MANIFESTED IN HUMAN SOCIETY 125 



declares that " next to the doctors and the teaching 

 profession, the clergy are now foremost in exercising the 

 necessary prudence." 1 A decline of nearly one-sixth 

 is not to be ignored, and we may be confident that had 

 the figures been arranged in decades a considerably larger 

 fall would have been shown. A table given by Dr. 

 Stevenson in The Falling Birthrate shows that their average 

 fertility falls between that of carpenters and teachers. 

 But should we expect, on the theory set forth in this 

 work, as large a decline among the clergy as among the 

 wealthy classes generally ? It must be borne in mind 

 that there has been little or no increase in the incomes of 

 the clergy. They are comparatively poor men, leading, 

 during the greater part of their careers, quiet lives in small 

 country towns and villages. The women with whom they 

 come into contact are in large proportion church workers 

 of quiet, matronly disposition. Clergymen have few 

 opportunities of marrying heiresses, and they obviously 

 cannot afford to marry women of expensive tastes. In 

 short, their wives will be usually women of quiet tastes 

 who have spent their early years in country vicarages and 

 similar environments. And if their fertility shows only 

 a moderate decline, are we justified in assuming that 

 there has been no greater decline among women who have 

 spent their lives among the whirl of society in London, 

 New York, or Paris ? And, after all, the fertility of the 

 clergy is only a fraction greater than that of the middle 

 classes generally. Moreover, while the average family 

 was only 4' 99 even before 1870, at a period when it is 

 assumed that the use of preventive measures was practically 

 unknown, Dr. Woodruff declares that the family still num- 

 bers from fifteen to twenty among the Philippines. 2 To 



1 Evening Standard, August 30, 1920. 

 1 The Expansion of Races, p. 177. 



