In short, the birth-rate of the old American stock is now so low that that stock is dying out and being supplanted by immigrants. In order that the stock might even hold its own, we have shown that each married woman should bear three to four children. At present the married women of the old white American race in New England appear to be bringing two or less to maturity.

It will be profitable to digress for a moment to consider farther what this disappearance of the ancient population of Massachusetts means to the country. When all the distinguished men of the United States are graded, in accordance with their distinction, it is regularly found, as Frederick Adams Woods says, that "Some states in the union, some sections of the country, have produced more eminence than others, far beyond the expectation from their respective white populations. In this regard Massachusetts always leads, and Connecticut is always second, and certain southern states are always behind and fail to render their expected quota." The accurate methods used by Dr. Woods in this investigation leave no room for doubt that in almost every way Massachusetts has regularly produced twice as many eminent men as its population would lead one to expect, and has for some ranks and types of achievement produced about four times the expectation.

Scott Nearing's studies[121] confirm those of Dr. Woods. Taking the most distinguished men and women America has produced, he found that the number produced in New England, per 100,000 population, was much larger than that produced by any other part of the country. Rhode Island, the poorest New England state in this respect, was yet 30% above New York, the best state outside New England.

The advantage of New England, however, he found to be rapidly decreasing. Of the eminent persons born before 1850, 30% were New Englanders although the population of New England in 1850 was only 11.8% of that of the whole country. But of the eminent younger men,—those born between 1880 and 1889, New England, with 7.5% of the country's population, could claim only 12% of the genius. Cambridge, Mass., has produced more eminent younger men of the present time than any other city, he discovered, but the cities which come next in order are Nashville, Tenn., Columbus, Ohio, Lynn, Mass., Washington, D. C., Portland, Ore., Hartford, Conn., Boston, Mass., New Haven, Conn., Kansas City, Mo., and Chicago, Ill.

There is reason to believe that some of the old New England stock, which emigrated to the West, retains a higher fecundity than does that part of the stock which remains on the Atlantic seaboard. 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. The error in these cases is therefore important and the reader is warned to accept them only with a mental allowance for this factor.

The best students make an even worse showing in this respect. The Wellesley alumnæ who are members of Phi Beta Kappa,—that is, the superior scholars—have not .86 of a child each, but only .65 of a child; while the holders of the Durant and Wellesley scholarships, awarded for intellectual superiority,[122] make the following pathetic showing in comparison with the whole class.

WELLESLEY COLLEGE

Graduates of '01, '02, '03, '04, Status of Fall of 1912