This
was two for each of them. And most of them were still in their
childbearing period. Compare this with the colonial records. But
don't take the number of children per colonial father. Be fair.
Take it per mother.
We have the matrimonial histories of colonial Yale and Harvard
men grouped and averaged according to the decade in which they
graduated. We will regard the graduates of each decade as
together constituting one case.
In no case does the average number of children per wife go higher
than 3.89. In one case it goes as low as 2.98.
Perhaps the modern wife's habit of going on living and thereby
protracting her period of childbearing will in time cause her
fertility record to compare not unfavorably with that of the
colonial wife, who made an early start but a quick finish.
In the year 1903, among all the 370 Smith graduates in those
first ten classes, only twenty-four had died. And among all the
315 children, only twenty-six had died. On the whole, between
being the wife of a Yale or Harvard colonial graduate and being a
member of one of the first ten Smith classes, a modern girl might
conclude that the chances of being a dead one matrimonially in
the latter case would be more than offset by the chances of being
a dead one actually in the former.
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