those families only were considered who had held 

 their title for at least two preceding generations. But, 

 the object of the present inquiry being to discover 

 what became of large families of younger sons, the 

 hundred cases were made up from those marriages 

 which had produced three sons or more. 



