66 



Life and Letters of Francis Galton 



reached by Galton in this chapter are, I think, on the whole correct, but his 

 handling of " broad categories " by means of percentages, in particular when 

 no probable errors of the percentages are provided, is not to the modern 

 statistician very conclusive. I think it would be labour well spent, should 

 the opportunity arise, to work through his data afresh. Meanwhile we may 

 arrange rather differently his tabulations and consider what flows from them. 

 He tells us that he found it difficult to separate music from drawing, and 

 finally classed both into a single group, the " artistic." Thinking also that 

 parents were likely to overestimate the artistic capacity of young children, 

 he excluded all but adults. Thus in the parental table the data chiefly refer 

 to members of the second and third generations. 



The first table I have deduced from Galton's data is that for Husband and 

 Wife. It contains 894 couples and gives a percentage of 28 for males and of 

 32 for females with artistic temperament. The probable error of the difference 

 4 of these percentages is 1*46, or the difference is about 27 times its prob- 

 able error, it may therefore be just significant. Galton concludes that : 



" Part of this female superiority is doubtless to be ascribed to the large share that music 

 and drawing occupy in the education of women, and to the greater leisure that most girls have, 

 or take, for amusing themselves. If the artistic gifts of men and women are naturally the same, 

 as the experience of schools where music and drawing are taught apparently shows it to be, the 

 small difference observed in favour of women in adult life would be a measure of the smallness 

 of the effect of education compared with that of natural talent." (p. 156.) 



I should not have thought the experience of art schools was in favour of 

 the equality of artistic gifts in the two sexes. Galton's data really tell us 

 nothing as to the grade of artistic faculty in the two sexes, as for this we 

 require grouping in at least three categories. But my impression is that a 

 larger proportion of the prizes and studentships for creative work still goes 

 to the men, even in those schools where the women are in a majority. 



Assortative Mating in Artistic Faculty. 



Husband 



Assuming the artistic faculty to be a continuous normal variate, we find 

 from the above table the coefficient of correlation between Husband and 

 Wife to be no less than *2418 ± "0376. This value for the mating of like with 

 like for a mental temperament is singularly in accord with the intensity of 

 assortative mating for physical characters *. It denotes a resemblance between 



* Stature, -2804 + -0189; Span, -1989 ± -0204; Forearm, -1977 ± -0205. Health as measured 

 by Duration of Life: Wensleydale and Wharfedale, -2200 ± 0244; Oxfordshire, -2500+ -0211; 

 Society of Friends, -1999 ± -0212. See Biometrika, Vol. II, pp. 373 and 487. 



