38 



The Journal of Heredity 



in our knowledge is to address to all 

 the i:)ersons who excel in any particular 

 walk of life, cither by physical or mental 

 powers, a simple questionnaire contain- 

 ing questions like this: 



(1) How many children had your 

 parents ? 



(2) Among these children what is 

 your own order of birth' 



A questionnaire of this sort, signed b\' 

 Sig. F. Floris, laureate in juris]jrudcnce 

 at the royal university of Cagliari, and 

 by myself, was sent out during the pres- 

 ent year to all the professors in Italian 

 universities. We received 445 replies, 

 of which 416 related to families con- 

 taining at least two children, and there- 

 fore of value to this investigation. They 



ber of ]:)rofessors for each birth-rank as 

 100, and thus obtain the theoretical num- 

 ber which wc would ha\'e gotten if, in 

 each family, the cjuota of professors 

 furnished was quite independent of 

 l)irth-rank. 



The actual number of university pro- 

 fessors is thus seen to be greater than 

 theoretical expectation among the first 

 born and less than expectation among 

 the cadets: compared with theory, the 

 difference is seen to be the less, the higher 

 the birth-rank of the individual. 



Taking into consideration the rigor- 

 ous system, based on competition, by 

 which entr\' to an Italian university is 

 regulated, it must be admitted that the 

 Italian universit\- ]jrofessors represent a 



Order in gcncralion. 



Number of profes- 

 sors from families 

 of at least two 

 ehildren. 



Theoretical number 

 on the hypothesis 

 that distribution 

 of y)rofessors is 

 independent of or- 

 der of birth. 



100a 

 b 



show (a) how the professors in Italian 

 universities are distributed in regard to 

 Vjirth-rank; and (b) whether, in a given 

 family, the frequency of attainment of 

 a university professorship is indejicn- 

 dent of the birth-rank, or whether it 

 varies with the latter, and if so, in which 

 sense. 



The second column of the following 

 table answers the first question. The 

 141 first-born professors came from 

 416 families with at least two children, 

 and 29 each of whom is an "only child" 

 ought to be added; one thus obtains a 

 total of 170 first-born jjrofessors among 

 the 445 families which furnished univer- 

 sity professors. C\)lumn 4 answers the 

 second question : I lake the aclual nuni- 



stringently selected group of the pojju- 

 lation, and it can not be doubted that 

 their intellectual level is, on the aver- 

 age, notably above that of the class 

 from which they spring. It seems fair 

 to conclude, therefore, that the first- 

 born, at least so far as concerns scien- 

 tific attainment, are superior to their 

 juniors and that, among these latter, 

 the last-born are inferior to their i)red- 

 ecessors. 



Two objections particularly can be 

 urged against these conclusions. 



(a) Women rarely aspire to a uni- 

 versity career. To decide the influence 

 of birth-rank on scientific attainment, 

 we shotild therefore restrict our inquiry 

 to the number of male cliildriMi born to 



