Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 62.djvu/574

568 children is greater for the former, being about 3.31 as compared with 3.14. It may be that Harvard graduates have as large surviving families as those of the same race, but of lower social class.

It is unfortunate that statistics are not at hand on the marriage rate and birth rate in relation to the conditions on which they depend. The questions involved are of the utmost practical importance and should be taken up at once by the national and state governments. The birth rate in France where the population is stationary, is about 22 per thousand. In Great Britain it is 29, in Germany 35 and in Russia 52.

In Massachusetts the birth rate was last year 25.07 and the marriage rate 8.67. Even if all illegitimate children are attributed to the married, the average size of family would be less than three. The foreign born have a much larger fertility than the natives, and it is quite possible that the New England stock has a mean family of only two, as President Eliot finds to be the case with Harvard graduates. President Eliot appears to be mistaken in attributing the small families of Harvard graduates in part to postponement of marriage due to protracted