As soon as Dr. Rutgers had explained his policy to me I had that most important answer to the puzzling and bothersome problem of the increasing population in the Netherlands brought about by birth control. It was proper spacing. The numbers in a family or the numbers in a nation might be increased just as long as the arrival of children was not too rapid to permit those already born to be assured of livelihood and to become assimilated in the community. Dr. Rutgers suggested I come to his clinic the next day and learn his technique. He was at the moment training two midwives preparatory to starting a new center in the outskirts of the Hague. Under his tutelage I began to realize the necessity for individual instruction to patients if the method of contraception prescribed was to fulfill its function. I wondered at the ease with which this could be done. Very soon even I myself, unable to talk to these women in their own tongue, instructed seventy-five. I used to bombard the little man with questions concerning each case. I took issue with him over his autocratic system of dictating without explanation. Merely saying, “This is what you do. Do this always,” had to my mind no educational value. “Don’t you think it would be a good idea to tell your patients what you’re aiming at and why?” I asked. “No, can’t take time. They must do what they’re told.” His was the doctor’s point of view with which I was familiar, but with which I could not agree. It also seemed to me a mistake to regard the women merely as units in a sociological scheme for bettering the human race. On the file cards were inscribed only names and addresses; no case histories. I wanted to know so much more about them. How many children had they already had? How many had they lost? What were their husbands’ wages? What was the spacing in each family, and what were the effects? How successful had been the method of contraception? If this information had then been recorded, the birth control movement could later have cited chapter and verse in its own support. After my morning’s work with Dr. Rutgers I usually repaired to the Central Bureau of Statistics with my three-in-one translator, interpreter, and guide. My findings were that in all cities and districts where clinics had been established the figures showed improvement—labor conditions were better and children were going to schools, which had raised their educational standards. Professional prostitutes were few, and even these were German, French, Belgian, or English, because Dutch women were encouraged to marry early. It made a difference. From the eugenic standpoint there had been a rapid increase in the stature of the Dutch conscript as shown by army records. The data proved conclusively that a controlled birth rate was as beneficial as I had imagined it might be, growing out of the first clinic initiated by the enterprise of Dr. Aletta Jacobs.