HALL OF FAME MEN. IO9 



HALL OF FAME MEN BY GROUPS. 



Without going through each ancestry in detail, we may take 

 them up -in groups. If we add together the ages of the fathers 

 of these twenty-five famous men and divide the sum by twenty- 

 five, we find that the average of the ages of the fathers was thirty- 

 six years, six months and twenty-two days, which is nearly four 

 years above that of the whole population, and is equivalent to 

 class D. If we add together the whole series of births and divide 

 by their number, we find the average of 137 to be thirty-five years, 

 six months and twenty-nine days, or nearly three years above the 

 average for the whole country. It is only proper to say, however, 

 that a small part of these 137 births are estimated from the best 

 information at hand, but in making such estimates I have purposely 

 made them as low as appeared reasonable so as to avoid the error 

 of exaggeration. Whatever the error be, it is so small in the 

 aggregate that it could not affect the average more than a few 

 days or a month at most. 



If we arrange the list by the average ages of all the ancestors 

 of each man, instead of by the fame of the men, as in the first 

 instance, or by their individual birth-ranks, as in the second in- 

 stance, we have the arrangement shown in Table VI. The most 

 notable thing in this list is the relative rise of Lincoln and Gray and 

 the fall of Adams. Another notable feature is the uniformity of 

 average ages of all ancestors as shown in the last column. From 

 this column it is seen that in seventeen cases the average for all is 

 above the average for the country, and that only eight are below 

 the average. Furthermore, those above the dividing line of aver- 

 age age extend through all grades to the highest birth-rank, while 

 those below remain close to the line of division. The range is 



