170 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



to enable them to avail themselves of the opportunities of modern life. 

 There is no evidence that parental care has lessened; on the contrary, 

 the evidence seems to show an enormous increase in the sacrifices made 

 by parents in their endeavor to provide efficient equipment in the way of 

 education for their children. It has been said that at the present day 

 the possible costs in psychical energy of rearing four children are as 

 great as were the similar costs required in grandmother's day to raise 

 eight. 1 So great have the sacrifices on the part of parents become that 

 recently some attention has been given to the ethics of the question 

 whether or not the young man or woman shall allow the father and 

 mother to wear themselves out in order that enough money may be 

 spared to provide the education that the times seem to demand. It is 

 well known that in many homes such sacrifices are made for this purpose 

 that we wonder if, after all, university education should be purchased 

 at such a cost. Shortening the life of the breadwinner is too common in 

 the effort to provide funds for the son or daughter to spend four enor- 

 mously expensive years in the modern college. George Bernard Shaw 

 in The Irrational Knot has enunciated the bold doctrine that the son 

 should have his education even at the expense of any sacrifice on the part 

 of the father and mother. This seems to be the accepted doctrine in 

 many homes, at least it is the principle acted upon by great numbers 

 of middle-class parents in the United States. If this is to be the accepted 

 duty of American parents, it is not strange that some efforts are made 

 to keep the size of the family within the educational possibilities of the 

 income. 



In France, the law requiring nearly all the property of the father to 

 be divided equally among the various children, is pointed to as one of 

 the agencies that tends strongly to reduce the birthrate. It is said that 

 the French father, knowing the amount of property he is able to leave 

 to his heirs will be small anyway, is therefore anxious to have fewer heirs 

 since he cannot in any great degree augment the estate. There is no 

 chance for the heirs to avail themselves of new lands and carve out homes 

 at slight expense as has always been the case in the newer countries of 

 the world. Hence, with the absence of this opportunity, the father 



1 Cooley, Social Organization, p. 360, 1908. 



