What is eugenics? / by Major Leonard Darwin.

  • Darwin, Leonard, 1850-1943.
Date:
[1937]
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: What is eugenics? / by Major Leonard Darwin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    89/104 (page 77)
    BIGGER FAMILIES Ш GOOD STOCKS 77 no excuse must here be found for neglecting the call of the nation for families of adequate size. True patriots, if sound in body and mind, will, if possible, have four children, even if it involves some slight fall in the social scale. If the parents' circumstances are such that they cannot, without help from outside, bring up four children to lead useful and honourable, though not necessarily luxurious, lives, then no doubt they should have few or no children. It is, however, only when another child could not on account of poverty be reared unaided in accordance with a certain minimum standard of civilization that this national call of duty in regard to parenthood should be ignored. Amongst highly educated women the birth-rate is excep¬ tionally low ; and the proportion who do not marry is high. As to women educated in some American Colleges, there are only one and a half children, on the average, to each married couple. Probably it is much the same in this country. In the next chapter we shall see that something more might be done to improve the financial position of married women, so as to make marriage more attractive. The efforts made by women in recent years to get employ¬ ment in callings previously only open to men have blinded the eyes of some of them to the fact that women's special duties stand out as amongst the very noblest and most important of all human duties. It depends more on the woman than on the man whether or not a child will be born into the world. Civilization is passed on from generation to generation by tradition. The home is the place where the morals and the customs of those who wiU come after us are now being determined, chiefly by the mother. If the great importance of the duties which women only can perform were more widely recognized by women, it would often alter their outlook on life. The ideas absorbed in youth unconsciously affect conduct all through life. High ideals as to married life a,Tnongst men and women would result in more marriages and wiser marriages. Sacrifices for our country's good must often include the abandonment of personal pleasures and of social ambitions.