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236   Life and Letters of Francis Galton


We would like in this way to emphasise our appreciation of the value of your researches, which have placed biological data on a prime mathematical basis. You have been the pioneer in the Mathematical School of Evolution, and Anthropology has benefitted enormously, not only by your investigations, but by those which you have directly or indirectly instigated and inspired. Who then is better fitted to discourse to us than a Pioneer Investigator in one corner of that field of which in other departments Huxley was a brilliant exponent 1

We sincerely trust that you will add another self-denying good deed for the sake of Anthropology, and will favour the Institute, and benefit our Science, by acceding to our urgent request.   Believe me, my dear Mr Galton,

Yours most faithfully, ALFRED C. HADDON.


This letter shows a real appreciation of Galton's services to Anthropology, but, as I have indicated, his lecture found no response in the writings of English anthropologists.

In announcing the award of the Darwin Medal to Francis Galton on Dec. 1, 1902, Sir William Huggins said it was conferred

" for his numerous contributions to the exact study of heredity and variation contained in Hereditary Genius, Natural Inheritance and other writings. The work of Mr Galton has long occupied a unique position in evolutionary studies. His treatise on Hereditary Genius (1869) was not only what it claimed to be the first attempt to investigate the special subject of the inheritance of human faculty in a statistical manner and to arrive at numerical results, but in it exact methods were for the first time applied to the general problem of heredity on a comprehensive scale. It may safely be declared that no one living had contributed more definitely to the progress of evolutionary study, whether by actual discovery or by the fruitful direction of thought, than Mr Galton."

And, now the letter which Francis Galton valued more than all ! It runs

TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. Nov. 14, 1902.

MY DEAR FRANK, Many happy duties have come to me in my life, but few happier than that of now informing you, by the direction of our Council, that we have today elected you an Honorary Fellow of the College under the provisions of our Statute XIX, as a '~ person distinguished for literary and scientific merits."

We are electing at the same time Mr Balfour, Sir William Harcourt, Lord Macnaghten and Professor Maitland. Our other Honorary Fellows, since the deaths of Bishop Westcott and Lord Acton, are Lord Rayleigh and Sir George Trevelyan.

Need I say how it delights me to think that all your long and brilliant services in the cause of many a science should again link you in the later years of your life with the College to which, as I know, you have always been so loyal I

Believe me, very affectionately yours, H. MONTAGU BUTLER.

Can you kindly let me know by Telegraph whether you accept 1 I should like, if possible, to announce the five Fellowships together.

Since writing the above I have just seen the award of the Darwin Medal! Very delightful.


When a man is young, honours are a powerful incentive to further work, and as the years go by they test the judgment of those who conferred them. When a man is old-Galton was 80 years of age, and the wider world had long pronounced its judgment-honours mean far less to him, and need little exercise of judgment on the part of the givers*. There is a form of honour,


' Putting aside membership of learned societies at home and abroad and the holding of offices therein, I may note the following honours conferred on Galton : Gold Medal, Royal Geographical Society, 1853; Silver Medal, French Geographical Society, 1854; Royal Medal of Royal Society, 1886; Officier de l'Instruction publique de France, 1891; D.U.L. Oxford, 1894;


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