BIRTH RATES OF COEDUCATIONAL GRADUATES 



399 



was conjoined with character peculiarities. In addition it was notable 

 that there was a third distinct group unduly represented among the men. 

 Among all the 49 men who married promptly but had one child or none, 

 16 per cent were teachers, mostly in secondary schools, with, otherwise, 

 no uncommon traits to be noted. As there is less than 11 per cent of men 

 graduates in secondary and higher education among the whole body of 

 graduates, I was led to examine the birth rate of all the 18 men, married 

 and single, in secondary school work. It was 1.55 as against the general 

 average 1.8. 



In the total 545 marriages the rate of unsatisfactory fertility (one child 

 or less) exceeds 27 per cent in every age-at-marriage group except women 



TABLE 7 



wed under 25 years, and is nearly as bad for the prompt bridegrooms as for 

 those delaying marriages. Exactly one-half of all women's marriages 

 occurred between 25 and 30 and 30 per cent of them were one-child or 

 childless. 



As a practical suggestion concerning this problem, more attention should 

 perhaps be bestowed on each young man's health as regards generative 

 capacity. Female fertility is not so easily determined, and therefore it is 

 not so clear what can be done. But the bookish (?) man attracted to the 

 high school as a profession and the delicate man in general might do well 

 to have a physician advise him as to how long after 20 he dare defer father- 

 hood. (One must not of course exclude the possibility that many people 

 are not fertile even in their teens.) Then there is, no doubt, another group 



