Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 66.djvu/546

542 From this we see, that although the decade from 30-39 shows the greatest productivity, it is but slightly greater than the next succeeding one, and that less than one half have made good—at least so far as public recognition is concerned—before the age of forty years.

Although these generalizations are for the whole group studied, irrespective of vocation, the first table shows considerable differences in the average age of those in the various professions and also in the percentages of those under forty years of age. This question was discussed by the author in the for July, 1902, but I take the liberty of touching upon it briefly again.

It is noticeable that the musician distances all competitors in the race for distinction. This is not hard to understand when we recall the infant prodigies who frequently figure on our bill boards, or consider that nature has in most cases contributed more largely to his success than has nurture. Of those callings which presuppose a professional or at least an extended preparation, that of scientist seems from our table to promise the earliest recognition. This is perhaps due to the fact that with him the actual work of life is entered with a completer intellectual equipment than by most of the others, and that the period of preparation offers opportunities for research and original investigation which may bring renown even before life work is begun. This would also apply to the college professor with perhaps fully as much force and in a lesser degree to the librarian and the educator. These four then might be included in a class in which the period of preparation is extended, but for which work of a high order might be expected immediately on its completion and positions of some prominence aspired to from the start. Next in the race for renown come the actor and the author, almost neck and neck. If we conclude that nature had most to do with the musician's success and nurture with the educator's, we should be forced to place the author and the actor in a class in which these two forces divide the honors more evenly. No doubt *one must be born an actor or an author to rise to a high rank, but after all, the making process is not to be despised as a factor, and this takes time. Except for the soldier and sailor, whose ability to rise to prominence, at least in time of peace, is determined by the rapidity with which those above him are retired from service, and the congressman and the statesman, whose minimum limit is prescribed by law, the rest of the vocations shown upon the chart fall, it seems to me, into a class for which the schools, as organized means of education, provide no adequate preparation, and for which that preparation must come to a great extent from the vocation itself. Thus the scientist, or even the college professor, who has devoted thirty years of life to study, can enter his profession from the top,