Mabch 1, 1918] 



SCIENCE 



209 



the population which, by economic and so- 

 cial standards, are best able to bear and 

 rear ' children ' families. On the other hand, 

 those groups in our population which are 

 econoniically and socially less able to raise 

 families are still producing, on the average, 

 in excess of the minimum necessary to 

 maintain the status quo. As a result, the 

 balance of population is in favor of the less 

 economicallj' efScient. The best blood of 

 America is being constantly thinned out by 

 the exercise of a conscious limitation of 

 births and is being replaced by a stock of 

 a different order. Our national standards 

 are being levelled to meet more and more 

 the lower quality of our population. 



If I have succeeded in making a plausible 

 diagnosis of one of our national ills, will 

 you permit me, also, to suggest a remedy 

 for the condition? I should say, at the 

 outset, that since many causes have been at 

 work to produce the end result which I 

 have described, it will require many lines 

 of action to improve the situation. I shall, 

 however, suggest some thoughts which 

 seem to me to reach the heart of the prob- 

 lem more nearly than any others. 



The state is largeh' responsible for the 

 present condition. The system of educa- 

 tion which it has provided for the youth 

 of the country has failed for the most part 

 to inculcate national ideals. Our young 

 people have grown up without a broad out- 

 look on life. They have been taught to 

 think in terms of personal convenience and 

 advancement and not in terms of the com- 

 mon good. Democratic education is a fail- 

 ure if it neglects to make provision for the 

 character of its future citizenship. Our 

 young men and women must be taught to 

 realize early that we do not live for our- 

 selves; that our intellectual, economic and 

 social advancement must be carried forward 

 not only as tradition but more especially in 

 terms of new vigorous and worthy per- 



sonalities. Our educational system must 

 make our various racial groups conscious 

 of their best traditions and instil desires to 

 see their better strains strengthened and 

 increased as a foundation of the greater 

 democracy of the future. 



The education of our women is especially 

 faulty in this regard. Our schools and col- 

 legos, ^vith few exceptions, direct the 

 thoughts and energies of our girls away 

 from ideals of normal home life and center 

 them upon personal refinement or upon 

 personal ambition. It is no uncommon 

 thing to find that girls have gone through 

 their entire college course without a single 

 occasion when the subject of their place 

 in society as mothers and wives was given 

 serious consideration. No wonder that our 

 educated women think mainly of careers or 

 of pleasures offered bj- society as the aim 

 of existence. These are all false gods which 

 smother the natural and wholesome in- 

 stincts which eveiy species possesses to in- 

 sure its maintenance. The old virtues of 

 womanhood need restatement to-day. 

 Wliatever else women learn in the schools, 

 they must be educated for their place as 

 mothers, and democratic education must 

 make efiBcient provision for this primary 

 function. 



The state is guilty of another sin. It has 

 made no provision to reward, either sub- 

 stantially or with esteem, the women who, 

 realizing their obligation to the state, are 

 willing to bring up families of normal size. 

 The bearing and rearing of children is 

 costly, both in energy and in funds, and 

 must act as a check on personal ambition 

 and on the enjojTnent of the freedom and 

 pleasures of social life. A family of four 

 children will require the attention of the 

 capable woman for many years. Her suc- 

 cess as a mother will be at the expense, in 

 the majority of cases, of her achievement 

 in other fields. It is not asking too much 



