Indeed, this
ideal of two children in the family has been so widely disseminated in
this country that it is often spoken of as the "American Idea." Of
course, such teachings could not be without some effect. Without
attempting to reply to the advocates of this theory of but two children
to a family, it will be sufficient to remark that for a population
simply to remain stationary three children at least must be born to each
family on the average; otherwise, if only two children are born, as one
of the children is apt to die or fail to marry, the population will
actually decrease in numbers. Under the best modern conditions one out
of three children now born either fails to live to maturity or fails to
reproduce. There must be, therefore, more than three children born to
the average family for a population to grow. From the sociological point
of view the ideal family would seem to be one in which from three to six
children are born.
(6) Finally, not all of the childless and small families in the native
American stock are due by any means to voluntary causes, or even
involuntary causes of the kind that we have mentioned.
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