796 



AMERICAN MEN OF SCIENCE 



eighth of the population of the nation. 

 The greater productivity of cities in men 

 of distinction is doubtless in part due to 

 the fact that the abler and more enter- 

 prising people are drawn from the coun- 

 try to the cities, their children inheriting 

 superior ability, and in part to the fact 

 that the city-born children have an en- 

 vironment more favorable to education 

 and to success in scientific work. 



The number of families from the south- 

 ern and western states is too small to give 

 reliable information in regard to the num- 

 ber of children. The fraternities of the 

 scientific men from the North Central 

 States are lai^er than of those from the 

 North Atlantic States, but their own 

 families are smaller. The differences are 

 small, but apparently significant. The 

 scientific men born in the North Central 

 States came from families of 5.0 and had 

 families of 2.2, those from the North 

 Atlantic States came from families of 4.4 

 and had families of 2.3. A generation ago 

 the families of the central States at least 

 those of this particular class were larger 

 than those of the Northeastern States; 

 they are now slightly smaller. The fertile 

 and wealthy state of Iowa had a smaller 

 population in 1910 than in 1900. The in- 

 crease in the population of the country is 

 maintained by immigrants and the chil- 

 dren of immigrants. The 87 scientific men 

 born in Massachusetts had fraternities of 

 4.1 and families of 2.1 children, the 117 

 born in New York State had fraternities 

 of 4.5 and families of 2.3 children. 



The table shows the great preponder- 

 ance of the North Atlantic and North 

 Central States in the production of scien- 

 tific men and the infertility of the south, 

 concerning which statistics have been given 

 by the writer in previous articles. The 

 birth rate of leading scientific men per 

 million of the population has been 107 in 

 Massachusetts, 89 in Connecticut, 47 in 

 New York, 23 in Pennsylvania, 32 in Ohio, 

 36 in Michigan, 45 in Wisconsin, 24 in Illi- 



nois, 12 in Missouri, 9 in Virginia, 5 in 

 North Carolina, 3 in Georgia, 2 in Ala- 

 bama, 1 in Mississippi and Louisiana. In 

 recent years, however, the North Central 

 States have been gaining and the North 

 Atlantic States have been relatively losing. 

 Thus for younger men the birth rates in 

 figures comparable to those given above 

 have fallen to 85 in Massachusetts, 57 in 

 Connecticut and 36 in New York, whereas 

 they have risen to 35 in Ohio, 74 in Mich- 

 igan and 54 in Wisconsin. These differ- 

 ences and changes the A^-riter is disposed 

 to attribute in the main to environment 

 rather than to heredity. From the fam- 

 ih^ stocks of Massachusetts, Michigan or 

 Louisiana, we can obtain as many compe- 

 tent scientific men as we care to educate 

 and support. 



Table IX, The Sizes of the Fraternities and 

 Families of the Scientific Men in ac- 

 cordance WITH THE Institution at 



which THEY ARE EMPLOYED 



Larger universities 



Smaller state institutions. . . 

 Smaller private institutions. 



U. S. government 



Commercial and private . . . 

 Research laboratories, etc. . 



No. 



242 

 89 



122 

 73 

 61 

 56 



Total 643 



Fr. 



4.50 

 5.04 

 4.69 

 4.64 

 4.72 

 4.52 



Ch. 



2.18 

 2.62 

 2.29 

 2.00 

 2.44 

 2.41 



4.65 i 2.28 



The distribution of the families among 

 different kinds of institutions is given in 

 Ta.ble IX. The fraternities of the scien- 

 tific men are substantially the same in all 

 cases. The only instance in which the 

 departure from the average exceeds the 

 probable error is for the smaller state- 

 supported institutions, and the difference 

 here may not be significant. In the case 

 of the children of the scientific men, the 

 size of family is probably influenced by 

 the environment. The 73 men in the gov- 

 ernment service, most of whom live in 

 Washington, have the smallest families, 

 those in the smaller state-supported insti- 

 tutions the largest. The probable errors 



