CARE OF INFERIOR STOCKS 291 
comfortably situated would have to be contented with 
positions somewhat inferior, on the average, to those 
of their parents. This is precisely the condition of 
affairs most desirable from the point of view of race-. 
improvement and from that of national efficiency, 
since any given position would thus be recruited from a 
better and not from a worse class than the one which 
previously occupied it. The individual may be par- 
doned if this is not what he desires to happen in the 
case of his own children. 
National education and the proposed feeding and 
care of the children of inferior stocks at the cost of the 
State are measures which will have certain definite 
effects upon the relative birth-rates of different classes. 
It is proposed to do all this at the expense of the 
fitter stock, which is thus rendered still less capable 
of raising, as well as still less disposed to raise, large 
families of healthy children. Such measures can only 
be justified by making at the same time every possible 
effort to correct these dangerous differences.in the 
incidence of the birth-rate. Legislation in these two 
directions ought to go hand in hand. Indeed, the 
improvement in the supply of children ought for every 
reason to precede the improvement in the care and 
education of children; for if the State cares for the 
children, it has a right to insist that the supply of 
children shall be the best possible, and this is far from 
being the case at present. 
Remedies for the existing condition of things have 
been proposed by would-be philanthropists from Plato 
downwards. But against all suggestions for running 
19—z2 
