Salt Lake Herald-Republican | 1915-07-18 | Page 33 | First Child Born is Held to be Inferior

FIRST CHILD BORN IS HELD TO BE INFERIOR Sg Special Sr cial to The lIer Herald Republican Washington July 1 17 born 17 7 First horn children are arc on the era a e Inferior Interior Physically mentally and morally morall to the thu brothers and sisters I who follow them Such Is the conclusion of Prof Prot Karl Pearson of ot tho the University of London Lon Lon- don His statistics statistic covering co many thousands of oC cases are aro published today today to to- to day In the Jul July number of ot the Journal of Heredity organ of the American Genetic association of or this city Professor sor P Pearson arson made malIc his hiM lIco city ory ry when wilen studying the population of a I for cB where helo he ho found that there were wore many more firstborn first first- born orn than there thore should be be bc If tu tuberculosis losis selected Its victims at random On the other hand th the later-born later chU- chU dien were fewer feer In n num number t r than was waa expected I Since then ho has hat applied elaborate statistical analysis to data of ot many kinds He lie finds that first corn children chil chil- dren show the highest percentage of births still and are arc most delicate durIn durIng dur dur- In ing childhood Further the they wel weigh h less leAs and d are shorter at birth than are later later- born children Jinny lInny Dorn FliNt Ke l lc Minded Stud Study of the tho Inmates of homes forthe for tor the tho feeble minded and Insane asylums shows him that first born children are aro there In disproportionate num numbers ers Criminality appears also alao to be a prerogative prerogative pre pre- of the eldest m members of the tho family Statistics of English prisons one revealed first born bom where calculation calculation lation led Mm hIm to expect only Epilepsy albinism and nd congenital cataract am are likewise studied and In each t-ach case casc an nfl abnormally lh largo large number of the affected persons are found to be first This Inferiority as brought ht to light In lit statistics Is partly duo to the fact that many weak weale parents die lie after having hav In log ing only onla a single child chilil Such a l child of course counts as a first born and naturally Inherits ts some of the weakness of his hilS parents parents- but his lis Inferiority Is la due duc rather ruther to the bad tock stock than to tho the fact that he hc Is a first But aside e from this Professor Pear Pear- Kon holds that the tue first born orn arc are on the whole actually handicapped Tills This lIla may ho bo partly duo to the youth of their parents and partly to ph cal conditions In the mother Believing that the eldest children are arc arethus thus tims handicapped Professor Protessor Pearson sees groat danger to the race in the present tendency to make malee families consist consist cons con- con s of two children In a normal of ot about five e the first born only make up one fifth atthe of at the tho population and antI their Inferiority IB is s swamped But In man ninny many classes of society so- so clet nowadays th the number of offspring offspring off off- spring Is limited to two Prof J J. J McKeen Mc- Mc Ic- Ic I Keen Cattell of Columbia university hn has shown this to bo be o particularly true truo of American men of ot science I Under these circumstances t nc th the firstborn firstborn first first- born mako mak up half halt Instead of one fifth of ot the population and their Inferiority t necessarily bo a more s rious menace menaco to the efficiency of or tho the thorace race