Another wastage which has been greatly reduced in modern times is that of high birth rate and high death rate. The allusions in mediaeval times show a state much like that now described among the Slovenes, where incessant maternity is only balanced by the reduction of children due to filth, neglect, and bad conditions. The modern ideal of a small family carefully tended is an immense advance, both for the individual life and for the saving of waste. But its benefits should be sought and not commanded. If the neglectful, dirty, and wasteful stocks of low type in our midst let their children die off, it is the only balance to their overgrowth, which would soon outnumber the better class of population. The right end to begin at is by insisting on hard work and tidy living, under penal enactments; the saving of the children may then be left to take care of itself. To begin at the sentimental end, as is now the fashion, is to degrade the whole race by swamping it with the worst stocks. The line of progress in invention is the remorseless "scrapping" of poorer machines. The more serious the progress becomes, the more scrapping needs to be done. We must not be surprised then if a sign of human progress of mind and body should be the large number of inefficients who are thrown out of work on the scrap heap of society. In another direction advance has been made by general lengthening of the stages of life. The early marriage and early deaths of past times brought the cost of renewal at every twenty years, which was a much severer tax on the community than renewal in thirty or forty years. There is probably also a great benefit in the higher development of parents before each generation. It is well recognised how the later children of a family are more able, and of a more finished quality than the earlier; great examples of such a view in older literature being Joseph and David, and in our own history, Alfred. The longer growth of mind before each generation appears to be a great gain of advance for the race. Among the lower races, by far the most advanced are those like the Zulu, which have a long period of hard training and active life before settling down to family duties.