THE DIMINISHING BIRTH RATE 71 



IS THE DIMINISHING BIETH EATB VOLITIONAL? 



By Pbofessob CHARLES FRANKLIN EMERICK 



SMITH COLLEGE 



IT is quite generally agreed that the conditions of modern life make 

 for a lower birth rate. But whether they make for voluntary or 

 involuntary sterility, there is much diversity of opinion. Economists 

 quite generally incline to the first of these views while many biologists 

 incline to the second. Now it must be admitted at the outset that there 

 are no statistics by which the merits of this controversy can be defi- 

 nitely settled. We are left, therefore, to ascertain where the probable 

 truth lies in the light of certain considerations of a more or less gen- 

 eral character. 



I 



The biologist maintains that the human organism requires a certain 

 amount of food, clothing and shelter for the normal development of the 

 body and to repair the wear and tear to which the varied activities of 

 life subject it. He maintains, furthermore, that the stress of modern 

 life is such that after other demands have been met there is often 

 insufficient energy left for reproduction. In other words, in a fiercely 

 competitive world the reproductive organs are undernourished until they 

 are incapacitated to perform their special function. In accordance with 

 the conservation of energy mental activity is said to withdraw the 

 blood from other parts of the body with the result that the tissue of the 

 brain is built up at the expense of other organs. The stress to which 

 present-day conditions subject the eye is illustrative. Primitive man 

 uses the sense of sight but sparingly, while civilized man uses it well- 

 nigh incessantly, much of the time by lamplight, either at study, in the 

 factory or office, or at newspaper reading on steam car or trolley until 

 it is overtaxed. The burden thus imposed, so the biologist asserts, 

 makes such a demand upon the fund of human energy as to interfere 

 with the birth rate. Whether one sex is more frequently the victim of 

 the sterilizing process than the other, there is, so far as I am aware, no 

 consensus of opinion. 



The biologist sometimes varies the preceding statement of his posi- 

 tion by emphasizing the difficult nature of the task imposed upon the 

 reproductive organs. So complicated is the work assigned them that 

 it can only be successfully performed when the involuntary regulatory 

 system is in a highly efficient condition. This regulatory system, we are 

 ■told in turn, is so delicately balanced that its efficiency is frequently im- 



