134 THE TREND OF THE RACE 



continually rise out of the ranks of poverty, but those of shiftless 

 habits, dull mentality, and little ambition constitute the kind of 

 poor who are always with us. 



A cooperative study made by Pearson and several collaborators 

 (Elderton, Barrington, Lammotte and DeLaski) throws consid- 

 erable light on the relation between fecundity and the possession 

 of qualities of a socially valuable kind. Several of Pearson's 

 colleagues found in the laboring population of English towns 

 that there was a fairly high correlation between large families and 

 dirty homes (.41), low rent (.31), poor food (.33), insufficient 

 food (.35), low wages of father (.32) and irregularity of employ- 

 ment. We may explain the low rent and the poor and insufficient 

 food of large families as, in part at least, a consequence of their 

 large size. There seems, however, no good reason to suppose that 

 the possession of a large family would have any effect in lowering 

 the wages of the father. Wages are at least a rough measure of 

 the efficiency of the individual worker, and the fact that the men 

 who are poorly paid have a larger number of children than those 

 who receive better wages indicates that the less efficient types 

 have the highest degree of fecundity.^ Miss Elderton in her 

 elaborate report on the English birth rate says of the artisan 

 classes: "The poorest classes of all, those who cannot provide 

 for themselves but seek public dispensaries and maternity char- 

 ities for attendance, do not appear to limit their families, for very 

 many have large families running up to thirteen or more." 



Dunlop gives data from Scotland based on the number of 

 children per marriage lasting for 15 years, and in which the wives 

 were between 22 and 27 years of age at the time of marriage. 



1 Mr. S. Johnson in studying the fecundity of British workmen found that those 

 with regular employment had on the average in 1908, 2.86 and in 1909-10, 2.71 

 children, while those with irregular employment had in these years 3.12 and 3.26 

 children. Jour. Roy. Stat. Soc. 75, 534-550, 1911-1912. 



