While it might fit the child to work more gainfully in later
years, yet the years of gain are so long postponed that the parent can
expect to share in but little of it.
These arguments would not affect the well-to-do parent, or the
high-minded parent who was willing or able to make some sacrifice in
order that his children might get as good a start as possible. But they
may well affect the opposite type of parent, with low efficiency and low
ideals.[179] This type of parent, finding that the system of compulsory
education made children a liability, not an immediate asset, would
thereby be led to reduce the size of his family, just as he seems to
have done when child labor was prohibited in England and children ceased
to be a source of revenue. Compulsory education has here, then, a
eugenic effect, in discouraging the reproduction of parents with the
least efficiency and altruism.
If this belief be well founded, it is likely that any measure tending to
decrease the cost of schooling for children will tend to diminish this
effect of compulsory education. Such measures as the free distribution
of text-books, the provision of free lunches at noon, or the extension
to school children of a reduced car-fare, make it easier for the selfish
or inefficient parent to raise children; they cost him less and
therefore he may tend to have more of them.
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