It is quite obvious that the educated classes can most easily follow instructions which result in protection from conception, and since such knowledge most easily circulates among the more highly endowed classes, it has been claimed that it is important to make efforts to let the knowledge be so widespread that it may reach all. The result, however, could only be that the practice of conception control would spread throughout the upper, middle and more intelligent of the working classes, and this would involve a very serious reduction in the births of those who furnish the leaders and efficient workers in all branches of life, and in those only. For the birth-rate amongst the least intelligent, least efficient and the mentally deficient will be unaffected. It must be apparent that after a very few generations of such weeding out of the best, with the continuous multiplication of the worst type of citizen, the general standard of efficiency, enterprise and executive skill of the nation would be seriously impaired. Such, briefly stated, is the problem before the public at the present time. CHAPTER II THE DEMAND FOR KNOWLEDGE AND FROM WHOM TO OBTAIN IT Even the brief survey given in the first chapter will have suggested to the reader that the people who ask for knowledge seek it for various reasons. Indeed, the first thing that strikes anyone who gives consideration to the subject is the difference in type and circumstance of the people for whom relief is claimed. We begin to realise at once that the subject of conception control is an intimate and individual one, and can only really be dealt with by advice which is given to the individual and not to the public at large. This is perhaps most obvious in the first group mentioned on page 17, where the woman is suffering from chronic or acute disease, and the necessity for preventing conception is clear to her medical adviser. If disease renders child-bearing a danger to the life and health of the mother, it becomes a positive duty of her doctor to prevent such a catastrophe--but the method advised will differ according to the special nature of the case. Again, where in the case of husband or wife there is a serious inheritance of mental or physical disease, and especially when the same weakness exists in both families, it is justly regarded as a duty by the married pair not to bring children into the world. It may be contended that men and women with such an inheritance should not marry, but that is a matter for the decision of the individuals concerned. It not infrequently happens that marriage has taken place before they know of the inherited tendency. In such cases clearly the advice of the family doctor should be given as to the best course to pursue in order to avoid conception. The case of the overworked and burdened mother with a large and increasing family is nearly allied to that of a woman with disease, though in her case the causes for ill-health are more complicated.