the best means of adjusting education in the interest of the children and of the Nation. These are times when teachers may well be proud of their calling. The profession is at work on its problems. Perhaps we shall soon see that day so long anticipated, when a competent, well paid teacher will preside in every classroom in America.

Let Education Week Be Enrolment Week.This slogan, originally suggested by Payson Smith in 1923, again brought hundreds of checks for membership dues to the Department of Superintendence. Little notes of encouragement accompanied many of the remittances. A record-breaking enrolment seems probable for the Boston convention. Texas still holds first place in point of numbers. Superintendent John H. Beveridge of Omaha, Nebraska, always prompt, already has the first membership card for the year 1929.

At the Dallas convention an amendment to the constitution was adopted which provided that a six year membership shall be issued to any active or associate member upon payment of $25 in advance. Membership card No. 1 under this new provision was issued to Superintendent Frank D. Boynton of Ithaca, New York, and card No. 2 to Professor E. E. Lewis of Ohio State University.

Programs for Teachers' Meetings.-Secretary J. W. Crabtree of the National Education Association has issued a leaflet entitled "A Study of Problems of the Profession under the Auspices of the Principal," in which he suggests means of enriching the regular programs for teachers' meetings. Many of the suggestions in the leaflet grew out of responses from the field. Every principal is urged to hold at least five meetings during the year. Some of the topics are: Advantages of salary schedules, Effect on salaries of cordial relationships with the public, Increased professional spirit and what it means, What our school does to build character, The purpose of commencement

ceremonies, The new education bill, Health. A test based on knowledge of names well known in education, is suggested as a means of diversion.

A New President for an Old University.One of One of George Washington's cherished dreams was to establish at the Nation's capital, a great institution of higher learning and to this end he made a liberal contribution from his private funds. Notable among the colleges and universities located in or near the District of Columbia is George Washington University. Its record of educational service extends back for more than a century. Not richly endowed with funds, a splendid self-sacrificing faculty has been able to achieve fine results with meager

resources.

Dr. Cloyd Heck Marvin was recently chosen as the twelfth president of this university. Educated at Stanford, University of Southern California, and Harvard; with an experience in college work as instructor, professor, dean, and business adviser, President Marvin brings to his new position the qualities needed to give George Washington University the greater place of usefulness which is demanded because of its location at the Nation's capital. During the World War, Dr. Marvin was a captain in the aviation service of the United States Army. From November, 1917, to July, 1918, he was in charge of production for the Spruce Production Division. Since 1922 he has been president of the University of Arizona. Arizona. In Washington he has met a cordial welcome marked by many social functions. A reception in his honor, given by the General Alumni Association and the Columbian Women's Association at the Mayflower Hotel, was a brilliant event characterized by sincere expressions of support for the new administration. The Federal Schoolmen's Club at a dinner in President Marvin's honor, extended the right hand of fellowship. Greetings and best wishes for you, President Marvin!

I

T IS becoming increasingly evident to the thoughtful educational authorities everywhere that the race makes progress only through heredity, and that neither the training nor information acquired at college are passed on to posterity. The fundamental question of the value of the college to the race is, what is the effect of an education upon the birth-rate of superior people.

There has been much discussion during the last two or three decades of the question of race suicide, but nature has amply protected herself against such a calamity by a prodigality of reproduction which makes this nearly impossible. Every year the maple bears a million seeds; the cod fish spawns a million eggs, and even our common robin usually lays twelve or fifteen eggs, of which probably not more than one will be represented by a living bird the following

year.

Many of the bacteria and lower forms reproduce so rapidly that they would produce a mass as large as the earth in a short time if this increase were not checked by their enemies. Excess reproduction is a part of nature's plan for progress. It is through this rapid reproduction and the selection of the fittest that evolution and progress have taken place.

Many years ago Malthus showed that at the normal rate of increase any population would double in twenty-five years. He said that as the productions of the earth could not be increased at more than an arithmetical ratio, while the population increased at a geometrical ratio, man was inevitably faced with a reduction of his birth rate or starvation. His figures show, that during the early years of our history, the population of

the United States doubled every twentyfive years; and that there were many isolated communities where there was no immigration where the population doubled every fifteen years. Where a population doubles in twenty-five years there will be eight doubles in two centuries and you must multiply any given population by two hundred and fifty-six to get its numbers at the end of the second century. In other words, a million people doubling once in twenty-five years would have increased to two hundred and fifty-six millions in twohundred years. These figures are startling and make us wonder how we still have standing room upon the earth.

The explanation is reasonably clear. This population in years past was kept down by three factors: war, pestilence, and famine. But despite these every vigorous nation was obliged two or three times each century to conquer adjacent territory for its surplus population or to go on a great migration, such as the downward rush of the Goths into southern Europe, the migration of the Huns through central and western Europe, and the tremendous wave of Mongols that swept over Russia and the Southeast.

