When we turn to the experiences of life common to most of us, we shall find, I think, pretty strong evidence that surrounding conditions determine that, as a rule, the capable and ambitious man has fewer children than his fellows. Let us examine some of these facts of common experience. The agricultural labourer, of the intellectual value of whose education I have by no means a low opinion, nevertheless obtains this education without cost. Bred on the farm, he insensibly imbibes from what he sees around him the multifarious bits of information a farm hand requires. The manual labour which he is called upon to perform implies a very varied, although often underrated, skill, but this skill, and, indeed, his whole education, may easily be acquired, and that without cost, by the age of twenty. He is then capable of earning a maximum wage, for he has reached the period of life at which he is a full-farm-labourer, and at forty he does nothing more and receives no higher wage. Now this maximum wage which he is capable of earning at so early an age is sufficient to support a wife and family. In consequence of this condition of things the countryman generally marries in his early twenties, and selects in preference to an older woman one of about his own age. The pair are married during nearly the whole of their child-bearing period, and have as many children as they, in the ordinary course of nature, can produce. Much the same sort of statement applies to the lower artisan, factory hand, etc. In these cases perfect accomplishment of the set routine of their especial work can be obtained at a very early age, and for the rest of life no further advance is made. The manual dexterity required in most of these occupations is indeed best acquired during youth, and at twenty or thereabouts the full standard of efficiency is reached, and full wages demanded in return. Need we wonder at the fertility of these marriages, or at the swarms of children seen in every street where the town labourers and lower artisans reside. Now, rightly or wrongly, the man who dresses fashionably, who drives a pen or serves behind a counter, is held of much more account than one who pursues the more manly occupations of tilling the ground or of laying drains. How this sentiment has arisen we need not discuss; there it is, and it has the effect of drawing from the agricultural and lower artisan classes the more ambitious and capable, and turning them into clerks and shop attendants. The slightly-increased wage is not more than is required in the new position, and is expended on dress and those appearances and pleasures which associate themselves with town life. The future has, no doubt, possibilities, for the clerk may rise, and the shop attendant may become himself a master, and with these possibilities in view most are inclined to wait in hope, many fondly believing in their power and certainty of eventual success. Marriage, however, is a very serious thing,