In the valuable and suggestive treatment of the family by Professor Ellwood in his book, _Sociology and Modern Social Problems_, he says that "divorce is but a symptom of more serious evils that in certain classes of American society have apparently undermined the very virtues upon which the family life subsists." If that be so, then no tinkering with the laws which aim at preventing divorces will reach the seat of the difficulty. The treatment must be more radical, and the character of individuals be made more noble and strong, if the family is to be made more stable and marriage more successful. =Frequency of Divorce in the United States.=--The first point to be noted in any discussion of the broken family is the frequency of that social tragedy in the United States. The pioneer study by Professor W.P. Willcox, made in 1885 and reported in his volume entitled _The Divorce Problem_, showed the fact that we had in this country at that time more divorces per year than were recorded in all the other so-called Christian countries put together. For 1905, statistics show nearly 68,000 divorces in the United States as against the highest number from Germany, which is only a trifle above 11,000, and from France, 10,860, and running down rapidly to the number of 33 in Canada. In England, in 1905, there was but one divorce to 400 marriages. In the United States, in the same year, one divorce to every 12 marriages. Since that count was taken, there has been no evidence of a halt in the tendency of the United States to lead the rest of the Christian world in this matter of separation of those once joined together by marriage vows. In some of the States, the showing is more pronounced on the side of free divorce than in other States, since in Washington, Oregon, and Montana one divorce to every five marriages is reported, in Colorado and Indiana one to every six, and in Oklahoma, California, and Maine one to every seven marriages. We need not accept the doleful suggestion of Professor Willcox that if we go on this way, "by 1950 one-fourth of all marriages will be terminated by divorce, and by 1990 one-half so terminated," for it is not necessary or likely that we shall "go on" in this particular. Already, movements toward the strengthening of family ties and the better training of youth to responsibility, movements that tend to make marriage less brittle, are inaugurated. =Cannot Now Make Family an Autocracy.=--There are several points that all must agree upon if we are to stay the rush to the divorce courts and yet not attempt the futile task of turning the family order back to the patriarchal or the monarchical types. In those types there was little or no legal divorce, it is true, but in them inhered social evils that often killed the spirit of marriage, and doomed the children of enforced unions to physical weakness, mental defectiveness, moral taint, and affectional suffering.