EMINENT FAMILIES. 1 87 



judge and the last was a general. The judge graduated at Yale 

 and was the only one of the seven having the benefit of a college 

 education. No. 130 was the son of No. 53 and was the father 

 of the judge and the general. He had eighteen grandchildren, of 

 whom the first three, the seventh, the fourteenth and the eighteenth 

 were prominent. The first three born were all sons of the only 

 person in the previous generation who received a college education 

 and they represent the only case I have found in which the first 

 three of any group all became prominent. They are a forcible 

 illustration of the fact that the controlling factor is not the relative 

 amount of time elapsing between generations but the aggregate 

 amount of intellectual effort exerted in previous generations prior 

 to reproduction. While being sons of a college graduate is the 

 only path by which the first three of a group became prominent, 

 it is not uncommon to find the last three prominent without any 

 college education in the previous generation. This is the case 

 with the grandsons of No. 68 and No. 84. 



OTHER FAMILIES. 



An examination similar to that made of the Bliss family was 

 also made for the Crosby, Chapman, Eddy and other families. The 

 general results were that when the first born of a group of cousins 

 became a prominent individual there was almost invariably present 

 one or more of three conditions : — first, all of the cousins were born 

 at near the same date so that comparatively few years elapsed be- 

 tween the first birth and the last birth; second, the first born had 

 advantages of education that the others did not have; and third, 

 the first born was the son of a college graduate while others were 

 not. When the last born of a group of cousins was prominent 

 these conditions were more often absent than present. It is natural 



