'The qualifications for belonging to what I call the more select part are, in my mind, that a man should have distinguished himself pretty frequently either by purely original work, or as a leader of opinion. I wholly exclude notoriety obtained by a single act. This is a fairly well defined line, because there is not room for many men to become eminent.'
Mr. Galton made another estimate by studying an obituary list published in The Times in 1868. This contained 50 men of the select class. He considered it broader than his former estimate because it excluded men dying before they attained their broadest reputation, and more rigorous because it excluded old men who had previously attained a reputation which they were not able to sustain. He consequently lowered the age to 45. In Great Britain there were 210,000 males who died yearly of that age. This gave a result of 50 men of exceptional merit to 210,000 of the population, or 238 to the million.
His third estimate was made by the study of obituaries of many years back. This led to similar conclusions, namely, that about 250 to the million is an ample estimate of the number of eminent men. He says:
'When I speak of an eminent man, I mean one who has achieved a position that is attained by only 250 persons in each million of men, or by one person in each 4,000.'
The other estimate of the amount of talent in existence has been made by one of our most eminent American sociologists, the late Lester F. Ward. The elaborate treatment of this matter is found in his "Applied Sociology," and offers an illustration of a most rigorous and thorough application of the scientific method to the subject in question. The essential facts for the study were furnished by Odin in his work on the genesis of the literary men of France, although Candole, Jacoby and others are laid under contribution for data. Maps, tables and diagrams are used whenever they can be made to secure results. Odin's study covered the period of over five hundred years of France and French regions, or from 1300 to 1825. Out of over thirteen thousand literary names he chose some 6,200 as representing men of genius, talent or merit, the former constituting much the smaller and the latter much the larger of the total number.
The object of Ward's investigation is to discover the factor or factors in the situation which are responsible for the production of genius. In the course of examination it was seen that certain communities were very much more prolific than others in producing talent. Paris, for instance, produced 123 per 100,000; Geneva, Switzerland, 196; certain chateaux as many as 200, and some communities none at all or very few. After considering the various factors which account for the high rate in certain localities and the low rate or absence of merit in others the conclusion is reached that we should expect the presence of the meritorious class generally in even greater numbers than it has existed in the most fruitful regions of the French people.
Mr. Ward's studies have led him to conclude that talent is latent in society, that it exists in greater abundance than we have ever dared to expect, that all classes possess it equally and would manifest it equally if obstacles were removed or opportunities offered for its development. Education is the key to the situation in his estimation. It affords the opportunity which latent talent requires for its promotion, and if this were intelligently applied to all classes and to both sexes alike instead of securing one man of talent for each 4,000 persons as Mr. Galton held, we would be able to mature one for every 500 of our population. This would represent an eight-hundred-per-cent. increase of the talented class, an eight-fold multiplication. It is an estimate of not the number of the talented who are known to be such, but of society's potential or latent talent.[2]
[2] Investigations made on school children by the Binet test indicate Ward's estimate is conservative. It has been found that from two to three out of every hundred children are of exceptional ability, thus belonging to the talented, or at least merit class.
Because these estimates are so divergent, it may be worth while to consider the reason for the difference. And in taking this up we come to the fundamentally distinct point of view of the two investigators. Mr. Galton's work is an illustration of the view which regards talent as a product of the hereditary factors. Mr. Galton believed that heredity accounts for talent and that it is so dominant in the lives of the talented that it is bound to express itself as talent. In his estimation there is no such thing as latent genius, because it is in the nature of genius that it surmounts all obstacles. He says:
'By natural ability, I mean those qualities of intellect and disposition, which urge and qualify a man to perform acts which lead to reputation. I do not mean capacity without zeal, nor zeal without capacity, nor even a combination of both of them, without an adequate power of doing a great deal of very laborious work. But I mean a nature which, when left to itself, will, urged by an inherent stimulus, climb the path that leads to eminence, and has strength to reach the summit—one which, if hindered or thwarted, will fret and strive until the hindrance is overcome, and it is again free to follow its labor-saving instinct.'[2]