Francis Galton . 57 



FRANCIS GALTON, LIFE AND WORK. 

 Robert Hessler, Indianapolis. 



Francis Galton was born one hundred years ago near Birmingham, 

 England. Early in life he took up work in neglected fields. He became 

 a great man of science and developed Eugenics, a system or science con- 

 cerned with improving races by breeding. 



He was a contemporary of Charles Darwin (his cousin), of Thomas 

 H. Huxley, Herbert Spencer, and of a number of other noted men — 

 men whose insight and aid were valuable to him in developing his own 

 ideas and his work. 



More specifically, Galton was born under a most favorable and 

 healthful environment, amidst green fields, with long-lived ancestors, 

 intellectual and well-to-do parents, with four sisters and two brothers 

 older than himself. A sister made it her duty to look after his early 

 education. Formal education in school and college he bore badly, for 

 there is repeated mention of ill-health. He instinctively sought the open- 

 air life, which to him spelled health. He was able to bear great physi- 

 cal exertion and exposure, a trait of value to him in exploring expedi- 

 tions and which he believed he inherited from his mother's side — just 

 as he looked upon his tendency to bronchitis and asthma as an inherit- 

 ance from his father's side. Euthenically considered, it appears, how- 

 ever, that he overlooked the fact that his great-grandfather was coun- 

 try-bred and reacted on removing to the city, just as his father reacted, 

 and as he himself reacted; for he had stated that he could not bear 

 close, warm, and carpeted rooms. 



On his mother's side both his grandfather and great-grandfather had 

 been physicians and his mother desired him to follow in their footsteps. 

 This he was willing to do and he entered hospital work, but during his 

 university studies his health failed. About the time he completed his 

 medical education his father died, and being left with independent 

 means he never became a practitioner. The family now broke up, and 

 he himself took to traveling and became a noted explorer. 



In his Memories of My Life he mentions getting married and the 

 value of marrying into a good family, but there is no mention of any 

 offspring. References indicate that he had much ill-health in London, 

 and he became a bird of passage, leaving the city on the approach of 

 the closed-door season for an open-air climate. His cousin, Charles 

 Darwin, reacted even more acutely to city conditions and left the city 

 entirely. 



A centenary presents an opportunity to review a man's life and 

 work, but unless an essayist is unusually well qualified he may hesitate 

 to express any opinions — but he can at least voice his appreciation and 

 admire the industry revealed by a long list of titles. A full bibliography 

 appears in his autobiographic Memories of My Life, and reveals his 

 various and successive activities. His chief works may be referred to 

 briefly : 



The Narrative of an. Explorer i)i Tropical Africa (1853) brought 

 him the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society. Several papers 



"Proc. 38th Meeting. 1922 (1923)." 



