such a test. The largest central group consists of normal or average children. Those whose mental capacity is lower fall in the spaces to the left while the superior children are shown to the right.

56-65 66-75 76-85 86-95 96-105 106-115 116-125 126-135 136-145 .33% 2.3% 8.6% 20.1% 33.9% 18.1% 9.05% 2.8% .55% FIG. 30. THE DISTRIBUTION OF INTELLIGENCE

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The I. Q.'s of 905 unselected children, 5-14 years of age.

Since the frequency of the various grades of intelligence decreases gradually and at no point abruptly on each side of the median, it is evident there is no definite dividing line between normality and feeble-mindedness, or between normality and genius. Psychologically, the mentally defective child does not belong to a distinct type, nor does the genius. . . . The common opinion that extreme deviations below the median are vastly more frequent than extreme deviations above the median seems to have no foundation in fact. Among unselected school children, at least, for every child of any given degree of deficiency, there is another child as far above the average as the former is below.

Granted that there are as many above as below the average it needs no argument to show that the former are in position to make greater contributions to social welfare provided their powers are properly directed. It is equally obvious that they may do greater harm if they abuse their powers. This question does not now concern us. There has been, is, and will be, much discussion, often futile, as to the relative rôles of heredity and environment in the production of genius.

The genius is affected by his environment just as clearly as is the idiot. Our present task is to state the facts.

Environment and Achievement

Terman, from whom we have just quoted, has made a study of a thousand California children who had been picked out by their teachers as superior. On the intelligence scale all these rated as 140 or over, some as high as 190. That they came from families fortunately situated is revealed by the statement that the average family income was $3,300 a year.

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It will be seen that the professional group furnished 1,003 per cent, or ten times its quota; the public service group 1.37 times its quota; the commercial group 1.28 times its quota; and the industrial group, which constitutes nearly 60 per PERCENTAGE OF SCHOOL CHILDREN RANKING ABOVE MEDIAN OF ENTIRE GROUP 29

cent of the population of these cities, 0.35, or one-third of its share of genius.

Pressey and Ralston obtained very similar results in a middle-western city.

As a matter of fact, all studies have indicated a close correlation between achievement and the social position of the families from which people come. Galton found that not more than one person in four thousand of the general population became eminent but that one of every eight sons of English judges was distinguished. Havelock Ellis in his Study of British Genius, 1904, assigned some 60 per cent of distinguished men to the professional and upper classes, 18 per cent to the commercial classes, 9 per cent to craftsmen, 6 per cent to yeomen and farmers, 3 per cent to officials and clerks and per cent to laborers. Cattell in America found that the fathers of 885 leading scientific men had been engaged as follows:

Woods and Ireland studied the records in the English Dictionary of National Biography, which included 30,000 distinguished persons of England and covered a period of a thousand years. It was found that 88.7 per cent came from the upper classes and only a little over II per cent from the lower. Later Ireland studied the records of those born between 1700 and 1800, 120 in all, and found that only 27 (22.5 per cent) came from the artisan, craftsmen and unskilled labor groups. Since 1825 only 6 (5.3 per cent) of 112 have come from the same groups. 30

In as much as there is no dispute about the facts, we may

grant the rôle of heredity in producing ability and accept the conclusions of Karl Pearson after a study of some 4,000 English school children.

We are forced, I think literally forced, to the general conclusion that the physical and psychical characters in man are inherited in the same manner, and with the same intensity. The average home environment, the average parental instinct is in itself a part of the heritage of the stock and not an extraneous and additional factor emphasizing the resemblance between children of the same home.

Geniality and probity and ability may be fostered by the home environment and by provision of good schools and well-equipped institutions for research, but their origin, like health and muscle, is deeper than these things. They are bred and not created. That good stock breeds good stock is the commonplace of every farmer; that the strong man and woman have healthy children is widely recognized too, but we have left the moral and mental faculties as qualities for which we can provide amply by home environment and good education.

It is the stock itself which makes its home environment, the education is of small service, unless it be applied to an intelligent race of men.31

Specific and General Ability

One big question remains unanswered and unanswerable at present. Is superior ability general or limited to specific fields? It is not easy to find satisfactory evidence. The superior lawyer often succeeds later in life as a business executive. The college president seems qualified to lead a union of beggars. Provided no great technical knowledge is required the shift from one profession to another with equivalent success appears possible. The mature lawyer would find it almost impossible to become an equally successful surgeon. The musician may become a president but few presidents could qualify as musicians. High achievement in many callings requires long and arduous preparations. However, when one brother becomes a teacher, the second a

lawyer, the third a doctor, is there any reason to question corresponding success had they shifted their choices at the beginning? This is equivalent to saying that we know little of specific ability so that the choice of careers is largely determined by early ideals and opportunities for preparation. Here is the crux of the whole matter. Men who achieve great things come from homes of great opportunities. Who is to determine whether the innate endowment or the opportunities have most to do with later achievement?

Apparently the clearest case of definite physical equipment for a career is in music. Possibly this is true of other artistic careers also, for artists have come from families of artists or craftsmen often enough to suggest a correlation, but musical talent appears so often in families that some definite nerve or brain structure seems evident. The most famous musical family of modern times started about 1550 with Weit Bach, a German baker, who found relaxation in music. His two sons started the line of musicians bearing the name of Bach which lasted unbroken for nearly two centuries. They were all organists or church singers. In no other family known to us have so many musical geniuses appeared, twenty-nine in all. Mozart, Beethoven and Amati were members of musical families. Thorwaldsen, Van Dyck, Murillo, and Titian came from families of artists. Yet, as often as not, when the son of an eminent man attains distinction, it is in some other field.

Genius and Eminence

Some years ago F. A. Woods sought to surmount the difficulty of securing accurate information about men and women of earlier generations by studying the royal houses of Europe. He classified the men according to ability into ten classes, the lowest being number one, and found that of every hundred the number in the different classes was as shown in the table following: