DEAN INGE ON RACE SUICIDE

Evening Star, Issue 19723, 25 November 1927, Page 1

DEAN INGE ON RACE SUICIDE

If wo examine 10 or 20 pages oi ‘Who’s W’ho,’ and count tho average families of those who are successlul enough to bo included in that Dcbrett of the middle class,” wo .shall see that the average family is one son and one daughter (writes Dean luge, in the London ‘Evening Standard 1 ). This limitation of families, which amounts to the slow suicide of a whole class (three or four children are necessary if tho numbers arc to be kept up), is mainly tho result of the enormous expense of “a 'gentleman's education.” Tho consequences, in tho opinion oi all eugenists, aro deplorable. Not only are the good upper and middle class families the backbone of the nation, and tho main source of its but in each generation tho most brilliant members ol the working class make tbeir way into the class which, is now voluntarily sterilising itself. Our present social order skims off tin; cream in each generation, and throws it away. Much as 1 should regret to see our public schools shut up, I think that when almost all parents are driven to take advantage of tho excellent State schools which will soon he available in every large town this motive for race suicide wili, disappear. The heaviest ( burden wilt be, listed tnun' the shoulders of tho poor professional man, who will also usually prefer one of the new universities, which have no residential colleges, and aro about 50 per cent, cheaper than Oxford and Cambridge.