192 THE FAMILY AND THE NATION 



and, perchance, rise one step more, than that he should 

 be converted by a County Council scholarship into a 

 primary schoolmaster, or second-grade Civil Service 

 clerk, and that there the usefulness to the race of the 

 innate abilities of which he is the temporary trustee 

 should cease for ever. His services are bought at far 

 too high a price. Verily they were good sociologists 

 as well as good divines who taught every man to 

 determine in his youth " to learn and labour truly 

 to get mine own living, and to do my duty in 

 that state of life unto which it shall please God to 

 call me." 



Hitherto we have been dealing with the economic 

 aspect of the question from the point of view of the 

 future careers of potential children. Here the motive 

 for restricting the size of the family is the sense of 

 responsibility for the children's future. 



But the economic motive often takes other and 

 more selfish forms. In every rank of life children are 

 an expense — an expense which falls heavily on all 

 save the very rich and the thriftless pauper. It is 

 unsafe to generalize from cases where Scotch moors or 

 6o-horse-power motor cars are found to be a cheaper 

 form of extravagance than children. In almost every 

 household, luxuries must be foregone, in some even 

 comfort sacrificed, if the number of children to be 

 housed, clothed, and educated becomes large. The life 

 of the unmarried man or woman of means, or of the 

 childless married couple, is one of greater freedom and 

 immeasurably less financial responsibility. In some 

 families each new child may mean actually less food 



