The Scientific Monthly, October to December, 1915Various
Science
The Scientific Monthly, October to December, 1915
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
The social and the economic factors are so closely intertwined
that the influence of the social environment is already seen in
treating the economic. The social deals with matter of classes
and callings. The upper classes are of course the wealthier
classes so that the social and economic measures largely agree.
In Mr. Galton's inquiry into the callings of English men of
science which he made in 1873, it appears that out of 96
investigated 9 were noblemen or gentlemen, 18 government
officials, 34 professional men, 43 business men, 2 farmers and
1 other. Unless the one other was a working man the workers
produced none of these 96 men of science. Odin's classification
of the French men of letters gives to the nobility 25.5 per
cent., to government officials 20.0, liberal professions 23.0,
bourgeoise 11.6, manual laborers 9.8. Only a little over one
fifth of the talented were produced by the two lower classes.
Yet in numerical weight those classes constituted 90 per cent.
of the population. Data from four other European countries show
very much the same results, except that the workers and
bourgeoise classes make a better showing. It is unquestionable,
therefore, that the opportunities for developing talent or
genius are largely withheld from the working class and bestowed
on the upper classes.
We have yet one other factor to treat in the production of
talent, namely, the educational. The facts relative to the
education of the talented contradicts the assumption usually
made that genius depends on education and opportunity for none
of its success, but rises to its heights in spite of or without
them.
Of 827 men of talent (not merit class) Odin was able to
investigate as to their education he found that only 1.8 per
cent. had no education or a poor education, while 98.2 per
cent. had a good education. This number investigated was 73 per
cent. of all men of that class, and it is fair to assume that
about the same proportion of educated existed in the other 27
per cent. whose education was not known. Of the 16 of poor or
no education 13 were born in Paris, other large cities, or
chateaux, and three in other localities. Thus they had the
opportunities presented by the cities. Facts as to talented men
in Spain, Italy, England and Germany indicate that anywhere
from 92 to 98 per cent. have been highly educated, and probably
the latter per cent. is correct.
These figures can have but one meaning. They indicate that
talent and genius are dependent on educational and conventional
agencies of the cultural kind, as are other human beings for
their evolution. Otherwise we should expect the figures to be
reversed. If education and cultural opportunities count for
naught, then we should expect that, at a time when education
was by no means universal, the 90 or 98 per cent. Of genius
would mount on their eagle wings and soar to the summits of
eminence, clearing completely the conventional educational
devices which society had established.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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