New-York tribune., 1905-08-20
THE American BIRTH RATE.

The statistics concerning the birth rate
of the country need not awaken fears for Its
future. Americans are in the main a normal,
healthy minded people, whose philoprogenitive-
ness is about on a par with that of other peo-
pie living under similar conditions 1t Is we'll
known that not only in the United States, but
everywhere in the civilized world, the number
of children in a family decreases as the stand
ard of living increases. 1t is so III Great Brit
ain. 1t is so in France where the peculiar land
laws have received the name of the two child
SYSTEM because estates have been subdivlded
to the limit Of existence according to established
standards. 1t is familiar fact everywhere that
the poor and shiftless have the largest families.
In the old time the country minister with 5000
year proverbially had many sons and sent
them all to college. The conditions of life have
changed A decent bringing up, including
fair education, costs vastly more in proportion
to incomes than it did before 1920 Ever since
that time the decreasing birth rate of the native
Americans has been noted tendency shared
by our immigrant population and their descend
ants as fast as their standards of comfort rise.
Perhaps it is well to preach against race
suicide" to families of large wealth, or an ample
competence for the country, though they seem
to invite it less than city people of moderate
means. But is 1t well to persuade parents that
1t is a duty to bring more children into the
fully? few strong, well trained children are
cf more use TO the state than many lawless
weakiings The national ideal is not that OF
military despots who wish mothers to give them
sons to feed to powder. What we want are
men and women of sound bodies, good minds
and well disciplined characters. Quality is bet
ter than quantity. No condemnation. indeed,
can be too great for husbands and wives who
in mere personal selfshness refuse to take the
responsibilities of fatherhood and motherhood,
but those certainly cannot be put in that class
who sOberly consider their responsibilities and
gladly welcome many children as they can
care for in the way they think children should
be cared for.
We are by no means certain that good deal
of the apparent decrease in the birth rate is not
due to the longer average adult life and the
better chance of survival offered children to-
day. especially among the well to do American
families whose shortcomings are most con-
demned. That is admitted to be the case re
specting the bare statistics of the ratio between
births and adult population. 1t is held not to
apply to the figures of the ratio of children
under five years to women between fifteen and
forty-fve years. But has not sanitation given
us to-day larger number of girls over fifteen
in proportion to girls born than ever had
before? Go to the rural cemeteries of the first
half of the last century and see the long lines
of children's gravestones, and note especially
the number of young girls carried off, probably
by consumption. just as they were entering
womanhood. The survival of such to-day must
greatly change the ratio. Women marry later
than they did, the intervals between births have
heightened on the average happily for the
mothers and the children, but women's lives
are longer and chldren's chances of life much
greater, and the country is not going TO be de
populated nor is the American stock going to
die out just yet. The average young American
woman of education and moderate means is a
natural healthy minded person, who, when she
marries, desires children and when she has
| them cares for them with intelligence and de-
YotiOu