up to the hilt. If a truth is worth application it is worth hammering
home, and we have no right to expect common men to obey conclusions
upon which specialists are as yet not lucidly agreed. [Footnote: It has
been pointed out to me by my friend, Mr. Graham Wallas, that although
the State may not undertake any positive schemes for selective breeding
in the present state of our knowledge, it can no more evade a certain
reaction upon these things than the individual can evade a practical
solution. Although we cannot say of any specific individual that he or
she is, or is not, of exceptional reproductive value to the State, we
may still be able, he thinks, to point out classes which are very
probably, as a whole, _good_ reproductive classes, and we may be
able to promote, or at least to avoid hindering, their increase. He
instances the female elementary teacher as being probably, as a type, a
more intelligent and more energetic and capable girl than the average
of the stratum from which she arises, and he concludes she has a higher
reproductive value--a view contrary to my argument in the text that
reproductive and personal value are perhaps independent. He tells me
that it is the practice of many large school boards in this country to
dismiss women teachers on marriage, or to refuse promotion to these
when they become mothers, which is, of course, bad for the race if
personal and reproductive value are identical. He would have them
retain their positions regardless of the check to their efficiency
maternity entails. This is a curiously indirect way towards what one
might call Galtonism. Practically he proposes to endow mothers in the
name of education. For my own part I do not agree with him that this
class, any more than any other class, can be shown to have a high
reproductive value--which is the matter under analysis in this paper--
though I will admit that an ex-teacher will probably do infinitely more
for her children than if she were an illiterate or untrained woman. I
can only reiterate my conviction that nothing really effective can be