Ignorant nursemaids are unwillingly tolerated, and as the
number of competent assistants for mothers is very small, the cost is
correspondingly high. An increase in the number of persons trained for
such work is to be anticipated, but it is likely that the demand for
them will grow even more rapidly; hence there is no reason to expect
that competent domestic help will become any less costly than it is now.
5. The standards of education have risen steadily. There is perhaps no
other feature which has tended more to limit families. Conscientious
parents have often determined to have no more children than they could
afford to educate in the best possible way. This meant at least a
college education, and frequently has led to one and two-child families.
It is a motive of birth control which calls for condemnation. The old
idea of valuable mental discipline for all kinds of mental work to be
gained from protracted difficult formal education is now rejected by
educational psychologists, but its prevalence in the popular mind serves
to make "higher education" still something of a fetish, from which
marvelous results, not capable of precise comprehension, are
anticipated. We do not disparage the value of a college education, in
saying that parents should not attach such importance to it as to lead
them to limit their family to the number to whom they can give 20 years
of education without pecuniary compensation.
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