106 THE TREND OF THE RACE 
them will be considerably increased. As we have before remarked, 
what environment can do for a person depends upon how gener- 
ously he has been endowed by inheritance. Of individuals who 
inherit well it may in truth be said: “To those that hath shall be 
given.” If one’s inheritance is poor there is nothing which this 
world can offer that will compensate for the loss. 
Schuster and Elderton have studied the inheritance of ability 
by means of biometric methods similar to those employed by 
Pearson. In one investigation these authors worked out the 
parent-offspring correlations from data obtained by Heymans 
and Wiersma in their studies of psychical inheritance. These 
data were secured by sending out 3,000 questions to Dutch 
physicians. Each questionnaire contained ninety questions 
covering quite completely the psychical characteristics and 
peculiarities of the subjects described. Over 4oo replies were 
received, which is a fairly good return considering the detailed 
information sought for in the questionnaires. The degree of cor- 
relation between parent and offspring was found to vary consid- 
erably for different traits, but, after correcting for the influence 
of assortative mating, the average correlations were found to be 
as follows: father and son, .279; father and daughter, .252; 
mother and son, .194; mother and daughter, .305. Considering 
the way in which the data were collected and the adventitious 
source of heterogeneity in the material the correlations show a 
noteworthy degree of similarity to those discovered by Pearson. 
In another study by Schuster and Elderton the material used 
was derived from scholars at Oxford and the boys’ schools at 
Harrow and Charterhouse. From the Oxford records a compari- 
son was made between the scholastic standings of fathers and 
sons who had attended the University. Since 1800 the University 
of Oxford had four classes of honors, those graduating without 
honors receiving simply the ‘‘pass” degree. Those who attended 
the University, but who failed for one or another reason to 
graduate constituted a class whose scholastic standing is on the 
average lower than those who graduated without honors. Ob- 
taining honors can legitimately be held to offer a fair index of 
