neither being avoided altogether, nor postponed unduly,—in fact, conditions in both respects seem to be improving every year.
So far the findings should gratify every eugenist. But the census returns permit further analysis of the figures. They classify the population under four headings: Native White of Native Parentage, Native White of Foreign Parentage or of Mixed Parentage, Foreign-born White, and Negro. Except among Foreign-born Whites, who are standing still, the returns for 1910 show that in every one of these groups the marriage rate has steadily increased during the past three decades; and that the age of marriage is steadily declining in all groups during the same period, with a slight irregularity of no real importance in the statistics for foreign-born males.
On the whole, then, the marriage statistics of the United States are reassuring. Even if examination is limited to the Native Whites of Native Parentage, who are probably of greater eugenic worth, as a group, than any of the other three, the marriage rate is found to be moving in the right direction.