118 THE LAW OF BIRTHS AND DEATHS 



those who had obtained, say, a first-class in mathematics 

 were the most barren of all." 1 



This was certainly a remarkable result, though it ia 

 rendered very probable by the evidence already reviewed. 

 Perhaps the fact that the Commission, in face of such 

 evidence as this, reported themselves as unable to discover 

 any connection between intellectual development and 

 infertility was because they found, on examining the 

 records of a considerable number of women who had 

 received a college education, that they were no more 

 infertile than a number of women who had not been 

 educated at college. But this shows a misconception. 

 Intellectual activity is not confined to colleges or study. 

 A woman who is educated privately, and who leads the 

 active everyday life of the woman of the world, may be 

 as active intellectually and develop as much nervous 

 energy as a college woman, or more. It is a question of 

 the degree of mental activity, not of whether a woman 

 receives a college education or not. Now, in the case 

 of the women mentioned by Dean Inge who had gained 

 honours at college it is clear that those who gained a first- 

 class must have been of higher cerebral development than 

 those who cnly gained a second-class, or else must have 

 worked their brains more assiduously. Hence the differ- 

 ence in fertility. 



Hawthorne, in The Scarlet Letter, has a passage which 

 admirably describes the effect of a superior and intellectu- 

 ally stimulating environment on the physical develop- 

 ment of women. Comparing the modern American 

 woman with the women of the old immigrants, he says : 

 " Morally, as well as materially, there was a coarser fibre 

 in those wives and maidens of old English birth and breeding 

 than in their fair descendants, separated from them by 

 1 The Declining Birthrate, p. 328. 



