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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVII. No. 432. 



numbers, fifty professors of anatomy and 

 sixteen professors of pathology to produce 

 one new investigator; it has taken more 

 than two professors of mathematics or of 

 astronomy to produce an investigator. 

 Each professor of chemistry, zoology and 

 botany has produced one investigator. 

 Psychology has the best record, each pro- 

 fessor having produced two investigators. 

 I may be pardoned for referring with 

 gratification to the promise of my own sci- 

 ence. The membership of the National 

 Academy of Sciences seems to be the most 

 erratic of the data. Approximately one in 

 twenty of the astronomers and physicists 

 of the coimtry are members of the acad- 

 emy, one in sixty of the botanists, one in 

 a hundred of the psychologists, and one 

 in four hundred of the mathematicians. 

 It is obvious that the Gauss-Quetellet 

 curve entirely fails in its application to 

 the distribution of scientific ability, that 

 eminence may be obtained with much less 

 ability in some sciences than in others, or 

 that some sciences have been favored in 

 elections to the academy. 



I am at present engaged, as I have al- 

 ready stated, in a statistical study of these 

 scientific men. I am putting on cards cer- 

 tain data which it will be worth while to 

 summarize. Thus the distribution of men 

 engaged in the several sciences in different 

 parts of the country and its relation to the 

 total population, the relative numbers in 

 large centers, connected with institutions 

 of learning, etc., the comparison of the 

 present location with the place of birth, 

 the education, the ages, the amount of 

 shifting from one institution to another, 

 the rate of promotion, the character and 

 quantity of research, etc., of these scien- 

 tific men will have a certain interest. This 

 interest will be enhanced and become more 

 truly scientific in character if similar sta- 

 tistics are collected for other countries and 

 for this country at periods of ten years. 



This must be left to the future. I am, 

 however, proceeding with work which I 

 trust has a certain scientific and psycho- 

 logical value. I am selecting from all 

 those who have carried on scientific re- 

 search the thousand whose work is regarded 

 as most valuable. The numbers chosen 

 from each science are in proportion to the 

 total workers in that science. I am asking 

 representatives of each science — selecting 

 those who are most eminent and who are 

 at the same time believed to be familiar 

 with the conditions— to arrange the stu- 

 dents in that science in the order of merit. 

 It is obvious that this can only be done 

 approximately. There are diverse lines of 

 research in each science which it is difficult 

 to compare, and there are various ways of 

 contributing to a science which are scarcely 

 commensurable. It strikes some that we 

 are in the condition of the boy at his geom- 

 etry lesson who when asked what follows 

 when two sides of a triangle are equal re- 

 plied that all the other sides would be equal 

 too; or of the man who when asked if he 

 did not think the story of the raconteur 

 in his anecdote a little broad said he did 

 not think it was as broad as it was long. 

 It is, however, the business of science to 

 overcome insurmountable difficulties; and 

 it is one of the triumphs of science that it 

 can in certain eases measure our ignorance 

 as well as our knowledge. 



If the workers in a science are arranged 

 in the order of merit independently by a 

 number of observers, the average position 

 of each can be found and its probable error 

 calculated. Thus we can say that to the 

 best of our knowledge a man stands eighth 

 among our mathematicians and that the 

 chances are even that his real position is 

 between sixth and tenth. The same man 

 might stand eightieth among our scientific 

 men with a probable error of twenty 

 places. The probable errors show that the 

 order of arrangement has validity within 



