Able Sons

Credulous persons who enjoy a faith in parental paradoxes were no doubt disconcerted last week when they discovered the result of researches into the heredity of students at Yale and Harvard. These results were announced by Dr. Ellsworth Huntington, research associate of the department of geography at Yale. They indicated that the most representative undergraduates, the most successful graduates from Yale and Harvard were the sons of missionaries; next came the sons of professors; third came the sons of ministers. Businessmen's sons were low on the list, farmers' sons at the bottom.

Cynical expressions of the ironic variations of human behavior are surely less sound than statistics derived from oft-demonstrated laws of genetics. Missionaries must have good health, energy, moral fervor, the spirit of adventure; hence their sons are likely to have the same. College professors must be morally and intellectually sound; their sons are likely to be so. A minister's calling brings him, Dr. Huntington pointed out, into contact with high-grade women, one of whom he is likely to marry. Said Dr. Huntington: "I may be prejudiced, but I am inclined to think that ministers get better wives than they deserve."