Population problems / by Edward Byron Reuter.

  • Edward Byron Reuter
Date:
1923
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Population problems / by Edward Byron Reuter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    30/364 page 8
    the class, composition, are all matters of importance inci¬ dental to one or both of the major elements of the problem. Efforts to Control Population Growth.—That the numbers of a people, on the one hand, and their psycho¬ logical characteristics on the other, are determining facts of group welfare are commonplaces of popular thought. Efforts, more aor less clearly conscious, to maintain a balance between numbers and means of subsistence, and efforts to control the population type, as well as folk prac¬ tices operating to the same ends, are common forms of group behavior. A regard for the basic elements of the problem is nearly everywhere present in the group philoso¬ phy. But, because of diverse conditions of life in different environments, certain phases of the general problem may assume such special importance as to quite overshadow other considerations. The essential phase of the problem is not always recog¬ nized as such by the group concerned, and success or fail¬ ure in this often marks the distinction between the success and failure of the group. A clear consciousness of its essential nature saved the Dutch in their centuries of iso¬ lation among the South African blacks. A failure to see the essential problem or a negligence in regard to its con¬ trol marked the failure of the Spanish culture in the tropics as well as that of the French in Canada. The basic problem is not always the one that excites popular concern and consequently is not always the one that receives administrative attention. Formal efforts designed to control population have always reflected and expressed the prevailing spirit of the times modified by the traditions and prepossessions of the group. In nearly all cases they have been designed to control numbers and usually to stimulate increase. The questions of quality have rather seldom come within the
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