AGE AND EMINENCE. 541 



lion, since, as has been said, a considerable number of the older men 

 may have completed their important work at an early age, still it would 

 seem to throw some serious doubts upon the truth of his generalization. 

 At least the figures show that in a group of arbitrarily limited extent, 

 i. e., the size of ' Who's Who,' the young man in competition for a 

 place is but a one to five ' shot.' But it is possible, through recourse 

 to mathematics, to indicate approximately the age at which the service 

 was rendered which secured admission to the book. To illustrate — of 

 the entire number of 6,983 comprising our group, 86 were between the 

 ages of twenty and twenty-nine years, the entire number having become 

 famous during that decade of life. The probable mortality of that 

 number of persons for the decade, supposing them to be good ' risks,' 

 would be six. We may then suppose that 80 would enter the next 

 decade. But our figures show that 922 of our entire group were 

 between the ages of 30-39, inclusive, leaving the number 842 as rep- 

 resenting the number of new names admitted during the decade. Of 

 the total number for this age period (922), the mortality tables lead 

 us to suppose that 78 will die before its completion, giving us 844 as 

 the number passing on to the next group — that for the age decade of 

 40-49 years. Again we get the probable number added during the 

 decade by subtracting the number thus admitted from the previous 

 group, from 1,620, the total number of persons of the age covered by 

 the decade and find the total number added for services rendered during 

 the decade to be 776. In the same way, by using the continually 

 increasing mortality rate and applying it to the number left over from 

 previous decade-groups, we find the number added between the years 

 50-59 to be 376; from 60-69 years, 51. Beyond this point the com- 

 putation gives us minus quantities for the number of persons admitted 

 during each of the next three decades, indicating seemingly either or 

 both of two conditions; first, that the mortality among these men of 

 eminence is greater than that of the insurable risks upon which the 

 mortality tables are based; second, that in the compilation of ' Who's 

 Who,' the old men did not receive the recognition given to their 

 younger confreres, thus reducing the size of these more advanced age- 

 groups. Either one of these conditions would tend to bring about the 

 statistical result alluded to, and on consideration we have reason to 

 believe that both of them are active. 



If the above reasoning is not fallacious, and if there is no great lag 

 in the public recognition of achievement, we have a further refutation 

 of Dr. Osier's contention that the ' work of the world is done between 

 the ages of twenty-five and forty,' for we find the ratio of recognition 

 for the several decades to be as follows : 



20-29 30-39 40-49 50-59 60-69 



3.9 per cent. 39.5 per. cent. 36.4 per cent. 17.6 per cent. 2.4 per cent. 



