Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 58.djvu/608

600 in six families, in ten families from which women of genius spring the boys predominate only in three.

I have made a tentative effort to ascertain what position in the family the child of genius is most likely to occupy. In a large number of cases we are only told his position as a son, not as a child; these are, of course, excluded. In order to investigate this point I considered the families of at least 8 children (and subsequently those of at least 7 children) and noted where the genius child came. This showed a very abnormally large proportion of eminent first children, and also abnormally few second and third children. Suspecting that certain peculiarities of the biographical mind (needless to enter into here, since we are not investigating the psychology of biographers) may have somewhat affected this result, I have confined myself to a simple inquiry less likely to be affected by any mental tendencies of the biographers. In families of different sizes, what relation do eldest genius children and youngest genius children bear to genius children of intermediate position? The results are very decisive. If, for instance, we take families of 7 children, it is found that they yield 8 eldest children of ability and

3 youngest, but only 10 for all the intermediate positions. If we take 8-children families, there are 3 eldest children of ability and 3 youngest, but only 10 intermediate. Again, 9-children families show as many as

4 eldest children of ability and 4 youngest, but only 1 intermediate child. So with 10-children families, there are 3 eldest children of ability and 3 youngest, but only 3 for all intermediate positions. It is so with families of 11 children and of 13 children. The only exception I have detected is in the case of 12-children families, in which group youngest children are wanting. So marked is the preponderance of eldest and youngest children of ability that only in two of these seven groups (7-children families to 13-children families) do the intermediate children of ability exceed in number the eldest and youngest children combined. It is evident that there is a special liability for eldest and youngest children to be born with intellectual aptitudes, the liability being greater in the case of the former than of the latter, for there are in the seven groups 24 eldest children to 18 youngest children, the intermediate children numbering 40.

Here again the results, however remarkable they may appear, are strictly such as we might have been led to expect. In the other mentally abnormal classes we find exactly similar phenomena. Thus, among 433 idiots Mitchell found that 138 were first-born children and 89 last-born children; so that here not only were the eldest and youngest children in an absolute majority over all those of intermediate position, but the eldest had to the youngest almost the same ratio (4 to 3) as we have found in the genius group. Shuttleworth has lately stated that among the so-called 'Mongolian' variety of imbeciles quite 40 per cent.