Putnam patriot., 1926-05-21

There have been in recent years nu- merous statistical studies showing the tendency of the birth rate among the intellectual classes. and particularly among college graduates, and among families from which college students are recruited All of these have shown downward movement and make 1t clear that the college groups. speaking broadly. are not reproducing themselves. Significant as these stud ies are statistically, most of them have not indicated what the individuals in these same college groups were think ing in reference to the size of Ameri- can families. To large extent. the approved size of the family in any age IS closely bound up with what the so- 7. biologists have called the fHores of the group-types of behavior which have received the stamp of social approval These change from generation to gen eration. The individual of any period absorbs the m0ros with which he is surrounded from the time of his birth. and his opinions, whether the result of rational thought or not, tend to reflect the mores of his time. Present and future tendencies with respect to the birth rate, must therefore be consid- cred in the light of imperceptible changes in the mOres. It is apparent that the birth rate is more and more becoming a function of conscious re | fection, but the latter is in the nature of a conscious adaptation to mOreS that have been accepted uncritically.
 In view of these considerations the attitudes of selected number of col | lege undergraduates toward the size of the family will be of some signifi- canoe. The occasion for an inquiry among their students along these lines recently came Co the writers in con nection with a picture published in the rotogravure section of one of the Sunday papers. This showed a pros porous middle.class family consisting of two parents and seventeen children. The students whose attitudes were sought. i30 in ali, were members of an introductory course in sociology at Dartmouth College In groups aver aging twenty in number. they were shown the picture and asked to set down first their immediate unthonght reaction Co the family situation repre- sented Immediately following they were asked to describe in more detail their emotional response upon seeing the picture Finally they were asked to reply to this question: In your day-dreams of marriage. do you visu- alize children; if so, how many2f The replies were anonymous.
 The Students Reply
 Several striking uniformities of at titude can be seen in these replies. In the first place, majority of the an- swers could be classified into two we'll defined and sharply opposing points of view. In numbers they are about equally balanced. On the one hand strong approval and commendation were expressed On the other was dis approval, often accompanied by ex- treme disgust Of the first type the following expressions are typical:
 Tt appeals to me very much. think 1t is ideal to have a large fam lily. I wholeheartedly com mend the parents"
 Tt always gives me peculiar pleas ure to view a large family such as this"
 1t must be wonderful to belong to family like that"
 In contrast:
 "I may be very foolish to react this way. but large families have always aroused disgust in my mind"
 Tt may be that I have an inherent bias against large families, but this picture does certainly irritate me"
 "My first reaction is one of repug- nance A family of such size seems immodest. My reaction is one of disgust"
 Another well-defned attitude cen ters around the mother. This can best