NOTES AND ABSTRACTS 429
advantages, profit, social or political preferment, and the like, and a rivalry in pro- moting the common good. As a rivalry in the attainment of primarily individual ends, it is a transient phenomenon in society, and must give way to co-operation as rapidly as social intelligence is developed. Competition has indeed been a strong factor in social development, but so also have tyranny, slavery, and cannibalism, and all the various forms of exploitation. Must these go on because, in the absence of social intelligence, they have served a purpose in social development ?
Obviously, social organization is not directly the work of the school. As to social intelligence, the school is necessarily, with reference to knowledge, a distributing point. The mere distribution of knowledge, however, may not result in the develop- ment of social intelligence. A great function of the school is to socialize the knowl- edge distributed. The socialization of knowledge, however, is but a step in the transformation of the individual from the competitive to the co-operative type, and this the school should consciously attempt to do. Competition is now giving way to co-operation. Education should hasten the movement. It should strive to produce a different type of man ; a man who employs his energy and talent in assisting his fellow- men to higher usefulness rather than in rendering their efforts nugatory or futile ; a man whose motto is that of the English prince, " Ich dien'," and whose conduct illustrates his motto.
Modern education is chiefly engaged in developing the competitive type of indi- viduality. The competitive man the warrior, the " successful " man is held up for emulation. Prizes, marks, honors, distinctions, take the place of functional pleas- ure in acquiring and using knowledge, and the gratification which always comes from successful co-operation toward a worthy end.
If the social ideal suggested is a practical and a desirable one, then the school should be consciously employed to realize it. It should never lose sight, of course, of its immediate aim of developing to the fullest possible extent the capacities and powers of the individual. But it must ever keep in mind the necessity of socializing these powers, of realizing a double aim.! IRA W. HOWERTH, "Education and the Social Ideal," in Educational Review, September, 1902. R. M.
Neo-Malthusianism in Australia. The abnormal decrease in the growth of the population of Australia is one of the most serious and threatening conditions in relation to the future of that country. Earlier in the history of the country the growth of the population was extraordinarily rapid. The unprecedented economical develop- ment due to the great value of the natural resources of the country, the loans of English capital, and the indiscreet prodigality in dispensing of public lands, led to a rapid increase in the number of marriages and in the population.
Today the stratum of alluvium is exhausted, and the cultivation of the soil now demands greater capital. The yield of grains has fallen 40 per cent. When, in addition to this, one considers the devastation in grazing brought about by the con- tinuous droughts and the fall of prices in the wool market, he can form a picture of the present economic conditions in Australia. The struggle for existence is no lighter there than in Europe or America. All kinds of occupations are overcrowded. This failing in the economical resources has exercised a strong influence upon the number of marriages and births in Australia, as, in fact, such a condition does everywhere.
Upon this question the official statistics speak with alarming clearness. Accord- ing to Coghlan, the director of the Statistical Bureau of New South Wales, the number of births per one hundred marriages in the years from 1861 to 1898 fell from 30.61 to 20.21 per cent, in New South Wales, from 28.54 to 19.30 in Victoria. Since 1898 the percentage of births in Queensland fell from 28.80 to 20.80, in New Zealand from 28.16 to 21.42. This diminution in the percentage of births is found everywhere, and the conditions point toward a still greater decline.
Are there additional causes for this decline ? The climate is healthful, and the death-rate is low, so that we must seek elsewhere for further causes of the condition. In the first place, it should be noticed that one-fifth of the women earn a living by means of their own work, and many employers will not hire married women. This tends to raise the age of marriage, and, therefore, to promote the decline in the birth- rate. Again, the families are, as a rule, small, especially in the cities. The theories of Malthus are followed. Almost everywhere the so-called Zweikindersystem of France is prevalent.
