ction to them from
infection.

3. We have, moreover, to take a wider view, and consider who will
receive and act upon the advice given, and hence what the result will
be on the differential birth-rate of the community.

It is quite obvious that the educated classes can most easily follow
instructions which result in protection from conception, and since
such knowledge most easily circulates among the more highly endowed
classes, it has been claimed that it is important to make efforts to
let the knowledge be so widespread that it may reach all. The result,
however, could only be that the practice of conception control would
spread throughout the upper, middle and more intelligent of the
working classes, and this would involve a very serious reduction in
the births of those who furnish the leaders and efficient workers in
all branches of life, and in those only.

For the birth-rate amongst the least intelligent, least efficient and
the mentally deficient will be unaffected. It must be apparent that
after a very few generations of such weeding out of the best, with the
continuous multiplication of the worst type of citizen, the general
standard of efficiency, enterprise and executive skill of the nation
would be seriously impaired. Such, briefly stated, is the problem
before the public at the present time.

CHAPTER II

THE DEMAND FOR KNOWLEDGE AND FROM WHOM TO OBTAIN IT

Even the brief survey given in the first chapter will have suggested
to the reader that the people who ask for knowledge seek it for
various reasons. Indeed, the first thing that strikes anyone who gives
consideration to the subject is the difference in type and
circumstance of the people for whom relief is claimed. We begin to
realise at once that the subject of conception control is an intimate
and individual one, and can only really be dealt with by advice which
is given to the individual and not to the public at large.

This is perhaps most obvious in the first group mentioned on page 17,
where the woman is suffering from chronic or acute disease, and the
necessity for preventing conception is clear to her medical adviser.
If disease renders child-bearing a danger to the life and health of
the mother, it becomes a positive duty of her doctor to prevent such a
catastrophe--but the method advised will differ according to the
special nature of the case.

Again, where in the case of husband or wife there is a serious
inheritance of ment