Inquiries into human faculty and its developmentGalton, Francis
Science
Inquiries into human faculty and its development
Galton, Francis
Ability; Eugenics
By the courteous permission of Dr. Farr, I was enabled to procure
extracts from the census returns concerning 1000 "families" of
factory hands at Coventry, in which the age of the mother was
neither less than 24 nor more than 40 years, and concerning another
1000 families of agricultural labourers in rural parishes of
Warwickshire, under the same limitations as to the age of the mother.
When these returns were classified (see Table I., p. 246), I found
the figures to run in such regular sequence as to make it certain
that the cases were sufficiently numerous to give trustworthy results.
It appeared that:
(A) The 1000 families of factory hands comprised 2681 children, and
the 1000 of agricultural labourers comprised 2911; hence, the
children in the urban "families," the mothers being between the ages
of 24 and 40, are on the whole about 8 per cent, less numerous than
the rural. I see no reason why these numbers should not be accepted
as relatively correct for families, in the ordinary sense of that
word, and for mothers of all ages. An inspection of the table does
indeed show that if the selection had begun at an earlier age than 24,
there would have been an increased proportion of sterile and of
small families among the factory hands, but not sufficient to
introduce any substantial modification of the above results. It is,
however, important to recollect that the small error, whatever its
amount may be, is a concession in favour of the towns.
(B) I next make an allowance for the mortality between childhood and
maturity, which will diminish the above figures in different
proportions, because the conditions of town life are more fatal to
children than those of the country. No life tables exist for
Coventry and Warwickshire; I am therefore obliged to use statistics
for similarly conditioned localities, to determine the amount of the
allowance that should be made. The life tables of Manchester [26]
will afford the data for towns, and those of the "Healthy Districts"
[27] will suffice for the country. By applying these, we could
calculate the number of the children of ages specified in the census
returns who would attain maturity. I regret extremely that when I
had the copies taken, I did not give instructions to have the ages
of all the children inserted; but I did not, and it is too late now
to remedy the omission. I am therefore obliged to make a very rough,
but not unfair, estimate. The average age of the children was about
3 years, and 25 years may be taken as representing the age of
maturity. Now it will be found that 74 per cent. of children in
Manchester, of the age of 3, reach the age of 25, while 86 per cent.
of children do so in the "Healthy Districts." Therefore, if my rough
method be accepted as approximately fair, the number of adults who
will be derived from the children of the 1000 factory families
should be reckoned at (2681 × 74/100) = 1986, and those from the
1000 agricultural at (2911 × 86/100) = 2503.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account