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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLVII. No. 1209 



shall count also on your forbearance, hop- 

 ing that you will forgive the incompleteness 

 and sketchy character of my argument. 

 The study of American demography has 

 convinced me that we are concerned with 

 a problem of the greatest possible moment. 

 Changes have been progressing in the in- 

 ternal structure of our population which 

 have, for the most part, escaped attention 

 and which, if allowed to continue, will re- 

 sult in very serious national embarrass- 

 ment. Conditions of war bring into relief 

 the necessity for a vigorous and efficient 

 population. It is not too much to say that 

 the present tendencies in our national and 

 family life are such as seriously threaten 

 the development of those groups in the 

 population on which we must rely for 

 vigor and efficiency in thought and action. 



The declining birth rate has received hut 

 little scientific attention in the United 

 States. It has been, however, the subject 

 of very careful investigation in Europe. 

 During the last fifty years, the birth rate 

 has declined in virtually every country of 

 the civilized world. Some countries have 

 been affected more than others, but the 

 phenomenon has 'been observed in extreme 

 form in one country, namely, Prance. 

 France has made an experiment in birth 

 control on a national scale. All the parts 

 of that experiment, including the end re- 

 sult, are now on view and available for sci- 

 entific observation and comment. Before 

 the present war, France had already 

 reached a point where her birth rate had 

 decreased to a point below her death rate ; 

 her population was actually decreasing. 

 But for ten years before that time, the ap- 

 proaching crisis had called for the careful 

 attention of her best minds. 



A commission on depopulation composed 

 of statesmen and sociologists was appointed 

 to study the problem and a series of com- 



prehensive reports^ on the sources of depop- 

 ulation have been prepared. These reports 

 are too elaborate for detailed description 

 here. I shall rather present the situation 

 for France, as I understand it, in broad 

 outline, 'bringing into relief only the main 

 findings of the commission. 



Let us consider the growth of population 

 during the last century in the three lead- 

 ing countries of western Europe, namely, 

 France, the United Kingdom and the states 

 composing the German Empire.' At the 

 beginning of the nineteenth century France 

 was the leader of the three countries, with 

 a population of about twenty-nine million. 

 The states which now compose the German 

 Empire were second, with a population of 

 about twenty-three million, and the United 

 Kingdom stood third with a population of 

 about eighteen million. A century later, 

 we find the situation totally changed. The 

 German Empire headed the list with a pop- 

 ulation of nearly sixty-five million, the 

 United Kingdom was second with a popula- 

 tion of forty-five million and France was. 

 third with a population of only thirty-nine 

 million. In other words, while the popu- 

 lation of the German Empire had nearly 

 trebled and the United Kingdom had in- 

 creased to two and one half times its earlier 

 numbers, the population of France had in- 

 creased less than one half. Further in- 

 spection of the figures shows that a marked 

 change in the rate of increase of the popu- 

 lation of France occurred about the year 

 1860. At that time France was still in the 

 lead and had already reached a population 

 of thirty-seven million. After that date it 



a A series of reports on the death rate by Ber- 

 tillou, LSwenthal, Drouineau, Atthalin, Pevrier, and 

 Strauss; and on the birth rate by Neymarck, 

 March, Bertillon, Eey, Drouineau, Atthalin and 

 Lyon-Caen. Melun, Imprimerie Administrative, 

 Paris. 



3 Burn, Joseph, "Vital Statistics Explained," 

 London, 1914, page 19. 



