Attempts have been made to collect data on the influence of higher education on the fecundity of women but until recently the statistics collected had been incomplete.

A short time ago a Boston college, in existence since 1842 and with a large number of women graduates, sent a questionnaire to five thousand former students, inquiring about their activities since graduation. Replies were received from 2,827.

Among the questions asked were: "What is your present occupation?"; "What have you attained?"; "Are you married?"; "How many children have you had?"; "What is your husband's occupation?"; "How much education did your children receive?"; "What are their occupations?"

The replies were disheartening. The larger percentage of the women never married and, instead of decreasing each year, this percentage increases. Since the question of a dowry does not play such an important part in America as it does in Europe, the failure to marry is apparently caused by other reasons.

Perhaps higher education is sought by the less beautiful: they would naturally find it more difficult to attract a man. Perhaps higher education destroys a woman's attraction to a man and her desire to have a family. Perhaps it freezes a woman's passions and desires.

A high percentage of educated women are also without issue. The answers to the questionnaire showed that of a hundred educated women who married, thirty-nine are childless and have never had children. Compare them with uneducated women who average only ten or twelve childless women per hundred. A low child-bearing rate is evident not only among educated women 3in America, but also elsewhere. The higher a nation rises culturally, the slower it propagates, for the women of such nations bear fewer children. In Europe the French population does not increase at all, while the German and English population increases are continually becoming smaller. The least enlightened nations, such as the Russians, Poles, Spaniards, and Portugese propagate the fastest.

It is therefore necessary to conclude that culture and education force a woman out of her real role of parent and continuer of the race. This is proven by the comparison of city women, who are more enlightened, to country women. Country women are more prolific than city women.

If education and a higher culture have an effect on women, they must also effect men in the same way. The famous, the unusually intelligent, the men of letters, and the well-known leaders usually are bachelors or, if they are married and have children, they have very few of them.