ii2 HEREDITY AND SOCIETY 



to be inseparable from the methods in vogue to obtain 

 educational efficiency. 



Surely people may be forgiven for asking themselves 

 whether any degree of training, given within the con- 

 ditions we have outlined above, can be accepted as the 

 true equivalent of a small amount of education, acquired 

 under the old circumstances of mutual helpfulness and 

 natural discipline inside the family circle, where habits 

 of obedience and initiative were acquired side by side 

 with those of independence and respect. 



It is an interesting and suggestive coincidence that 

 the passing of the Education Act in 1870 was followed 

 immediately by the drop in the birth-rate of the abler 

 and more intellectual classes of the community on 

 whom the chief burden, financial and administrative, 

 of this as of most other pieces of social legislation falls. 

 Twenty-five years later, when education was made 

 practically free for all the industrial and wage-earning 

 sections of the community, the decrease in the birth- 

 rate was affecting these classes also, in spite of the fact 

 that increased sums must have been available for the 

 maintenance of their offspring. It is now certain that 

 at least half the children who would be likely to prove 

 the most valuable citizens, and best worth educating, 

 are annually withheld from the community ; while one 

 of the principal features to be noticed in elementary 

 education, is the need for the establishment in 

 increasing numbers of special schools for the feeble- 

 minded and degenerate members of society. In these 

 schools, the cost of education is many times that spent 

 on the normal child, and, until powers of subsequent 

 detention are granted, probably represents a waste or 



