560 



AMERICAN MEN OF SCIENCE 



was about one sixth of the rural population 

 and produced more than a quarter of the sci- 

 entific men. The urban birth rate was 50 

 and the rural birth rate was 23.8. The su- 

 perior position of the towns is doubtless due 

 to a more favorable environment, but it may 

 also be in part due to the fact that the parents 

 of these scientific men were the abler clergy- 

 men and others of their generation who were 

 &. drawn to the cities. 



Table III. gives the institutions with which 

 three or more of the scientific men are con- 

 nected, and in the case of institutions in which 

 there are more than fifteen the details of their 

 rank are shown, I., II., etc., representing the 

 first hundred, the second hundred, etc. I give 

 this table with some hesitation, but it appears 

 that in the end it will be for the advantage 

 of scientific research if it is known which 

 institutions obtain and retain the best men. 

 Harvard has 66.5 of the scientific men, the half 

 (0.5) being used when a professor is emeritus 

 or gives only part of his time to an institu- 

 tion. Columbia follows with 60, and Chicago 

 comes next with 39. In both the U. S. Geo- 

 logical Survey and the Department of Agri- 

 culture there are 32. About half of the sci- 

 entific men are connected with 18 institutions. 

 Harvard has not only the largest number of 

 scientific men, but they are also of the highest 

 rank, 19 being in the first hundred and 8.5 in 

 the second hundred. Johns Hopkins has nine 

 in the first hundred and Columbia and Chi- 

 cago each has seven. A table such as this 

 might have some practical influence if the 

 data were made public at intervals of ten 

 years. 



Table TV. gives the institutions at which 

 the 1,000 men of science pursued their studies. 

 A man is credited for his degree to the first 

 institution at which he took it, but in the case 

 of graduate study, he may have attended sev- 

 eral institutions. He is not, however, credited 

 as a graduate student to the institutions from 

 which he received the doctorate." The total 



"The doctorates include the comparatively few 

 cases in which the degree of doctor of science has 

 been conferred in course. 



influence of Harvard is 237, of the Johns 

 Hopkins 171, of Yale 93, of Columbia 78 and 

 of Cornell 74. About one tenth of the men 

 of science received their bachelor's degree from 

 Harvard and about the same number their 

 doctor's degree from the Johns Hopkins. It 

 is not certain that a preponderance of scien- 

 tific men has been produced at any institution 

 as compared with the total number of stu- 

 dents, and it appears that those who attend 

 the larger universities are not of higher av- 

 erage performance than others. Thus of the 

 106 who have taken the bachelor's degree at 

 Harvard, 55 are in the first rank and 51 in 

 the second. Yale, Cornell and Michigan have 

 produced men above the average rank, and the 

 excess is such that it is probably significant, 

 though the departures fall within the limits 

 of possible chance variation. On the whole, 

 however, there is no significant difference in 

 rank between the 515 men who attended the 

 larger institutions and those who attended 

 smaller colleges or none. It might be sup- 

 posed that abler students would be attracted 

 to a university such as Harvard, and that 

 they would have greater opportunities there, 

 but this appears not to be the case. So far 

 as it goes, this favors the theory that men of 

 science are born such and are not dependent 

 on the environment for the quality of their 

 performance. It may, however, be that rela- 

 tively more men of mediocre ability are led to 

 take up scientific work at an institution such 

 as Harvard, whereas only those of genius are 

 likely to break through the barrier of an un- 

 favorable environment. 



The conditions are similar in the case of 

 the doctor's degree. Of the 487 men who 

 have received it from the larger institutions, 

 244 are of the first rank and 243 of the second ; 

 nor do any institutions excel, unless it be 

 Leipzig and Gb'ttingen. Those who pursue 

 graduate studies at institutions from which 

 they do not take the degree are of distinctly 

 higher standing than the average A.B. or 

 Ph.D. This is probably because the abler and 

 more energetic men have attended several in- 

 stitutions, more especially abroad, many of 



