THE INHERITANCE OF ABILITY 91 



Darwin when at Cambridge chanced to obtain a 

 Fellowship and to live on in academic life, his special 

 qualities would have died with him, and the world 

 would never have known Francis Galton or Charles 

 Darwin and his sons. But though Erasmus Darwin 

 escaped, countless other men of science and letters 

 did not marry at all, or, marrying when at an 

 advanced age they were independent of their Fellow- 

 ships, were too late to leave descendants to transmit 

 their priceless qualities. What England, nay, what 

 mankind, has lost is beyond all power of calculation, 

 and is gone for ever. The pious founders of our 

 colleges may have done more harm than good to the 

 nation they sought to serve, to the race to which they 

 belonged. 



The restriction of celibacy was removed in 1882, 

 and already the inheritance of academic ability has 

 become clear in the annual elections to scholarships and 

 fellowships at Cambridge, and in the other distinctions 

 of the University. Sons of Fellows and past Fellows 

 are now rapidly coming to the front in numbers far 

 beyond those which any possible chance distribution of 

 ability would involve. The pity is that, with the pre- 

 vailing fashion of small families, such sons are so few in 

 number. 



