Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 58.djvu/553

Rh certain number of cases the particular 'trade' or 'business' of the father is not specified.

The group which I have denominated 'Crafts' is closely related to that of 'Trade/ and in many cases it is difficult or impossible to decide whether an occupation should be entered under one or the other head. But, speaking generally, there is a very clear distinction between the two groups. The trade avocations are essentially commercial, and for success they involve, above all, financial ability; the crafts are essentially manual, and success here involves more of the qualities of the artist than of the tradesman. Just as the banker is the typical representative of commercial transactions, so the carpenter stands at the head of the crafts. There seems to be something peculiar in the life or aptitudes of the carpenter especially favorable to the production of intellectual children, for this association has occurred as many as 13 times, while there are 4 builders. No other craft approaches the carpenter in this respect; there are 5 shoemakers, 5 cloth-workers, 5 weavers (all belonging to the early phase of industrial development before factories), 5 goldsmiths and jewelers, 4 blacksmiths, while many other handicrafts are mentioned once or twice.

Finally, we reach the group of parents engaged in some unskilled work, and, therefore, belonging to the very lowest social class. It is the smallest of all the groups, and, though including some notable persons, it can scarcely be said to be a preeminently distinguished group. As many as 8 of the parents were common soldiers, the rest mostly agricultural laborers.

It may be interesting to inquire whether our eminent men, when grouped according to the station and avocation of their fathers, show any marked group-characters; whether, in other words, the occupation of the father exercises an influence on the nature and direction of the intellectual aptitudes of the son. To some extent it does exercise such an influence. It is true that there are eminent men of very various kinds in all of these groups. But there is yet a clearly visible tendency for certain kinds of ability to fall into certain groups. It is not surprising that there should be a tendency for the son to follow the profession of the father. Nor is it surprising that a great number of statesmen should be found in the upper class group. Men of letters are yielded by every class, perhaps especially by the clergy, but Shakespeare and, it is probable, Milton belonged to families of yeomen. The sons of lawyers, one notes, even to a greater extent than the eminent men of 'upper class' birth, eventually find themselves in the House of Lords, and not always as lawyers. The two groups of Army and Medicine are numerically identical, but in other respects very unlike. The sons of army men form a very brilliant and versatile group, and include a large proportion of great soldiers; the sons of doctors do not show a