home education to the proper ideal of marriage. It is a singular fact that in respect to the most solemn and important relation of human life there is abso lutely no home education, by way of suggestion, in struction or warning. Young people are left to " fall in love " as they are to get the measles, or rather more so, for they are generally guarded from danger of the latter, so far as practicable. The father ad vises his son about his education, and setting out in business, and his personal habits; the mother ad vises her daughter about her gowns and her manners, her parties and her embroidery, but marriage is a matter that both father and mother " fight shy of." It is the last contingency which either parent seems to regard as probable. The result is that there is no business of which the boy or girl is so ignorant as this, the most exacting and inexorable in all their lives. They learn only by experience. The only warning which they get on the subject is when they form an engagement displeasing to their parents, and when opposition is generally too late; or when they are charged by the church at the altar, not to enter into this state rashly or unadvisedly, a warning that fal's on heedless ears after '• the cards are out "and the "rehearsal" has been held. Mothers are highly blamable in this regard. They may be excused from teaching their daughters the mysteries of household duties, because they may never have occasion to prac tice them; but it is absolutely unpardonable that a mother should allow her daughter to enter into mar riage completely ignorant of its sexual duties and its physiological consequences. It is an injustice to her daughter, and to the man who marries her. Prudery seems to deprive wives of all conscience at this point. There is another point at which there seems to be need of grave consideration in regard to formation of marriage, and that is its relation to the State and to possible criminality. Should marriage be allowed between habitual and incorrigible criminals? Should marriage be allowed where either party is drunken, or epileptic, or predisposed to insanity by heredity, or afflicted with an incurable organic disease? Some of these questions form the subject of an interesting essay on "The Marriage Contract,1' by Dr. E. T. Rulison, in the May number of the " Buffalo Medical Journal." Some extracts from this paper will be found instructive : "It seems strange, when this great fundamental law of hereditary transmission has been understood for years, and has been applied to animals (as well as to the human race, when dollars and cents were concerned), yet it is ignored entirely when we see children begotten every year with pedigrees which would send our domestic animals to the abattoir, or place them under the ban of a health commis sioner. Darwin says : "'Man scans with scrupulous care the character and pedigree of his horses, cattle and dogs before he matches
them, but when he comes to his own marriage, he rarely or never takes any such care.'" "One of the greatest obstacles to our reaching a more ideal civilization is the fact that the low, diseased and vicious marry at an early age and beget many offspring, whilst the careful and virtuous marry later in life and have comparatively few children. Mr. Greg says: "'The careless, squalid, unaspiring Irishman multiplies like rabbits; the frugal, foreseeing, self-respecting, ambi tious Scot, stern in his morality, spiritual in his faith, saga cious and disciplined in his intelligence, passes his best years in struggle and in celibacy, marries late and leaves few behind him. Given a land originally peopled by a thousand Saxons and a thousand Cells, and in a dozen gen erations, five-sixths of the population would be Celts, but five-sixths of the property, of the power of the intellect, would belong to the one-sixth of the Saxons that re mained. In the eternal struggle for existence, it would be the inferior and less favored race that had prevailed — and prevailed by virtue, not of its good qualities, but of its faults.'" "Interesting, though startling, is the fact that the in crease of crime during the decade ending 1890, over that ending 1880, is from I to 299 per cent, and is to be seen in nearly every State and Territory in the union. The num ber of prisoners in the United States in 1.890 was 82,329, of which 901 were insane. The number of inmates of juvenile reformatories the same year was 14,846. The number of inmates of benevolent institutions, public and private, June I, 1890 (not including hospitals for the in sane, schools for the deaf and blind, or asylums for the feeble-minded), was 112,263, of which 55,316 were males, and 56,947 were females. The number of paupers was 73,045. The number of divorces in 1867 was 9,937; in 1886, 25,535, or a total of 328,716 in twenty years, which shows a greater percentage of increase than the increase of population. The expenditures for the care of the insane in the State of New York amount to $4,000,000 annually, a sum larger than for any other department. "The criminal expense of this country is enormous. Re cent statistics show that there are 52 penitentiaries in this country and over 17,000 jails. The first cost of these buildings was $500,000,000. The annual expense of these institutions is $100,000,000, and during the last year, for which statistics have been prepared, 900,000 people were incarcerated. Erie County expended, during the last year, for the insane, $259,782.41; schools, $241,597.64. "These are a few statistics that go to show the prev alence and rapid increase of unfavorable social conditions. To simply give the names of inebriety, tuberculosis, syphilis, idiocy and epilepsy, is sufficient to remind us of the fact that the burden we are carrying is almost overwhelming. Then the first duty of a state or nation is, or should be, to protect the lives of coming generations, as well as the lives and property of those now living. It should also be its duty to teach its people to know how to obtain and pre serve health, and compel the healthy ones to protect their offspring, by marrying the strong and vigorous only." '• This may appear to be going a little too far, to deny the poor man the privilege of having a so-called home of his own, but I do not mean the poor man who has it in him to work and gradually improve his condition, but the
