33 ] METHOD OF INVESTIGATION 33 



bearing upon the nature and nurture of each person on the 

 list were collected. A questionnaire sent to living authors 

 and to the immediate relatives of others met with an unex- 

 pectedly cordial reception. One hundred and seventy-five 

 schedules were returned, more than seventy per cent of 

 those sent out. Biographies furnished abundant informa- 

 tion in regard to perhaps fifteen per cent of the thousand 

 literati. Facts about the others were gathered from ency- 

 clopedias, magazine articles, and various scattered sources. 

 Many facts could not be discovered, but those collected 

 were sufficiently numerous to be representative, and to 

 serve as the basis of significant statistical calculations. 1 



When all available facts concerning each author had been 

 collected and recorded on the individual cards, the process 

 of analyzing the data was begun. It was then a simple 

 matter to isolate for consideration any recorded fact, by 

 means of sorting the cards. The results of this analysis 

 and interpretation constitute the subject-matter of the next 

 chapter. 



1 In the absence of reason for believing that the facts collected are 

 biased, there is no statistical error in proceeding to draw inferences 

 from samples chosen by any unprejudiced method. Cf. A. L. Bowley, 

 An Elementary Manual of Statistics (London, 1910). 



