There is reason to believe that some of the old New England stock, which emigrated to the West, retains a higher fecundity than does that part of the stock which remains on the Atlantic seaboard. This fact, while a gratifying one, of course does not compensate for the low fertility of the families which still live in New England. Within this section of the population, the decline is undoubtedly taking place faster in some parts than in others. Statistical evidence is not available, to tell a great deal about this, but the birth-rate for the graduates of some of the leading women's colleges is known, and their student bodies are made up largely of girls of superior stork. At Wellesley, the graph in Fig. 36 shows at a glance just what is happening. Briefly, the graduates of that college contribute less than one child apiece to the race. The classes do not even reproduce their own numbers. Instead of the 3.7 children which, according to Sprague's calculation, they ought to bear, they are bearing .86 of a child. The foregoing study is one of the few to carefully distinguish between families which were complete at the time of study and those families where additional children may yet be born. In the studies to follow this distinction may in some cases be made by the reader in interpreting the data while in other cases families having some years of possible productiveness ahead are included with others and the relative proportion of the types is not indicated. The error in these cases is therefore important and the reader is warned to accept them only with a mental allowance for this factor. The best students make an even worse showing in this respect. The Wellesley alumnae who are members of Phi Beta Kappa,--that is, the superior scholars--have not .86 of a child each, but only .65 of a child; while the holders of the Durant and Wellesley scholarships, awarded for intellectual superiority,[122] make the following pathetic showing in comparison with the whole class. WELLESLEY COLLEGE Graduates of '01, '02, '03, '04, Status of Fall of 1912 _All_ _Durant or Wellesley_ _scholars_ Per cent married 44 35 Number of children: Per graduate .37 .20 Per wife .87 .57 It must not be thought that Wellesley's record is an exception, for most of the large women's colleges furnish deplorable figures. Mount Holyoke's record is: _Children per_ _Children per_ _Decade of graduation_ _married_ _graduate_ _graduate_ 1842-1849 2.77 2.37 1850-1859 3.38 2.55 1860-1869 2.64 1.60 1870-1879 2.75 1.63 1880-1889 2.54 1.46 1890-1892 1.91 0.95