PEOPLE FOR THE EARTH 587 



Valuable combinations of traits persist in families generation 

 after generation. The biographies of distinguished men and 

 women commonly tell something of the family history, and we 

 are impressed with the fact that in most cases the biographer is 

 able to tell of the many good families with which the subject of 

 the story is connected. One of the most remarkable family 

 histories in this country is that of the descendants of Jonathan 

 Edwards, who was president of Princeton College. There were 

 about 1400 persons in this family by the year 1900. They in- 

 cluded a dozen college presidents, about 60 physicians and as 

 many college professors, about 100 ministers, about 100 lawyers, 

 60 authors, 75 officers in the army and navy, and about as many 

 public officials, besides about 30 judges. Jonathan Edwards 

 had four sisters, each one of whom left distinguished descend- 

 ants, including a signer of the Declaration of Independence, 

 General Ulysses S. Grant, and President Grover Cleveland. In 

 the records of distinguished service to the public certain names 

 appear over and over again, no matter what community history 

 you look into ; and certain kinds of talent appear repeatedly. 

 Thus, while the Edwards family gave m.any scholars and 

 educators, other families gave chiefly prominent scientists or 

 soldiers or statesmen. 



421. Poor stock. The records show that certain families 

 furnish excessive proportions of criminals to the community. 

 In very many cases that have been studied, however, shiftless- 

 ness, dishonesty, irresponsibility, and other undesirable traits, 

 as well as many undesirable forms of behaving, result from bad 

 conditions of living. Moreover, a very large proportion of 

 those who become criminal and dependent are really feeble- 

 minded and incapable of learning to live in a high-grade manner. 

 Not only, then, is feeble-mindedness inherited, but most children 

 in the families of feeble-minded stock never have a chance to 

 develop their natural abihties for decent living. One of the most 

 striking records is that of the Kallikak family, A young man of 

 good family, during the Revolutionary War, became the father 

 of a child whose mother was feeble-minded. The descendants of 



