File:Physical culture (1908) (14780501714).jpg

Identifier: physicalculture201908macf (find matches)
Title: Physical culture
Year: 1899 (1890s)
Authors: MacFadden, Bernarr Aldolphus, 1858-
Subjects: Physical education and training
Publisher: New York : Physical Culture Publishing Co.
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
.27,000 But last year—1907—the mostportentous change occurred. Then, thedeaths exceeded the births by just 20,000.That condition which for long had beenanticipated and dreaded by the socialeconomists, the philanthropists, the poli-ticians, and the patriots of the FrenchRepublic, had at last come to pass.France, on the evidence of statisticswhich could not be disputed, was, andfor that matter is, a nation doomed toextinction! It need hardly be said that the recentpublication of these statistics by theGovernment, have spread somethingakin to consternation in the country 547 548 PHYSICAL CULTURE which they affect. Already there are ahost of plans being formulated by thosein and out of authority to the end ofchecking, or at least retarding, thecatastrophe which threatens the nation. But it must be confessed that most ofsuch plans, while theoretically sound, arehardly likely to be found practicable,because they do not deal directly withthe affairs and things which have brought • •
Text Appearing After Image:
From stcreograpn, copyright by Underwood & Underwood, M. Y. Interior of the home of a childless millionaire, Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, near the Arch ofTriumph, Paris* Such homes are unhappily the rule among the rich in France. THE FRENCH NATION DYING OUT 549 about a nearly sterile France. Appealsto national pride, and to the paternalaiid maternal instinct, are all very wellin their way, but they are likely to provefutile in the presence of the greed andpersonal vanity which have apparentlyproduced the evil in question. NoGovernment in the world can legislatepeople into obedience to human morallaw, and it is equally powerless when itattempts to deal with those who seek toevade the jurisprudence of Nature. Thedesire for offspring is one of the strongestof all the desires of normal man and wo-man. If this desire dies, individually ornationally, it proves that abnormalityrules, and that Providence is taking stepsto remove the race which has outlivedits usefulness. This may seem hard

Note About Images