48 



The Age of Parents 



that eminent men are not produced in the same 

 manner that ordinary people are produced. 



The last column is calculated from the other 

 two in a well-known manner. It shows to what 

 extent added age in the father helps to give the 

 son a good mental inheritance. Putting that last 

 column into the form of a diagram we have what 

 is shown in Fig. 1. 



£ 



^ 



Fig. 1. Relative chances of becoming eminent, as 



measured by age of father at birth of son. 



From "Great Men," by Redfleld. 



The preceding table gives the distribution of 

 births as they occurred two hundred years ago. 

 In recent years there has been a decline of births, 

 which has been ascribed to birth control. For 

 the purpose of determining just what was hap- 

 pening, a similar tabulation was made from the 

 birth registry in Chicago for the year 1913. The 



