60 HEREDITY IN RELATION TO EUGENICS 



most, if not all, of the children have a memory that is 

 medium to exceptional.^ 



When both parents have a poor memory and come from 

 ancestry so characterized few if any of the children have 

 an excellent memory. 



Two "poor" parents (with "poor" grandparents) have 10 children all 

 with poor memory. 



When one parent has a memory that is either excellent 

 or fair and the other has one that is '^poor^' all children 

 have a medium memory; and, conversely, parents with 

 medium memory may have 20 to 25 per cent of children 

 with excellent and as many with poor memory. 



13. Combined Talents and Summary of Special 

 Abilities 



While the separate talents may, for purposes of analysis, 

 be considered separately they usually, as our illustrations 

 suggest, occur in combination in a single family. And 

 such talents are frequently enough associated with insanity 

 or mental defect in some of its members as apparently to 

 justify the poet's conclusion: ^^ Great wits are sure to mad- 

 ness near allied" (Fig. 26). 



In many cases artistic, literary and musical talent are 

 found in the same family — two or all three of them are 

 occasionally found in the same person (Fig. 27, Fig. 28). 

 The conclusion seems justified that artistic, literary and 

 musical skill are unit characters that may occur in any 

 combinations — the common inherited factor may be only 

 a highly developed imagination. 



In the foregoing cases the method of inheritance of many 

 of the elements of the mental makeup have been considered 



^ The Family Records give 4 per cent of children of such matings as having 

 a poor memory. 



