let the knowledge be so widespread that it may reach all. The result,
however, could only be that the practice of conception control would
spread throughout the upper, middle and more intelligent of the
working classes, and this would involve a very serious reduction in
the births of those who furnish the leaders and efficient workers in
all branches of life, and in those only.

For the birth-rate amongst the least intelligent, least efficient and
the mentally deficient will be unaffected. It must be apparent that
after a very few generations of such weeding out of the best, with the
continuous multiplication of the worst type of citizen, the general
standard of efficiency, enterprise and executive skill of the nation
would be seriously impaired. Such, briefly stated, is the problem
before the public at the present time.




CHAPTER II

THE DEMAND FOR KNOWLEDGE AND FROM WHOM TO OBTAIN IT


Even the brief survey given in the first chapter will have suggested
to the reader that the people who ask for knowledge seek it for
various reasons. Indeed, the first thing that strikes anyone who gives
consideration to the subject is the difference in type and
circumstance of the people for whom relief is claimed. We begin to
realise at once that the subject of conception control is an intimate
and individual one, and can only really be dealt with by advice which