DISTRIBUTION OF BRITISH ABILITY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11650, 11 May 1901, Page 5 (Supplement)

DISTRIBUTION OF BRITISH ABILITY.

<t> I.v taking a bird's-eye view of the distribuv turn of English genius, it is interesting tat. note that all the districts peculiarly fertile in intellectual ability are maritime districts. The English Midlands have always been comparatively unproductive of genius, al* though they have yielded a few persons of exceptional eminence. Speaking more pre* cisely, Middlesex, Surrey, Sussex, Berk" shire, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire* Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, and Leicestershire present a compact region infertile in genius, all these counties together scarcely equalling Norfolk and Suffolk* The extraordinary poverty of Middlesex in genius (it stands lowest of all the English counties) is specially notable ; even among the numerous eminent men born in London few or none can be definitely located as belonging to old-established Middlesex families. Shakespere and Milton, it is true, belong to the Midlands, which have likewise produced numerous statesmen, though seldom of the first rank, mi of character rather than of intellect, stolid, tenacious of their rights; they had their chance in the days of Charles 1., and Hampden represents them . at the best. Cromwell belongs by birth to this district (though by race he comes from East Auglia on the mother's side and Wales on the father's), and the Midlands furnished him with some of his best lieutenants.Northampton (to which, as also to Lincoln, the Cecils belonged) is the sturdiest and richest portion of tiie Midlands as regards genius, but we must remember that this county benefits by driving a. considerable wedge into the East Anglian district. In Wales, Denbigh, a maritime district*. is especially rich in genius, as are, to a" less extent, Radnor and Montgomery. The genius of Scotland, roughly speaking, has been produced by the tract between the Cheviots and the Grampians. While, however, the whole of this district is prolific in ability, a narrow central belt has proved itself pre-eminently aide to breed nier of intellect, '.this belt runs from Aberdeen in a. south-westerly direction through Forfar, Fife, Edinburgh with the surrounding district, and Lanark (including Glasgow); on reaching Ayr and Dumfries it widens out and stops abruptly, not extending beyond thu English border. Aberdeen and the country around Edinburgh have always been '■ the two great centres of Scotch genius. Turning to Ireland, we find that intellectual ability is less concent rated in one region than is the case in Scotland, but here also there is a tract, of country almost" entirely destitute of genius of the rank which the present investigation alone covers. Dublin has been peculiarly rich in eminent men. Its pre-eminence over the rest of the country is much more marked than in the case of Edinburgh; and largely, though not entirely, on that account Leinstcr stands at the head of the Irish provinces. Munster comes 'text, Ulster follows closely after, hub C'onnaught, the north-western region of the island, is. like the. north-west of Scotland, almost barren of intellectual ability. Outside Dublin, which is probably a somewhat factitious focus of genius, the really compact centre of Irish genius lies in the south-eastern group of counties—Kilkenny and Tipperary, Waterford and Cork. These counties alone have furnished a third of the whole genius of Ireland. Another, though smaller, centre of genius is found in tho north-west, in Antrim and Down.—Have* lock Ellis, in the Monthly Review*