1 66 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



Since competition is so much fiercer in these modern days means must 

 be taken to prepare better those who are to enter the contest. This 

 increases the time required to be spent in training. It also accounts 

 for the lengthening of the course of study in the professional schools. 

 Formerly not much study was required to enable one to practice medicine 

 or law, but now competition is sharper. Specialists who have spent 

 seven years in study are becoming common. 



Again, equality of opportunity keeps a population hopeful and makes 

 it ambitious. As long as there is a possibility of rising by one's own 

 efforts, most individuals will struggle desperately to improve their condi- 

 tion and give their children a good start in life. This is one of the causes 

 that induces American young men and women to devote years to their 

 education and accordingly delays their marriage. 



On the other hand, in the countries of Europe where there are fixed 

 classes in society the population is not filled with the ambition to rise. 

 The masses live and die in the class in which they are born. Equality of 

 opportunity is not to be realized and hence their ambition cannot be 

 aroused. Without the hope of attaining to a higher level than that 

 reached by their fathers, there is scant reason why they should spend 

 long years in preparation for a higher calling ; they marry early and rear 

 large families. 



The same conditions prevailed in the ancient time. Society was then 

 in a more static condition than is the case in Europe today. As a gen- 

 eral rule it was impossible for a man to reach a higher class than that 

 in which he was born. His ambition was not spurred by the ideals of 

 democracy. The doctrine of equal opportunity for all men to realize 

 themselves had not been born. The fundamental notion prevailed that 

 the individual was subordinate to the state. In the absence of democracy 

 with its doctrine of opportunity for personal development, with no free 

 education, nor chance to rise to a higher social class, it is not strange 

 that the birthrate did not decline before the arrival of the nineteenth 

 century. 



The chief cause in bringing about the limitation of the family in 

 modern times is the utterly different view of society. Urging everyone 

 to struggle for advancement and make the most of himself cannot but 



