But we need to have such inquiries made on a more wholesale and systematic scale. They are no longer of a merely speculative character. We no longer regard children as the "gifts of God," flung into our helpless hands; we are beginning to realise that the responsibility is ours to see that they come into the world under the best conditions, and at the moments when their parents are best fitted to produce them. Vaerting proposes that it should be the business of all school authorities to register the ages of the pupils' parents. This is scarcely a provision to which even the most susceptible parent could reasonably object, though there is no cause to make the declaration compulsory where a "conscientious" objection existed, and in any case the declaration would not be public. It would be an advantage--though this might be more difficult to obtain--to have the date of the parents' marriage, and of the birth of previous children, as well as some record of the father's standing in his occupation. But even the ages of the parents alone would teach us much when correlated with the school position of the pupil in intelligence and in conduct. It is quite true that there are unavoidable fallacies. We are not, as in the case of genius, dealing with people whose life-work is complete and open to the whole world's examination. The good and clever child is not necessarily the forerunner of the first-class man or woman; and many capable and successful men have been careless in attendance at lectures and rebellious to discipline. Moreover, the prejudice and limitations of the teachers have also to be recognised. Yet when we are dealing with millions most of these fallacies would be smoothed out. We should be, once for all, in a position to determine authoritatively the exact bearing of one of the simplest and most vital factors of the betterment of the race. We should be in possession of a new clue to guide us in the creation of the man of the coming world. Why not begin to-day? [1] He has further discussed the subject in _Die Neue Generation_, Aug.-Nov., 1914, and in a more recent (1916) pamphlet which I have not seen. [2] The reference is to _The Century of the Child_, by Ellen Key, who writes (English translation, p. 2): "My conviction is that the transformation of human nature will take place, not when the whole of humanity becomes Christian, but when the whole of humanity awakens to the consciousness of the 'holiness of generation.' This consciousness will make the central work of Society the new race, its origin, its management, and its education; about these all morals, all laws, all social arrangements will be grouped."