134 THE TREND OF THE RACE 
continually rise out of the ranks of poverty, but those of shiftless 
habits, dull mentality, and little ambition constitute the kind of 
poor who are always with us. 
A coéperative study made by Pearson and several collaborators 
(Elderton, Barrington, Lammotte and DeLaski) throws consid- 
erable light on the relation between fecundity and the possession 
of qualities of a socially valuable kind. Several of Pearson’s 
colleagues found in the laboring population of English towns 
that there was a fairly high correlation between large families and 
dirty homes (.41), low rent (.31), poor food (.33), insufficient 
food (.35), low wages of father (.32) and irregularity of employ- 
ment. We may explain the low rent and the poor and insufficient 
food of large families as, in part at least, a consequence of their 
large size. There seems, however, no good reason to suppose that 
the possession of a large family would have any effect in lowering 
the wages of the father. Wages are at least a rough measure of 
the efficiency of the individual worker, and the fact that the men 
who are poorly paid have a larger number of children than those 
who receive better wages indicates that the less efficient types 
have the highest degree of fecundity.! Miss Elderton in her 
elaborate report on the English birth rate says of the artisan 
classes: ‘‘The poorest classes of all, those who cannot provide 
for themselves but seek public dispensaries and maternity char- 
ities for attendance, do not appear to limit their families, for very 
many have large families running up to thirteen or more.” 
Dunlop gives data from Scotland based on the number of 
children per marriage lasting for 15 years, and in which the wives 
were between 22 and 27 years of age at the time of marriage. 
1 Mr. S. Johnson in studying the fecundity of British workmen found that those 
with regular employment had on the average in 1908, 2.86 and in 1909-10, 2.71 
children, while those with irregular employment had in these years 3.12 and 3.26 
children. Jour. Roy. Stat. Soc. 75, 534-550, 1911-1912. 
