94 HEREDITY AND SOCIETY 



tions may be traced in the higher phases of employment, 

 where, from the point of view of the inheritance of 

 desirable mental and moral qualities, the results, though 

 on a smaller scale, are quite as disastrous. 



In France, as in England, there has been an increas- 

 ing tendency of late years to employ women in various 

 functions of the State, especially in affairs pertaining to 

 education. There has also been a considerable reaction 

 against the limitation of opportunities which was en- 

 forced in the celibate teaching orders. It has been 

 made possible for the women teachers to marry, and 

 they are granted brief absences from duty during the 

 periods of childbirth without forfeiture of salary a 

 step which is being followed in England, by some of the 

 more progressive education authorities. But what is 

 the consequence of this step, undertaken largely with a 

 view of counterbalancing the arrest in reproduction of the 

 abler classes, engaged in these important duties ? As far 

 as we can learn, marriages among the women teachers do 

 occur, to a slightly increased extent, since their earnings 

 facilitate the creation of new homes. Births also occur, 

 but to an extent which is far below even the low average 

 of the social stratum to which these persons belong. 

 If the men who have married these teachers had instead 

 become the husbands of women without fixed outside 

 occupation, we cannot doubt that the birth-rate would 

 have been considerably in excess of the numbers actually 

 recorded. Once again, in the conditions we have 

 created, it is the men who are induced to fail in the 

 fulfilment of their legitimate functions. 



Thus the effect of encouraging the marriage of these 

 women has probably been a distinct reduction in the 



