Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/130

120 gifts are as strictly matters of inheritance as any purely physical qualities."

In 1874 Mr. Galton published his "English Men of Science; their Nature and Nurture." It was a summary of the results which he had obtained from inquiries addressed to the most eminent scientific men of England, respecting the hereditary and other circumstances which might have been influential in directing them toward the careers in which they shone, and promoting their success in them. His criterion, in selecting men as typical for his purpose, was somewhat like that which M. de Candolle adopted. He took persons who had been elected to the Royal Society, and of them those who had been otherwise distinguished by receiving medals, or by holding official positions in scientific bodies or professorships in some important college or university. One hundred and eighty men were questioned for facts concerning their parentage and descent, the religious opinions, occupations, political party, health, stature, complexion, temperament, size of head, and a great many other particular facts concerning their parents and themselves; regarding their brothers and sisters, and their salient characteristics; the numbers and principal achievements of more distant relatives, grandparents, uncles and aunts, cousins, nephews and nieces; and the mode and duration of the education of the questioned scientific man himself, with an analysis of the causes of success of which he was conscious.

From the replies to these inquiries it appeared that the chief qualities in the order of their prevalence among scientific men were, energy, both of body and mind; good health; great independence of character; tenacity of purpose; practical business habits; and strong innate tastes for science generally, or for some branch of it.

The replies respecting the special experience in education of the men addressed exhibited a striking unanimity, notwithstanding the diversity of branches of science which they severally pursued. They commonly expressed a hatred of grammar and the classics, and an utter distaste for the old-fashioned system of education. "The following seems the programme they themselves would have most liked: 1. Mathematics, rigorously taught up to their capacity, and copiously illustrated and applied, so as to throw as much interest into its pursuit as possible; 2. Logic; 3. Some branch of science (observation, theory, and experiment), some boys taking one branch and some another, to insure variety of interests under the same roof; 4. Accurate drawing of objects connected with that branch of science; 5. Mechanical handiwork. All these to be rigorously taught. The following not to be taught rigorously: reading good books (not trashy ones) in literature, history, and art; a moderate knowledge of the more useful languages, taught in the easiest way, probably by going abroad in vacations. It is abundantly evident that the leading men of science have not been made by much or regular teaching. They craved