302 GENETICS 



were governors, Members of Congress, framers of state 

 constitutions, mayors of cities, and ministers to foreign 

 courts ; one was president of the Pacific Mail Steamship 

 Company; 15 railroads, many banks, insurance com- 

 panies, and large industrial enterprises have been in- 

 debted to their management. Almost if not every de- 

 partment of social progress and of public weal has 

 felt the impulse of this healthy, long-lived family. It 

 is not known that any one of them was ever convicted 

 of crime." 



Similarly Galton, in "Hereditary Genius," points out 

 in his analysis of one hundred celebrated persons that 

 they had 3 great-grandfathers; 17 grandfathers; 31 

 fathers; 48 sons; 14 grandsons and 3 cousins who also 

 were celebrated. 



C. THE KAI/LIKAK FAMILY 



A more convincing experiment in human heredity 

 than the foregoing, since it concerns the descendants 

 of two mothers and the same father, is furnished by the 

 recently published history of the "Kallikak" family. 1 



During Revolutionary days, the first Martin Kalli- 

 kak, the name is fictitious, who was descended from 

 a long line of good English ancestry, took advantage 

 of a feeble-minded girl. The result of their indulgence 

 was a feeble-minded son who became the progenitor of 

 480 known descendants of whom 143 were distinctly 

 feeble-minded, while most of the others fell below 

 mediocrity without a single instance of exceptional 

 ability. 



'"The Kallikak Family." H. H. Goddard. The Macmillan Co. 



