Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 66.djvu/543

Rh accept them as the basis of the controversy. It is plain that in the discussion of the second of the 'fixed ideas' the allusion to Trollope and the use of chloroform for the sexagenari was a bit of pleasantry and not intended by the speaker to be taken seriously. It has, however, proved too subtle for many a yellow sheet.

Yet it is just as plain that Dr. Osier in all seriousness believes that man's constructive period reaches its climax and begins to decline by the age of forty years and also that the world would be the gainer if all active participants in its affairs were at the age of sixty replaced by younger men. He does not, I take it, contend that men above that age are absolutely useless, but only relatively so. That is, for every man in service above the age of sixty, a better man could be found to take his place below that age. In considering this proposition it is inevitable that men, such as Gladstone, Bismarck, Moltke, Hoar, Rockefeller, Morgan and scores of others beyond the age limit, leaders in various activities, come to mind as refutations of his theories. Yet we must not forget that, according to the census, 6.4 per cent, of the inhabitants of the United States, or 4,871,861 persons, are beyond the age of sixty years, and that instances of aged leadership are comparatively rare—perhaps sufficiently so as to give some support to Dr. Osiers contention.

But it is the former of Dr. Osier's 'fixed ideas' that I wish primarily to discuss, the one expressed in the words that 'the effective, moving, vitalizing work of the world has been done between the ages of twenty-five and forty. We can not doubt that large numbers of thinking people are roughly of his opinion. Many corporations refuse to add to their working forces persons beyond the age of forty years, and a question recently taken up for serious discussion before a national body of educators was whether teachers did not as a class depreciate in effectiveness after the age of thirty-five.

It is not, however, through the expression of personal opinion that I can hope to add anything to the question, but through recourse to a considerable mass of data that I happen to have in my possession showing the age at which some thousands of Americans have received public recognition for services rendered. I refer to those mentioned in 'Who's Who in America.' Some years ago in connection with a study the purpose of which was to determine the educational preparation of those who had achieved the kind of eminence which mention in that book indicates, I made a tabulation of the ages of the nearly 9,000 persons mentioned in the edition of 1900. The names fell quite naturally, so far as vocation is concerned, into two twenty-five groups, the greater number of which—for men only—are given in the following