100 HALL OF FAME MEN. 



fairly regular decrease from class A to class a, except for the 

 peculiar prominence of class b and a somewhat less prominence 

 of class c. At first sight this appears to be an exception to the 

 rule that great men are the result of successive late reproductions, 

 but a little consideration will explain the cause of it. 



IRREGULARITY EXAMINED. 



By tabulation of the births used to establish our standard I 

 find that the average age of the father when the first child is born 

 comes approximately at the dividing line between classes a and b, 

 and that when sons alone are considered the majority of the 

 eldest sons are born in class b, while lesser numbers are born 

 in classes a and c. These fourteen persons in class b, therefore, 

 are principally eldest sons, and by inspection I find that ten are 

 sons and four are daughters. Now it happens that in New Eng- 

 land, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the time and 

 place of the births of all these sons except one, there was the custom, 

 when the circumstances permitted, of selecting the eldest son for 

 a college education. Except in comparatively rare instances, this 

 was the only son so favored. From a limited investigation into 

 this matter I find that eight of the sons born in class b had college 

 educations. Of the other two births, one represented the age of 

 the great-grandfather of John Adams, and the other the age of the 

 great-great-grand father of General Grant. I did not attempt to 

 search into these. Of the four births in class a, three were sons, 

 two of whom are known to have had college educations. Of the 

 five sons born in class c, two had college educations. 



IRREGULARITY EXPLAINED. 



It must be conceded that a son having a college education, and 

 thereafter devoting his energies to one of the liberal professions, 



