32 Some Eminent Men 



father was thirty-eight, his grandson, "Light 

 Horse Harry/' and his youngest great-grandson, 

 Gen. Robert E. Lee. 



What is presented here about the Lees is not 

 family gossip. The persons named are not sim- 

 ply members of a prominent family. They are 

 the most eminent members of an eminent family, 

 with the emphasis in the superlative. The analy- 

 sis shows where eminence does and where it 

 does not arise in any line of descent from com- 

 mon ancestors. Using "eldest" and "youngest" 

 in a generic sense to indicate early and late off- 

 spring from the parents, we may say that im- 

 provement comes through the youngest son of 

 the youngest son, and not through the eldest son 

 of the eldest son. 



Benjamin Franklin was clearly one of the mas- 

 ter intellects of the world. It is doubtful if 

 there lived at the same time another intellect 

 equally great. However that may be, it is cer- 

 tain that there were not a half dozen of them. 

 Franklin tells us that he was "the youngest son 

 of the youngest son for five generations back." 

 Franklin considered that as merely curious, and 

 others since then have thought the same thing. 



