THE DECLINING BIRTH RATE 131 



Whetham remarks^ that, "Feeble-minded women, whether 

 married or unmarried, are remarkably fertile. The workhouse 

 records frequently note that five, six, or seven children have been 

 born before the mother is twenty-five years of age, and she herself 

 may have commenced child-bearing at fifteen years of age or even 

 younger. Most of these children inherit the mental condition of 

 their parents, and where both parents are known to be feeble- 

 minded, there is no record of their having given birth to a normal 

 child. In one workhouse there were sixteen feeble-minded women 

 who had produced between them one hundred and sixteen chil- 

 dren with a large proportion of mental defect. Out of one such 

 family of fourteen, only four could be trained to do remunerative 

 work." 



"With regard to the fertility of feeble-minded stocks, it has 

 been pointed out that the feeble-minded children from the degen- 

 erate families, who use the special schools in London, come, some- 

 times two or more at a time, from households averaging about 

 seven offspring, whereas the average number of children in the 

 families who now use the public elementary schools is about four." 

 In England until recently (the evil is still not entirely abated) 

 there has been a very effective system for encouraging the prop- 

 agation of feeble-minded stocks. Girls bom in the workhouse 

 were kept as pubHc charges in homes or industrial schools until 

 they were 16, when they were turned loose upon the world. With 

 their generally poor inheritance combined with unfavorable 

 conditions for developing whatever germs of mentality or strength 

 of character they may have possessed, it is no wonder that a large 



number will be less than the average size of the families from which we draw ova 

 100 individuals at random. The assumption that averages arrived at by these two 

 methods are comparable is a fallacy which is very common in writings on eugenics, 

 and it is one that very easily escapes notice. In the present case, if the size of the 

 families from which mental defectives came were compared, not with the average 

 size of normal families, but with the average size of the families from which normal 

 individuals came (which is a very different thing) the results would, other things 

 equal, be indicative of differences in the fecundity of the two stocks. It may be 

 that the comparison was made by the latter method in the investigation referred to, 

 although it is not so stated. 

 ^ IntrodiicHoii to Eugenics, p. 26. 