The wars too of these earlier times were many times more destructive than modern wars. We often speak of the World War as the greatest calamity of history, But out of five million men in the ranks the United States lost during a year and one half only fifty thousand in actual battle, which is only one per cent., and a considerably lower death rate than that in our civilian population. The death rate of all the nations engaged was less than ten per cent. When this is compared with the wars of Rome, or

the still more deadly wars of earlier times and with forays of the Goths, Vandals, and other primitive peoples, it will be seen that this was one of the safest wars of history. A war which killed fifty per cent. of an entire population was not at all uncommon and the practical annihilation of a people was a frequent occurrence in ancient history.

We seldom realize under the safe conditions of the present that famine was once chronic over the world. In a study of several cities in France, during the World War, I was surprised to find that two or three times during the middle ages a famine had swept off a third to a half of the population of these cities. Today, probably five to ten million people die of famine every year in Asia, but taking the world as a whole, famine has been nearly conquered, and no civilized country now fears starvation.

Likewise, pestilence which several times swept off a third of the population of Europe will never come again in the same way. We are gaining a certain victory over our contagious diseases, and the time of their complete control seems in sight. Evidently, population in the future will not be restricted by war, pestilence, or famine as it was in the past.

There are many other factors which are tending toward an increase in the population. Where fifteen years ago our infant death rate was 140 to the thousand, it is now 75. Within a century our longevity has increased from twenty-eight years to fifty-six years, and our death rate has decreased from twenty-three to 11.9 per thousand.

The population of the United States increased from three millions to about one hundred millions during the Nineteenth Century. We often think of this as an unique phenomenon, due to a new country and immigration, but nearly the same increase. has occurred in every civilized country. During the same time Germany increased from about four million to sixty-five millions. Great Britain from four or five millions to forty millions and the population of the world from five or six hundred million to one billion six hundred millions.

As might be expected, over nearly all the civilized world has come a decrease in the birth rate. If it applied equally to all classes, it would be a matter of no concern. If the decrease came at the bottom of the scale, it would be a great advantage, but, where it comes at the top of the scale it is an unparalleled calamity.

It was more than sixty years ago that Francis Galton showed from a study of the geniuses of the world, from a study of the honor men at Oxford and the judges in the English Courts that geniuses are usually born in superior families, and that mental ability is hereditary to about the same degree as any other personal characteristic. His figures show that where one person in four thousand is ranked as distinguished about one half of all great men have illustrious sons, and where thirty-three per cent. of the judges of England had distinguished ancestors more than eighty per cent. of the chancellors had distinguished forbears.

The studies of Terman at Leland-Stanford University show that where the intelligence quotient of children of the unskilled laborers and Mexicans of that section was about eighty-five, the intelligence of the children of the professional classes was about one hundred and twenty; and the average I. Q. of the students at the university was about one hundred and fifteen. His studies show also that this I. Q. is not changed by education, and that the child with an I. Q. of eighty-five in the kindergarten will probably have an I. Q. of eighty-five in the eighth grade also, if he ever gets that far.

A number of our college presidents have made statements in regard to the value of a college education, saying that if you stop with the with the grammar school you will have an earning capacity of nine hundred dollars, that if you go through the high school you would have an earning capacity of sixteen hundred dollars, but if you completed a college education you would have an earning capacity of three thousand dollars per annum. Of course, this whole argument is built on the supposition that those who stop with the eighth grade represent the same

opportunity and ability as those who go on to the completion of a college course. This is obviously absurd and is proven false by all figures. The college men and women come in general from superior homes. They have had superior advantages and they represent a superior heredity. As to what their earning capacity would have been had they stopped at the eighth grade, we have no means of knowing. Certainly not many of our Carnegies, Rockefellers and Fords have come from college ranks.

The American stock is deteriorating every year. This is shown by three facts which are not disputed. Fifty years ago the immigration to the United States was from northern Europe and represented the best and hardiest races. During the last twenty or twenty-five years it has been coming from southern Europe, and more recently from Mexico. In the intelligence tests given to enlisted men during the war, 70 per cent. of the Poles, 67 per cent. of the Serbs, and 60 per cent. of the Italians showed an intelligence of less than thirteen years. The birth rate of the country as a whole is going down every year, but there is practically no decrease in the birth rate of these recent immigrants or among the unskilled laborers of our cities.

A survey of the birth rate in the city of Worcester taken some fifteen years ago showed the birth rate of French Canadians to be seven to the family; of Irish Catholics about six; and Protestant Americans two. Something similar to this would be found in

most American cities.

