76 AMERICAN MEN OF LETTERS [76 



four other countries besides France. In every case the re- 

 sults were practically the same. Odin thus summarizes his 

 findings : 



As regards the social environment, we have seen that certain 

 strata of the population have been much more fruitful than 

 others in remarkable literary men. Confining ourselves to the 

 five social strata — nobility, administration, liberal professions, 

 bourgeoisie, working-men — we have ascertained that the liter- 

 ary fecundity of each of them was in inverse ratio to its 

 numerical importance. What is especially striking is the 

 prodigious superiority of the first three classes over the last 

 two, and especially of the nobility over manual laborers, the 

 first having had at least two hundred times as many chances 

 L as the second of producing men of talent.^ 



Thus even if one grant that both the present study and 

 that of Odin may be erroneous in some details, there is 

 ample evidence for the conclusion that social position is an 

 important factor in the development of literary talent. 



Consideration of the seventh of the nine environmental 

 conditions to be discussed, the occupations of literati them- 

 selves, affords further evidence of the advantage of educa- 

 tion and social position in the competition for literary 

 honors. Table XXI shows the authors classified by occu- 

 i pations. In the compilation of this table the nomenclature 



of encyclopedias and answers to questionnaires was fol- 

 lowed as closely as possible. When an individual was ap- 

 parently occupied about equally in two professions, each one 

 was given a half credit. In very few cases was an author 

 devoted to so many occupations as to make classification 

 impossible. The table shows that American literati came 

 from nearly one hundred occupations, but the predominance 

 of a very few is striking. Four professions furnished over 



» Odin, op. cit., pp. 546-547- 



