States will produce. No improvement in education can prevent a serious loss, for the strong minds get more from education.
The old American stock has produced a vastly greater proportion of eminence, has accomplished a great deal more proportionately, in modern times, than has other any stock whose representatives have been coming in large numbers as immigrants to these shores during the last generation. It is, therefore, likely to continue to surpass them, unless it declines too greatly in numbers. For this reason, we feel justified in concluding that the decline of the birth-rate in the old American stock represents a decline in the birth-rate of a superior element.
There is another way of looking at this point. The stock under discussion has been, on the whole, economically ahead of such stocks as are now immigrating. In competition with them under equal conditions, it appears to remain pretty consistently ahead, economically. Now, although we would not insist on this point too strongly, it can hardly be questioned that eugenic value is to some extent correlated with economic success in life, as all desirable qualities tend to be correlated together. Within reasonable limits, it is justifiable to treat the economically superior sections of the nation as the eugenically superior. And it is among these economically superior sections of the nation that the birth-rate has most rapidly and dangerously fallen.
The constant influx of highly fecund immigrant women tends to obscure the fact that the birth-rate of the older residents is falling below par, and analysis of the birth-rate in various sections of the community is necessary to give an understanding of what is actually taking place.
In Rhode Island, F. L. Hoffmann found the average number of children for each foreign-born woman to be 3.35, and for each native-born woman to be 2.06. There