Where twenty-five years ago a large proportion of the children born in the city slum died in their first year, with an infant mortality running about three hundred per thousand, we are now keeping most of these children alive. This rate of infant mortality is constantly going down toward a vanishing point. Through all of these causes the inferior portion of our population is increasing much more rapidly than the superior and the median intelligence is going downward.

Galton says that the intelligence of any people varies along a median line which can.

be calculated by an algebraic formula. If we take, for instance, the average intelligence of the American people as one hundred, our greatest geniuses will rank close to two hundred, but if we can run this average intelligence up to one hundred and fifty, then

our geniuses will stand at about two hundred

and fifty, alongside of Plato and Shakes

peare.

A closer study gives us still less comfort, for it would appear that pretty much everywhere our birth rate is in inverse proportion to our education and general ability. Cattell shows that the average family of the man of science of this country consists of 1.6 children. Where one hundred years ago the average family of the graduates of Harvard and Yale consisted of between six and

seven children, the families in both cases now consist of about two. The women's

colleges are making a yet poorer showing. In almost no case do more than fifty per cent. of the alumni marry, and the birth rate of the alumni is, according to the statistics of Dr. Sadler, .35 of a child at Bryn Mawr; .61 of a child at Vassar and Wellesley; and .95 of a child at Mt. Holyoke. Is the woman's college worth while? It may be worth while for the individual, but it is a calamity to the

race.

It is through such conditions as these that every country has fallen. During a period of fifty years the little city of Athens in the days of Pericles produced more great men than the entire world with its millions of

population has ever produced in any other century, and then in less than half a century that civilization died and has produced few great men since. Galton's explanation is that these great men and women became too much interested in public affairs and public amusements to reproduce. Galton thinks the explanation of the Dark Ages was that it shut up in monasteries and convents most of the superior and left to those of inferior ability the perpetuation of the race. In the Fifteenth Century Spain stood preeminent in Europe and then her glory waned and she has ever since been a second rate power. Galton says the inquisition killed the ablest

and most original minds of Spain and left the future to the unthinking. During the Eighteenth Century France was probably producing more great men than all the rest of the world together, and then came the French Revolution which killed or drove into exile most of her leaders. France has since produced less than her share of the world's great men.

Suppose we were to select, out of the sixteen hundred millions of the world's population, ten millions to be the progenitors of the future. Our median intelligence would go up at once to about one hundred and fifty and our average intelligence would be about that of our college professors, lawyers, and doctors. On this scale our geniuses would rank alongside the greatest men of the past. At the rate of increase of our population during the Nineteenth Century this ten millions during two hundred years would have increased to two billion, five hundred millions, almost twice the present population of the earth, but it would be a population of superior men, and women, such as the world has never seen. If we suppose again a similar selection at the end of the first century, we might have with a considerably smaller population one where the median intelligence would be about that of the greatest men of today. Suppose on the other hand the present tendencies and procedures to continue, we shall have at the end of the Twentieth Century an intelligence of about that of a high grade moron.

I know this will be regarded as a gross exaggeration. When we look at the automobile, the aeroplane, radio, and the other marvels of the present, we feel that we are going forward at a tremendous pace, but we must remember that we are standing on the shoulders of a great past and are the inheritors of its efforts. If a man has acquired millions, these millions will in time yield an adequate income without any great effort or ability on his part.

There are many who are sure to say that inasmuch as we are interested in quality, and not in quantity, the policy of our superior people should be to have small

families and give them every advantage. Various studies indicate that where children are born less than two years apart they are not quite as strong as where there is a longer period between births. This would indicate that there should not be more than fifteen children to the family. Galton's figures indicate that the third son who is probably the fifth or sixth child in the family has a somewhat greater chance of being distinguished than the first son who represents far larger numbers. It is not an advantage for a child to be born with a silver spoon in his mouth and be relieved from the necessity of effort. Older children are the best teachers of younger children in many things. The only child is much handicapped both by the lack of companionship and the overcare, which he is almost sure to receive. Psychoanalysis is beginning to show us how great a calamity this may be. The really able child can take care of himself. Washington and Lincoln had very little schooling. Probably the majority of those in "Who's Who" had to make their own way.

What is the answer to the present situation? There is little question as to what should be done. But there is no easy way of seeing that it is carried out.

Undoubtedly the first step should be the segregation or sterilization of the feebleminded, and especially of the moron girl, for whether married or not she is apt to be the progenitor of a numerous family of a very inferior grade.

The next step would be to teach birth control to all those in the congested parts of our great cities who represent for the most part the recent immigrants and the unskilled laborers who are unable to support a large family according to American standards.

More important, however, would be to teach to all girls and women in our high schools and colleges the care of little children and the obligations and joys of parenthood. We have talked thus far of everything else and turned the attention of the boy and girl to all kinds of careers, but have said nothing of that which is sure to be the most fundamental experience in the lives of most