SUPERIORITY OF THE ELDEST 



Investigation Among Professors in Italian Universities Shows that the First-born 



Are Most Frequent Among Them, While Children Born Late in the 



Generation Are the Rarest.' 



CORRADO GiNI 



Professor of Statistics in the University of Padua, Italy. 



ON SEVERAL occasions I have 

 called the attention of readers 

 of this Review to the impor- 

 tance of thp study of the 

 characteristics of children with relation 

 to their order of birth in a fraternity. 

 The importance is double : 



(1) to determine whether the privi- 

 leges accorded in so much past legisla- 

 tion and some even at the present day, 

 to the first-born, are justified; 



(2) to judge what consequences the 

 habit, widely gaining ground, of limit- 

 ing the size of a family, will have on the 

 quality of future generations. 



Before or after me, numerous authors 

 have considered the question : Pearson, 

 Heron, Macaulay, Weinberg, Crzellitzer, 

 March, Ploetz, Hansen, Goring, Green- 

 wood, Jr., Yule, Cobb, Rivers.^ Some 

 think defects and abnormalities are 

 more frequent in the first-born; others, 

 of wliom I am one, dispute the correct- 

 ness of the methods followed in many 

 cases, and the consequent validity of 

 the conclusions. 



Often, indeed, a pessimistic conclusion 

 about the quality of the first-born has 

 been announced, as a result of the 

 observation that defects and abnor- 

 malities were particularly frequent 

 among the first-born, or that eldest 

 children were found most frequently 

 among defectives and abnormals, with- 

 out taking into consideration the fact 

 that such a result might be due not to 



the fact that in a given family the 

 eldest were inferior to their successors 

 but to the circumstance that the sick 

 and abnormal are most common in 

 small families, which furnish no children 

 except those that are of relatively low 

 birth-rank. In some way, then, it is 

 necessary to climate from the calcula- 

 tions the influence of family-fecundity, 

 if we are to get a clear view of the in- 

 fluence of birth-rank. 



But there is another point to consider. 

 If in an investigation correctly carried 

 out, it were shown that the first-born 

 present bad characters more frequently 

 than their brothers, still it would not 

 be demonstrated that they are, on the 

 average, inferior. It might be explained 

 by the assimiption that the eldest are 

 merely more variable, and that they 

 more frequently show in an extreme 

 form either bad characters — or good 

 ones.^ Investigations on the distribu- 

 tion of maladies and abnormalities 

 according to birth-rank ought to be 

 followed by direct investigations on the 

 distribution according to birth-rank, 

 in single families, of the persons who 

 excel in physical or mental characters. 

 On this point the only observations 

 hitherto made, so far as I know,'* are 

 the inadequate ones of Axenfeld and 

 Robinovitch, based on insufficient 

 numbers, and contradictory in their 

 results. 



The best way to fill up this lacuna 



1 Translated from Rivista Italiana di Sociologia, Anno XVIII, fasc. II, Marzo-Aprile, 1914. 



- For the most recent contribution to the subi'ect see Chase, John H., Weakness of Eldest Sons. 

 Journal of Heredity, V, 5, 209, May, 1914.— The Editor. 



3 This is the explanation offered by Havelock Ellis in Hereditary Genius, for the fact that many 

 of England's most talented men have been eldest sons. — The Editor. 



■• Alexander Graham Bell has investigated the inheritance of longevity in nearly 3,000 cases. 

 His figures (not yet published) show the first two children to be almost exactly average, as far 

 as longevity is concerned. Bevond them the curve rises, and the next two children are superior 

 to the average, the fifth child is again average, while the later children— from the sixth on— show 

 an inferior longevity. — The Editor. 



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