io6 THE TREND OF THE RACE 



them will be considerably increased. As we have before remarked, 

 what environment can do for a person depends upon how gener- 

 ously he has been endowed by inheritance. Of individuals who 

 inherit well it may in truth be said : "To those that hath shall be 

 given." If one's inheritance is poor there is nothing which this 

 world can of^er that will compensate for the loss. 



Schuster and Elderton have studied the inheritance of ability 

 by means of biometric methods similar to those employed by 

 Pearson. In one investigation these authors worked out the 

 parent-offspring correlations from data obtained by Heymans 

 and Wiersma in their studies of psychical inheritance. These 

 data were secured by sending out 3,000 questions to Dutch 

 physicians. Each questionnaire contained ninety questions 

 covering quite completely the psychical characteristics and 

 peculiarities of the subjects described. Over 400 replies were 

 received, which is a fairly good return considering the detailed 

 information sought for in the questionnaires. The degree of cor- 

 relation between parent and offspring was found to vary consid- 

 erably for different traits, but, after correcting for the influence 

 of assortative mating, the average correlations were found to be 

 as follows: father and son, .279; father and daughter, .252; 

 mother and son, .194; mother and daughter, .305. Considering 

 the way in which the data were collected and the adventitious 

 source of heterogeneity in the material the correlations show a 

 noteworthy degree of similarity to those discovered by Pearson. 



In another study by Schuster and Elderton the material used 

 was derived from scholars at Oxford and the boys' schools at 

 Harrow and Charterhouse. From the Oxford records a compari- 

 son was made between the scholastic standings of fathers and 

 sons who had attended the University. Since 1800 the University 

 of Oxford had four classes of honors, those graduating without 

 honors receiving simply the "pass" degree. Those who attended 

 the University, but who failed for one or another reason to 

 graduate constituted a class whose scholastic standing is on the 

 average lower than those who grac|uated without honors. Ob- 

 taining honors can legitimately be held to offer a fair index of 



