A short time ago I began collecting facts intending to show the great falling off in numbers in the American family, taken without regard to location or worldly circumstances. These I will now present (although they are as yet quite incomplete), because they have a direct bearing upon the subject which we are considering. In some of the tables only one or two lines of descendants could be traced; in others, all or nearly all appear:
Un, Unmarried. Dotted line, females. Plain line, males. D, dead. No ch., no children.
Nearly all grades of American life have been included here, excepting perhaps that found in extreme poverty. The women were, for the most part, simply educated. Some in the district school only, while others were instructed with due deference to the limitations considered proper in female education, and with the usual surfeit of "accom-
