THE DECLINING BIRTHRATE 171 



cannot help thinking of the other way in which he may leave a consider- 

 amount of property to his children and this is by rearing a small family. 

 Hence, the lower birthrate in that country. In the early part of the 

 nineteenth century, Canning, the English Prime Minister, said this 

 law providing for equal distribution of estates would eliminate France 

 as a military danger. 



In the United States custom dictates that the estate of the father 

 must be divided equally among the children. In the past this has not 

 had a serious effect in lowering the birthrate as fathers here have not been 

 greatly concerned about the size of the estate to be left to their heirs. 

 It has already been pointed out that in the past the frontier relieved the 

 father of the necessity of taking forethought in the matter of providing 

 for the welfare of his children. With the disappearance of the frontier, 

 however, there is creeping into the ideas of the American people more 

 of the old-world notion of putting something by for the children, and the 

 desire to have them well started in life is very marked in a number of 

 ways quite unknown fifty years ago. For instance, the desire of most 

 parents at the present time to send their children through college is one 

 form of the expression of the idea that great attention should be given 

 to their welfare. It corresponds in a general way to the dower and expect- 

 ancy of the French father. The increase of the life insurance business 

 in the United States has been co-ordinate with the disappearance of the 

 frontier. It has marked the growth of forethought among American 

 parents. Therefore, declining opportunities for the advancement of the 

 young men and women have placed an increased charge upon parental 

 love, and the custom of equality of inheritance is making parents realize 

 the increasing desirability of starting the children with a certain economic 

 equipment. The effect is to set in motion forces which tend to limit the 

 birthrate. Thus, the desire to keep the patrimonial estate intact 

 increases with the declining opportunity to secure homes at small expense 

 in the new lands of the West, and will, in the course of time, circum- 

 vent the democratic equality of our laws of inheritance by lowering the 

 birthrate. 



A characteristic of modern life that has had an important effect on 

 the growth of population is the decay of the older forms of religious belief. 



