Brains and the Birth-Rate The Manchester Guardian this week has
published an interesting survey of the numbers of students at the univer- sities, with particular reference to the possible effects of the falling birth-rate. Though the figures are too incomplete to be conclusive, and there are notable exceptions like Oxford, Manchester, Liverpool and Sheffield, to some extent they confirm the expectation of a fall in numbers ; it is observable at Durham, at the Welsh university colleges, Birmingham and Cambridge. An indirect effect of the falling birth-rate is, by reducing the number of school children, to diminish the need for teachers ; and this should be remembered by candidates for the profession. The reduction of University entrants is accentuated by economic recovery, which, by creating good openings in business and industry, attracts young men away from the universities. This is by no means a loss to the progress of education, for as the principal of one of the provincial colleges remarked, the trade depression encouraged many young men to undertake studies for which they had no real aptitude. The results of this tentative enquiry should be of some importance for the Universities and for educational authorities ; they may either accept the prospect of a decline in the numbers of students, or attempt to counteract it by making university education accessible to a larger proportion of the population. It is to be hoped that the second course will be adopted.
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