AMERICAN MEN OF SCIENCE 



783 



cost beyond the payment for their living, 

 which must be paid equally to those who 

 are educated and selected at our own ex- 

 pen.se. Not only the men themselves, but 

 their descendants also are assets to the 

 country of incalculable value. From the 

 point of view of the world at large, it is 

 probably an advantage to bring men of 

 distinction and of promise* to this country, 

 as this tends to promote friendly interna- 

 tional relations and good-will, and be- 

 cause, the wealth being greater here and 

 the competition less, we should be able to 

 give better opportunity to the men. The 

 war has placed on us great responsibility ; 

 we should provide for those debarred from 

 advancing science, scholarship and art at 

 home. 



Table II. The Percentage of the Scientific 



Men in each of Foue Grades according to 



the Nationality of their Pabents 



While it is comparatively easy to deter- 

 mine the nationality of scientific men and 

 of their parents, it is almost impossible to 

 determine their race. Indeed, a consider- 

 ation of the subject leads to a realization 

 of the complexity of the racial descent of 

 the peoples forming the nations of western 

 Europe and America. There are 13.5 



families .stated to be Jew.s. Of 71.5 Ger- 

 man families, 8 are Jew.s; of 6 Ru.s.sian 

 families, 5 are Jews; among 6G0.5 native 

 American families, there is only one Jew- 

 ish parent. Tliere may be some unrecorded 

 cases; the number of native-born scientific 

 men of Jewi.sh family is smaller tlian 

 might have been anticipated. Two fam- 

 ilies are Japanese; none is known to be 

 of Negro or of North American Indian 

 descent. 



The scientific men have been divided 

 into four groups in accordance with the 

 merit of their performance. These are: 

 I. those among the leading hundred of our 

 scientific men ; II. those among tlie second 

 and third hundreds; III. tho.se below this 

 rank in the thousand; and IV. tliose who 

 in the second arrangement fell below the 

 thousand. As shown in the previous 

 paper, the first three groups cover about 

 equal ranges of merit, and this also holds 

 in a general way for the fourth group. 

 In Table II. is given tlie nationality of 

 the parents of the scientific men in accord- 

 ance with these grades. Those of Amer- 

 ican parentage are of average standing; 

 those of British parentage are below and 

 those of German parentag:e are above the 

 average. Those of other nationalities are 

 slightly above the average. Among the 

 leading hundred men of science seven are 

 of Jewish family. The Jewish race thus 

 appears to sliow superior intellectual 

 ability. The differences in the other na- 

 tionalities and races are so small as to 

 indicate practical equality. The slight 



