When eighteen months old, the children were transferred to a separate department which was managed by those who had shown themselves specially fitted for the work. Let us see what was the result of Noyes' experiment. Of the sixty[39:A] children born, five died at or near childbirth from unforeseen causes depending upon the mother. All the others were alive at the date of Mrs. McGee's communication, except a boy who was reared in spite of weakness, and died from a trifling malady when about sixteen years of age. All the children were strong and healthy, the boys being tall--several over six feet--broad-shouldered and finely proportioned; the girls robust and well-built. It is remarkable, that among the children between five and nine years of age, thirteen were boys and six only were girls. With reference to their intellectual ability, it is stated by Mrs. McGee that, of the oldest sixteen boys, ten were in business, chiefly employed as clerks, foremen, etc., in the manufactories of the joint stock company. The eleventh was a musician of repute; another a medical student; one passed through college and studied law; one was a college senior, and one entered college after winning State and local scholarships, and gave great mathematical promise. The sixteenth boy was a mechanic, and the only one employed in manual labor. Of the six girls between eighteen and twenty-two years, three are said by Mrs. McGee to be especially intellectual. The mothers of these children usually belonged to the classes employed in manual labor, while the fathers, with the exception of the Noyes family and half a dozen lawyers, doctors and clergymen, were all farmers and mechanics. It is noteworthy that, as a rule, the fathers were the intellectual superiors of their mates, "and enquiry develops the fact, known in the Community, that in these cases the children are markedly superior to the maternal stock." When this system of complex marriage had been in operation twenty years, the desire to return to the old system of monogamy arose, and it became so strong in the Community that its founder retired from it, and on August 26, 1879, complex marriage was renounced, although nominally "in deference to public sentiment." Twenty-five couples who had been married before entering the Community again became husband and wife, and twenty marriages between other individuals took place within four months after the abandonment of the stirpicultural experiment. There were then in the Community two hundred and sixteen adults and eighty-three children under twenty years of age.