Welfare of the Offspring Is Much More
Important Than Their Number, Says
This Cincinnati Professor.
Dr. Charles A.L. Reed, of the University of Cincinnati, has published an
address on "The American Family," in which he makes this strong statement:
"We see in a declining birth-rate only a natural and evolutional
adjustment of race to environment--an adjustment that insures rather than
menaces the perpetuation of our kind under favoring conditions." Thus he
argues that "race suicide" may prove a blessing, since, as a matter of
fact, it implies an intelligent regard for the rights and necessities of
children rather than an aversion to motherhood:
If reduced to its last analysis, it does not indicate a
loss, but rather a development, if not an actual exaltation
of the maternal function. American women recognize,
subconsciously, possibly, certainly not in definite terms,
but they nevertheless recognize, the force of the law
enunciated by Mr. Spencer that whatever conduces to the
highest welfare of offspring must more and more establish
itself, since children of inferior parents reared in
inferior ways will ever be replaced by children of better
parents reared in better ways.
A much greater danger, according to Dr. Reed, is overpopulation. As
influences inimical to the American family he classes "everything that
tends to the early and wide dispersion of its members," such as--
The development of residential schools, the extension of
far-reaching transportation facilities, the diversification
of industries, the industrial employment of women, the
popularization of hotels and apartments for residential
purposes, and, finally, the development of clubs for both
men and women at the expense of the home.