This fact, while a
gratifying one, of course does not compensate for the low fertility of
the families which still live in New England.
Within this section of the population, the decline is undoubtedly taking
place faster in some parts than in others. Statistical evidence is not
available, to tell a great deal about this, but the birth-rate for the
graduates of some of the leading women's colleges is known, and their
student bodies are made up largely of girls of superior stork. At
Wellesley, the graph in Fig. 36 shows at a glance just what is
happening. Briefly, the graduates of that college contribute less than
one child apiece to the race. The classes do not even reproduce their
own numbers. Instead of the 3.7 children which, according to Sprague's
calculation, they ought to bear, they are bearing .86 of a child.
The foregoing study is one of the few to carefully distinguish between
families which were complete at the time of study and those families
where additional children may yet be born. In the studies to follow this
distinction may in some cases be made by the reader in interpreting the
data while in other cases families having some years of possible
productiveness ahead are included with others and the relative
proportion of the types is not indicated.
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