Practical applications of heredity / by Paul Popenoe.

  • Popenoe, Paul, 1888-1979.
Date:
1930
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Practical applications of heredity / by Paul Popenoe. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    a double first at Oxford) was the father of the younger Pitt, one of the youthful geniuses of history •—a cabinet minister at 23, premier of Great Britain at 24. True, the boy came of a family that had been wealthy and distinguished on both sides for genera tions; true, he inherited a name which at the time of his birth was perhaps the most influential in the world (though the family title and estate went to his medio cre elder brother). Grant that pull helped him to enter parliament at 20 and facilitated his access to the cabinet; yet could pull have made him what he was in his undergraduate days, one of the foremost scholars in Great Britain? On this point, no one was better qualified to pass judgment than Lord Macaulay, who describes the youth's entrance to college at 15, his reception of the degree of Master of Arts at 17, and the three following years which he passed in study. The work in which he took the greatest delight was Isaac Newton's Prin cipia [a work which not one modern Ph.D. in a hun dred can even read]. His liking for mathematics, indeed, amounted to a passion, which in the opinion of his instructors, themselves distinguished mathe maticians, required to be checked rather than en couraged. The acuteness and readiness with which he solved problems was pronounced by one of the ablest of the moderators . . . . to be unrivaled in the University. Nor was the youth's proficiency in