“One thing is certain, the family is rapidly becoming disorganized and disintegrated.... Divorces are being granted at an ever-increasing rate. It may be computed that if the present ratio of increase in population and in separation is maintained, the number of separations of marriage by death would at the end of the twentieth century be less than the number of separations by divorce.... “Owing to industrial life, the importance of the family is already enormously lessened. Once every form of industry went on within the family circle, but as the methods of the great industry are substituted for work done in the home, the economic usefulness of the family is practically outgrown.” Then, painting a picture of the world to come, as he sees it, the professor said: “Thus with the coming of the social state, family unity will be for a higher end. The wife, being no longer doomed to household drudgery, will have the greater blessing of economic equality. Children will be cared for by the community under healthful and uniform conditions, and we shall arrive at what has been called the happy time when continuity of society no longer depends upon the private nursery.” But what Professor Peabody has said, or what Socialists have said with regard to the next step in the evolution of the family is a little beside the point, and is mentioned so at length only because the detractors of Socialism make so much of it. The point is: _Ought the world if it can, to get rid of poverty, and will Socialism do it?_ If Socialism will rid the world of poverty, ought we to retain poverty to keep women good? Who knows that economic independence would make women bad? The grafters intimate that they know. But who believes the grafters? The grafters say the present status of the family is so good that we should be content to remain poor in order to preserve it. Professor Peabody says the present status of the family is so bad that it is falling to pieces. The professor has proof of his statement in every divorce court. The grafters have proof of their statement in no court, nor anywhere else.