Per cent ratio of native white children under 5 years of age, born of native mothers, to native white females 15 to 44 years of age in cities of less than 25,000 inhabitants and rural territory, 1900.

the variation of the statistical average is to a great extent purely arithmetical, being due to the heterogeneous character of the settlements combined in this class; on the one hand, there are the manufacturing towns of Massachusetts, on the other, the purely agricultural settlements of Louisiana. The connection between the agricultural character of the population of this class of settlements and the ratio of native-born children to native women of child-bearing age can be seen from Table 70 in which all States are divided into four areas, according to the ratio of nativeborn children under five, and the percentage of "farmers, planters, and overseers" to the total number of breadwinners for each group is given in a parallel column.

TABLE 70.

PER CENT RATIO OF NATIVE WHITE CHILDREN UNDER 5 YEARS OF AGE, BORN OF NATIVE MOTHERS, TO NATIVE WHITE FEMALES, 15 TO 44 YEARS OF AGE, IN CITIES OF LESS THAN 25,000 INHABITANTS AND RURAL TERRITORY, AND PER CENT RATIO OF NATIVE WHITE MALE FARMERS, PLANTERS, AND OVERSEERS TO THE TOTAL NUMBER of WHITE MALE BREADWINNERS, 1900, BY AREAS COMPRISING STATES AND TERRITORIES GROUPED ACCORDING TO RATIO OF CHILDREN, 1900. (THE STATES ARE SHOWN ON THE MAP FACING THE TABLE.)

The preceding table clearly shows that the native birthrate declines with the percentage of farmers among the

• Supplementary Analysis, XII. Census, Table XXII, p. 434. Occupations at the XII. Census, Table 41, pp. 220 et seq. (computed).

native population. The rearing of children on a farm requires less of the mother's time and attention than in the city. Moreover, the child on a farm begins to work at an earlier age than in the city. A numerous family on a farm has the advantages of a co-operative group, whereas every addition to the family of the wage-earner, or of the salaried employee with a fixed income, tends to lower the family's standard of living.

On the other hand, the decline of the birth-rate is universal among those classes which are scarcely, if at all, affected by immigrant competition. This observation, advanced by students in America and in England,1 was substantiated by the Report of the National Birth Rate Commission on the declining birth-rate in the United Kingdom. The results of its studies are summarized in the following proposition:

Such statistical evidence as is available for establishing a comparison of the birth-rate among the different social and pecuniary grades of our population indicates that the better-to-do classes restrict more closely the size of their families, and that even among certain of the wage-earning classes the birth-rate varies inversely with the income.2

Analyzing the interrelation between the declining birthrate and "the condition of the working-class," the Commission concludes:

1A. Lapthorn Smith: "Higher Education of Women and Race Suicide," Popular Science Monthly, March, 1905, pp..468, 470. Arthur Newsholme: The Declining Birth-Rate, pp. 32, 33, 42-43.

The Declining Birth-Rate, Its Causes and Effects, p. 44. By way of illustration, the statistics of births in 1911, provided by the RegistrarGeneral for England and Wales are quoted in the table next following (Ibid., p. 9). The returns were classified according to the occupation of the father and summarized "in descending order of social grade." The figures represent the ratio of births per 1,000 married males under the age of 55.

that every rise in the condition of the artisan tends at present to lower the birth-rate in his class. Wherever political and social conditions bring a man or a class into a position in which he hopes to rise or fears to fall, the family will be restricted. That class of motives, which we may blame as love of comfort, snobbishness, vulgar ambition, timorousness, or praise as proper pride, desire for self-improvement, and prudence, is the most potent cause of family restriction.1

In relation to the United States, similar views were expressed by the late Dr. Billings as far back as 1893. It is the desire of "the lower middle classes" to maintain "social position," along with "the great increase in the use of things which were formerly considered as luxuries, but which now have become almost necessities" that accounts in part for "the deliberate and voluntary avoidance or prevention of child-bearing. Still "the lower middle classes" are scarcely affected by immigration. Their standard of living is, as a rule, higher than that of the wage-earner. Yet it is precisely this higher standard that is productive of a "desire to have fewer children." All speculation to the effect that an increase in the rate of wages "might have been attended" in the past, or is likely to be attended in the future, "by a larger natural increase among the native-born portion of the population," has accordingly no foundation of fact.

1 Ibid., pp. 41-42.

Supplementary Analysis, XII. Census, p. 410.