212 THE TREND OF THE RACE 



contractent an moins des blennorhagies, et il n'y a guere d'officier 

 qui n'en compte plusieurs; la syphilis est presque aussi frequente. 

 Ces deux affections sont d'une importance extreme au point de 

 vue du mariage et de la reproduction." 



The effect of wounds, epidemics and hardship tend to leave 

 large numbers of soldiers in a decrepid state, by which they are 

 handicapped economically and are to a certain extent kept from 

 marrying. The superior opportunities for marrying enjoyed by 

 the officers do not eventuate in much racial benefit since the birth 

 rate in military sets is unusually low. 



On the whole it is quite probable, I believe, that the effect 

 of military selection is dysgenic. So far as the direct effect of 

 conflict is concerned there would be little doubt of this and it has 

 been admitted by many who have claimed that war in general is 

 to be commended on biological grounds. It is a matter of serious 

 doubt whether the counteracting factors come near outweighing 

 the selective effect of battle. 



There have been several attempts to show that the children 

 born during war time do not develop into such large and vigorous 

 men as those who are born before or after the war, and who 

 therefore come to a larger degree from fathers who were in mili- 

 tary service. Kellogg states that the statistics kept by the French 

 Government on the physical character of recruits show that "the 

 average height of the men of France began notably to decrease 

 with the coming of age, in 1 8 13 and on, of the young men born in 

 the years of the Revolutionary Wars (i 792-1802), and that it 

 continued to decrease in the following years with the coming of 

 age of youths born during the Wars of the Empire. Soon after 

 the cessation of these terrible man-draining wars, for the main- 

 tenance of which a great part of the able-bodied male population 

 of France had been withdrawn from their families and the duties 

 of reproduction, and much of this part actually sacrificed, a new 

 type of boys began to be born, boys indeed that had in them an 

 inheritance of stature that carried them by the time of their com- 

 ing of age in the later 1830's and 1840's to a height one inch 

 greater than that of the earlier generations born in war time. The 



