f them lead to deterioration. This law can
be applied to nations. Historians have often observed that the most
powerful states of the world arose from an amalgamation of different
tribes. Rome, Greece, England, are examples of this. On the other hand,
France, Russia, Spain, China, Persia, which have suffered no such
crosses of blood, are either stationary, or depend for their progress on
foreigners.

Physicians have contributed other curious testimony on this point, the
bearing of which they themselves have not understood. Marriages between
nationalities of the same race are more fertile, and the children more
vigorous, than those between descendants of the same nation. For
instance, it has been proved that if two descendants of the Pilgrim
Fathers in Massachusetts marry, they will probably have but three
children; while, if one of them marries a foreigner, the children will
number five or six.

So it is well ascertained that in the old and stationary communes of
France, where the same families have possessed their small farms for
generation after generation, the marriages have become gradually less
and less productive, until it has seriously interfered with the quota
those districts send to the army.

American women have suffered many hard words because they do not have
more children. Several New England writers have accused them of very bad
practices, which we shall mention hereafter. But the effect of the law
of production just now laid down has been quite overlooked.

As it is best that there should be four or five children in a family in
ordinary circumstances, the union of American and foreign blood is very
desirable. We need to fuse in one the diverse colonies of the white race
annually reaching our shores. A century should efface every trace of the
German, the Irish, the Frenchman, the English, the Norwegian, and leave
nothing but the American. To bring about this happy result, free
intermarriage should be furthered in every possible way.

THE AGE OF THE HUSBAND.

The epoch of puberty comes to a boy at about the same age as it does to
a girl,--fourteen or fifteen years. And an even greater period passes
between this epoch and the age it is proper for a man to marry,--his age
of nubility.

Not only has he a more complete education to obtain, not only a
profession or trade to learn, and some property to accumulate, some
position to acquire, ere he is ready to take a wife, but his physical
powers ripen m