THE AMERICAN NATURALIST 



[Vol. XLII 



aires corrupt and dishonorable. Truly these slanderers of 

 royalty, because they have a certain scientific affiliation, are all 

 the more to be dreaded; furthermore, they cast discredit on the 

 whole hope of any elucidation of history along biological lines. 



In contrast to books of this sort, one gladly takes up several 

 recent memoirs emanating from University College, London. In 

 the first of the publications of the new Eugenics Laboratory, E. 

 Schuster and Miss Elderton, 5 to obtain data bearing on the in- 

 heritance of ability, have made a statistical study of Oxford 

 class lists and of the schools of Harrow and Charterhouse. By 

 analyzing the academic standing of different members of the 

 same family, they show that the resemblance between father and 

 son is represented approximately by the coefficient r=.30, in 

 all their tables. The various coefficients for fraternal resem- 

 blance, range around r = .40. They are perfectly in accordance 

 with the theoretical expectancy propounded by Galton for his 

 law of ancestral heredity. They are also in accordance with the 

 correlations found in " Heredity and Royalty." 



Other coefficients found by Pearson and his students for 

 various physical and psychical measurements are higher than 

 these, ranging around .40 to .50 for parental and .50 to .60 for 

 fraternal correlation. In an appendix to this memoir of 

 Schuster and Elderton, Pearson takes up the question of the 

 size of the coefficients and shows that the class lists of Oxford, 

 Harrow and Charterhouse represent probably a selected group, 

 in point of ability, in which case their variability would be 

 reduced and also the correlation coefficients. After making for 

 this a reasonable, though rough, correction he concludes that 

 the coefficients of Schuster and Elderton are in close accord with 

 those heretofore found by this same school of investigators. 



David Heron 6 from the same laboratory contributes a first 

 study of the inheritance of the insane diathesis. It is indeed 

 a 1 'First Study" in more senses than one, for not only is it the 

 first work on this question from the Eugenics Laboratory, but 

 it is not too much to say that it is the first attempt to treat the 

 whole subject in an exact and satisfactory manner from the 



6 Eugenics Laboratory Memoirs. I, The Inheritance of Ability. By 

 Edgar Schuster, M.A., and Ethel M. Elderton. London, Dulau and Co., 

 Soho Square, W., 1907. 



8 Eugenics Laboratory Memoirs. II, A First Study of the Statistics of 

 Insanity arid the Inheritance of the Insane Diathesis. By David Heron, 

 M.A., London, Dulau and Co., Soho Square, W., 1907. 



