302 Life and Letters of Francis Galton 



Thank you very much for your very judicious suggestions about the Codicil, I will go care- 

 fully again through it and hope to send it off to-night to Hartog. University College charges no 

 rent for the rooms occupied by the Office, but pray, as you kindly propose, talk over the matter 

 for the future with the Provost. 



Will you then, please, provide work after February and see to carrying on the Office? 

 I simply feel myself powerless, as I said before, and have no wish to meddle in and to mar 

 whatever you may do for me. I leave it quite to you to arrange with Hartog and the University, 

 about selecting Schuster's successor or successors and giving them work. 



Your news about the inheritance of the tuberculous diathesis is good and very important. 



I am grieved to hear of the pain and anxiety you have gone through about Helga. Turner 

 writes to me saying that my letter to him about B. was just what he wanted — I am glad. 



Ever affectionately yours, Francis Galton. 



7, Windsor Terrace, The Hoe, Plymouth. Dec. 12, 1906. 



My dear Karl Pearson, Excuse delay in reply, my bronchitis has been troublesome but 

 the attack is now passed. 



What wonderful papers yours are, and how conspicuously they show the need of high mathe- 

 matics in order to deal rigorously with apparently simple questions. I have now read your 

 ''Relationship to Intelligence of...<fcc." not once only, but more or less minutely more than three 

 times (I am so slow, now!), but as to the "Random Migration" I have only read the conclusions 

 and am awe-struck at the mathematics. 



It is delightful to hear that you are already well enough to take part in the quartet dinner 

 of successive occupants of the same chambers*. You ought to be proud of one another. The day- 

 dreams of boyhood and youth are never fulfilled, or overpassed. Napoleon was no exception. 



You had better I think tear up that centile paper I sent, which cannot be amended sufficiently 

 for publication in any form. The diagram ought to be changed considerably. I have been im- 

 proving on it and think I may make a little paper, suitable to some minor publication, that would 

 be useful as a first step, and that would give the results of the kind in question with much ease, 

 though only roughly. But I won't bother you with this now. 



How well you have arranged the Title, etc. on the cover of Biomelrika. I am very glad that 

 you retain Weldon's name as you do. It is good news about Hope Pinker. 



The Codicil after final revision by Hartog and Sir E. Busk has now been executed. I posted 

 it yesterday to my lawyers. 



The weather to-day is about as vile, with squalls and driving rain, as weather can be ! 



Ever affectionately yours, Francis Galton. 



7, Windsor Terrace, The Hoe, Plymouth. Dec. 14, 1906. 



My dear Karl Pearson, You really misread my " hearts of hearts " re mathematics. I worship 

 and reverence themf, though in their application I have a tendency towards economy in their 



* The men who in succession shared my chambers in Harcourt Buildings in the Temple 

 were W. M. Conway, afterwards Sir W. M. Conway, art critic and M.P., Robert J. Parker, 

 afterwards Lord Parker of Waddington, and E. C. Perry, afterwards Sir E. Cooper Perry, 

 Principal Officer of the University of London. 



t It was difficult to convince Galton that any higher mathematics were needful for statistical 

 work than the percentile method of treating the normal curve and the linear regression graph. 

 Perhaps the following sentences extracted from a letter to his sister Bessie (Mrs Wheler) con- 

 cerning the education of her son Edward may be fitly quoted here. They are dated Feb. 6, 1866 

 and show the value Galton set on some mathematics : 



" The value of a solid substratum of elementary mathematics is I can assure you of an importance almost 

 equal to that of a new power in every profession in life. I see it at every step. Ingenious men without the 

 thoroughness and precision, which mathematics alone are sure to give, sink below their natural level when 

 competing in life with those that have it." 



Tests for the significance or non-significance of the differences between samples of populations, 

 which essentially require higher mathematics, he had not been forced to consider in his pioneer 

 work. 



