Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1913-03-05
SOCIOLOGICAL STUDIES Of TIIE'
FAMILY AND HOME,

: Z y
humanity as whole, it's quite safe
to say that never has the race lived
more CHEMICALLY and healthily than
now. The upper class IS not SO ar
tifcial, and gets more Of Oxygen, ex-
ercise and sunshine than formerly
and the lowest class is not SO de-
graded, or as near absolute starva-
ton as was the case in times past. So
there seems to be no biological rea-
son for the decline Of the birthrate.
Besides late and infrequent mar
riage, undoubtedly the chief reason
for the decline Of the birthrate is the
voluntary limitation Of the number Of
children born. And this gives rise to
serious apprehensions for the future.
Though the practice is frowned at
by many moraists, though the Cath
Ole church declares it sin, and the
Episcopal bishops in the Lambeth
Encycliac declare against it, there is
every reason to believe that the prac-
tice is spreading. What will happen
when the socalled flower" classes
understand that they need not have
large families unless they so choosef
The laboring man may become a
scarce article. There is no reason to
believe that it will be restricted to
the white race. Perhaps this prac-
tice will end the "yellow peril" and
the population in China and Japan
and India dwindle down to a tenth
OF what it is now. This would per-
haps not be. an unmixed curse, as
that would end as nothing else seems
able, the periodically recurring fam
ines in these lands. If the Chinese
should adopt the plan of one child
to each: family, there would within
century be plenty Of room on the
banks Of the Yang-che- Kiang. (:
While it is true that lit is more
commendable to raise a small fam
lily well than a large family ill.," this
does not prove that it were not bet
ter still to raise large family well.
And while it scarcely seems reason
able to require that a family shall
have a dozen children; the minimum
duty of family that can have that
many children would seem to be the
raising Of not less than the average
number Of children necessary to keep
up the population. This duty can,
and should be enforced by public
opinion. A childless family should
consider itself unfortunate. All
families from natural causes child
less should consider seriously the
question whether it is not their duty
to adopt children. The childless
family is to be pitied. The finest,
deepest, most truly human experience
es are not theirs. And they would do
well to ponder in their strong days
what a dark and dreary future
awaits them. The gray head, the tot
tering step, the failing mind-and
only hired caretakers! No grand
children to give their old world the
interest and joy Of perennial youth.
Their old age will be spent in cold,
foreign stranger-world, full Of new
people and new ways, a brazen, i'm
pudent world that audibly smokers
at the 'duffy old gazaboo;" world
that is the grave Of their friends and
relatives and impatiently waits for
their funeral.
And it could have been different.
These people childless from choice
could have lived anew in children and
grandchildren. They could have
slipped away from this earthly life
content, feeling that the better part
Of them, their real Self, their true
interests, were not dead, were not
even old; but still snapped from
sparkling eyes, and wrought in lusty
arms in a better and nobler way than
ever.
These are the thoughts youth
should think when it is tempted to
decide lightheartedly that baby is
such a nuisance anyway, a mother
with a young child is shut out from
so much! Yes, it may seem so. But
there is compensation. No normal
mother ever regretted her choice.
But mother nature has arranged it so
that the recreant potential parent
shall not escape his punishment.
Real Estate Transfers. i