That means that each woman who demonstrates ability to bear offspring
must bear 3.7 children. This it must be noted, is a minimum number, for
no account has been taken of those who, through some defect or disease
developed late in life, become unmarriageable. In general, unless every
married woman brings three children to maturity, the race will not even
hold its own in numbers. And this means that each woman must bear four
children, since not all the children born will live. If the married
women of the country bear fewer than nearly four children each, the race
is in danger of losing ground.
Such a statement ought to strike the reader as one of grave importance;
but we labor under no delusion that it will do so. For we are painfully
aware that the bugaboo of the declining birth-rate of superior people
has been raised so often in late years, that it has become stale by
repetition. It no longer causes any alarm. The country is filled with
sincere but mentally short-sighted individuals, who are constantly ready
to vociferate that numbers are no very desirable thing in a birth-rate;
that quality is wanted, not quantity; that a few children given ideal
care are of much more value to the state and the race than are many
children, who can not receive this attention.
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