Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 66.djvu/547

Rh while the business man and financier for whom the accumulation of wealth is a desideratum, or the lawyer and the doctor who must command a practise, or the minister who needs a congregation, must with the same period of intellectual infancy enter it from the bottom and devote a few more years to the climbing process. In so far as the physician is an investigator, the conditions of the scientist apply to him, and no doubt the considerable number who are such accounts for the fact that his recognition comes earlier than that of his competitors in law and the pulpit. The surprising thing of the figures is perhaps the slowness with which the inventor gains a foothold in the ladder of fame. Not one of those mentioned was below the age of forty years, though the group is too small to give this fact much weight.

Although women are not included in the table given, the study of those mentioned in 'Who's Who' shows that upon the stage and in musical circles recognition is much earlier for them than for men, while in all other callings it is slower. This would seem to suggest that attractiveness of person is at a greater premium with her than with her brother, and perhaps makes up for some other defects. When however this is outlived with youth, the struggle seems to be a hard, if not a losing one.