EUGENICS RECORD OFFICE. 



STAFF. 



During the year ending September 1, 1920, the Eugenics Record 

 Office has gradually resumed its former activities, though with dimin- 

 ished personnel, because of limited funds. Dr. H. H. Laughlin, who 

 has served effectively as superintendent of the Office from the beginning, 

 was given leave of absence for one year from June 1 and Dr. Banker 

 has served in his stead. Dr. Arthur H. Estabrook was honorably dis- 

 charged from the service of the government in April and took up again 

 his investigation of the Ishmaelites, with his headquarters at Indian- 

 apolis. Dr. Banker has continued his investigations into heredity of 

 aristogenic families. Dr. Wilhelmine E. Key returned to the Office for 

 a few months in the autumn and winter of 1919-20, but is now located 

 with the Battle Creek Sanitarium. Miss Nelson has served continu- 

 ously as archivist. 



HEREDITY IN ARISTOGENIC FAMILIES. 



Dr. Banker's work proceeds somewhat slowly, because he is without 

 clerical assistance and because of the difficulty in filling all the gaps in 

 the biographical records. He has been confronted with the difficulty 

 of expressing quantitatively the mental grade of individuals. In the 

 case of college graduates of the last three or four generations it is possi- 

 ble to obtain an approximate relative grade of intellectual attainment, 

 but for non-college people there is no basis for comparison. From the 

 data available one forms an impression of greater and less ability and 

 may arrange these crudely under an arbitrary scale, but it is impossible 

 to draw any definite lines to the scale and equally impossible to group 

 individuals into any definitely graded categories. 



Also, we are far from being in a position to make a Mendelian analy- 

 sis of the hereditary elements of the genes involved in an eminent 

 author, poet, or popular orator. Psychology has not progressed far 

 enough to aid in this matter. Indeed, it seems probable that the genet- 

 ical analysis will aid the psychologist. 



Nevertheless, Dr. Banker has obtained some significant facts from 

 the study of an extended network of closely interrelated families. 

 The network consists of a portion of the descendants of one couple 

 through seven or eight generations, together with the blood relatives 

 of these descendants for usually three or four generations. Lines in 

 which there were evidently no college graduates have been dropped. 

 The material so far accumulated contains more or less complete records 

 of 3,538 individuals, of whom 518 were college men, or 14.6 per cent. 

 This is, of course, too high a proportion for the whole network, because 

 of the dropping of those lines which contain no college-bred persons. 

 However, it gives a true percentage for those lines in which there are 



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