The student of the progress of human affairs, or even the average person whose knowledge of the doings of mankind is derived from a hasty and casual reading of the daily newspapers and the popular magazines, cannot plead ignorance of the growing interest in the general subject which is embraced within the content of the term "Birth Control." But while the general meaning of the term is at least vaguely grasped by the average member of the human crowd--the individual to whom we refer as "the man on the street"--we find a startling condition of mental confusion and often positive misconception concerning the essence and spirit of the general idea expressed by the term in question. While the fact is a reflection upon the average intelligence of the general public, it must be admitted that to the average person, or "the man on the street," Birth Control means simply the teaching and practice of certain methods whereby men and women may indulge their sexual appetites, in or out of marriage, without incurring the liability or risk of conception and child-bearing. The average person does not stop to consider that such teachings and practices do not constitute "Birth Control" at all, but are, rather, merely the theory and practice of Birth Prevention, desirable only to those who seek sexual indulgences without being called upon to shoulder the responsibilities attached by Nature to the physical sexual union of men and women. The term "CONTROL" does not mean "prohibition," or "prevention"; but, on the contrary, means "governing, regulating, or managing influence." Birth Control, in the true meaning of the term, does not mean the prevention or prohibition of the birth of children, but rather the encouragement of the birth of children under the best possible conditions and the discouragement of the birth of children under improper or unfavorable conditions. Birth Control, in the true meaning of the term, does not mean theories and practices which would tend to reduce the population of the civilized countries of the world, but rather theories and practice which would inevitably result in the production of an adequate ratio of increase in the population of such countries, not only by reason of a normal birth-rate, but also by reason of a diminishing death-rate among infants--by the production of healthier children, accompanied by the raising of the standard of the average child born in such countries.