AMERICAN MEN OF SCIE.N'CE 



797 



of the figures are about 0.1, so the differ- 

 ences are not likely to be due to chance. 

 The 61 men in commercial work, or having 

 no institutional affiliations, and the 56 

 men in research and related institutions 

 have families larger than the average, 

 while those in the larger universities have 

 families smaller than the average. In the 

 larger private universities the situation, 

 for those with 10 or more professors who 

 supplied the information, is: Harvard, 42 

 families with an average of 2.2 children ; 

 Yale, 16 and 2.0; Chica,go, 25 and 2.1; 

 Johns Hopkins 12 and 2.1; Cornell, 29 

 and 2.3 ; Stanford, 13 and 2.4 ; Princeton, 

 10 and 2.5; Pennsylvania, 13 and 2.5; 

 Columbia, 25 and 2.7. The smallest fam- 

 ilies are at Yale, Johns Hopkins and 

 Chicago, the largest at Princeton, Penn- 

 sylvania and Columbia. The larger state 

 universities have professors with the small- 

 est families, the size of family being Mich- 

 igan, 17 families with an average of 2.1 

 children; Minnesota, 10 and 1.8; Wiscon- 

 sin, 15 and 1.7; Illinois, 15 and 1.6 



The figures given are for completed 

 families and for all children bom. The 

 death rate for the children of scientific 

 men is unusually small, 75 per thousand 

 to the age of five j^ears and about 120 to 

 the age of marriage. The marriage rate 

 for scientific men is high, 895 among the 

 thousand being married. None the less it 

 is obvious that the families are not self- 

 perpetuating. The scientific men under 

 fifty, of whom there are 261 with com- 

 pleted families, have on the average 1.88 

 children, about 12 per cent, of whom die 

 before the age of marriage. What pro- 

 portion will marry we do not know; but 

 only about 75 per cent, of HarA'ard and 

 Yale graduates marry; only 50 per cent, 

 of the graduates of colleges for women 

 marry. A scientific man has on the aver- 

 age about seven tenths of an adult son. 

 If three fourths of his sons and grandsons 

 marry and their families continue to be 

 of the same size, a thousand scientific men 



will leave about 350 grandsons who marry 

 to transmit their names and their heredi- 

 tary traits. The extermination will be 

 still more rapid in female lines. 



If the families of the scientific men 

 should increa.se at the rate of the general 

 population, the thousand leading scientific 

 men would have some 6,000 grandchildren 

 instead of fewer than 2,000. These well- 

 endowed and well-placed people would 

 probably have an average economic worth 

 through their performance of not less 

 than $100,000, and the money loss due to 

 their non-existence is thus $400,000,000. 

 The loss to the welfare of the nation and 

 the world from the suppression of the 

 social traditions and the germplasm is in- 

 caleulahle. Until democratic society learns 

 that services for society must be paid fop 

 by society, and tliat the two most impor- 

 tant services are scientific research and 

 the bearing and rearing of children, the 

 universities, on which three fourtks of 

 our scientific men depend for support, 

 have great responsibilities. They to a 

 certain extent profess that research is part 

 of the work for which their professors are 

 paid, but they do not acknowledge a sim- 

 ilar obligation in regard to the children 

 of professors. Columbia University gives, 

 under certain faculties, scholarsiiips to the 

 sons of professors; Yale University has 

 had a statute by whicli a married professor 

 received a slightly increased salary; the 

 provisions of the Carnegie Foundation 

 benefit married professors. But these are 

 slight acknowledgments of the obligations 

 of our universities. 



President Eliot tells us that "the welfare 

 of the family is the ultimate end of all 

 industry, trade, education and govern- 

 ment"; but, in his book on "University 

 Administration," he writes: 



The general features of a good scale of sabries 

 are as follows: The salarv of an annual appointee 

 at the start should be low, about the amount neetled 

 by a young unnsarried nian for comfortable sup- 

 port in the university's city or \-illage. When, 



