Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 66.djvu/544

540 table, together with the number in each group, the median age of the group and the percentage of persons under the age of forty years.

Although this table has a bearing upon the minimum age at which a certain sort of public recognition is given to achievement, in its consideration two things must be borne in mind; first, that many of those who were at the issue of the book over forty years of age performed the service which gave them prominence before they had reached that age; and, second, that there must always be something of a lag in public recognition, and in all probability many who had already performed service of importance had not yet been promoted to the ranks of 'Who's Who' Yet, even with these qualifications, the figures are not without their bearing upon the question of the minimum age at which important public service is rendered, for without doubt achievement of the first rank is not slow of recognition. And the thing which must strike one most forcibly in any inspection of the table is the comparatively few men under forty years of age. Of the 6,983 men, the median age is fifty-four years, while but 1,118, or less than one in six, were below the age of forty years. Stated in other words, this means that in the year 1900 out of a group of nearly 7,000 eminent men but 16 per cent, were within Dr. Osier's age period of most 'effective, moving, vitalizing work.' Although this fact can not be taken as disproving his