Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 37, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 January 1905 — OHIO'S GREAT MEN [ARTICLE]

OHIO'S GREAT MEN

Are Not So Numerous When Compared With Those of Maine. A steady fall In the birth rate of men of talent is met with in going from New England westward. While in New England out of every 100,000 births 54 are those of men of talent, in New York that number falls to 34. in Ohio to 19, in Indiana to 11, in Illinois to 10, in Missouri to C, in Kansas to 2, in Colorado to 1. In the case of such western states as Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska .Minnesota and the Dakotas the extreme paucity of men of talent is in part explained by two facts —a lack of suitable means of education for the present generation and an abnormal proportion of young people among the native born. But if we remain within the zone which was filled by settlers in the eighteenth or the beginning of the nineteenth century, and which includes such states as Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana and Illinois, tint explanation fails, and there remains the fact of a disproportion of from three to one between the east and the west in the present birth rate of men of talent. In several cases the western state enjoys a greater material prosperity has more and larger cities, and has offered to the present generation bettir educational opportunities than many of its eastern neighbors. The state of Ohio is comparable in araa to the state of Maine. In 1810 the population of Ohio was larger than that of Maine. In 1826 there were in Ohio five universities and colleges (Ohio university. Miami university, Franklin college, and Western Reserve university,) against two in Maine (Bowdoin college and Colby university.) Twenty years later there were in Ohib eight times the number of colleges and universities than found in Maine, yet the present birth rate of celebrities is more than twice as great in Maine as in Ohio.

Nor has the state of Indiana remained behind in educational matters. In 1840 the generation which is now 80 years old, found in Indiana six universities and colleges, against two in Maine, one in New Hampshire and two in Vermont. In spite of such advantages that generation and the following show but one-fifth of the birh rate of men of talent observed in Northern New England. A similar fact may be observed in the south. The state of Tennessee early enjoyed better educational advantages than its eastern neighbors. In 1794 there was not a single college or university in North Carolina. South Carolina had but one such institution, the College of Charleston. At that time Tennessee had three universities and colleges; the University of Tennessee, the University of Nashville and Greenville and Tusculum college. Its superiortiy over its eastern neighbors in the equipment As well as to the number of its colleges Tennessee has continually kept from the eighteeneh century down to the present time. Nashville is today the great educational center of the south; yet the birth rate of celebrities in Tennessee is but one third o.' that of South Carolina.

It is evident that the cause of such differences, as we l as that of the imposing intellectual superiority of the poor mountainous regions of New England over the wfcole east, lies in the men themselves, «nd not in' their surroundings. New 'ork, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri are but the successive stages of the great westward migration which, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, peopled the west at the expense of the east; and the steady decrease in the birth rate of talent met with when passing from one of those states to its Western neighbor shows, as is the case in every partial migration, that that particular one was highly selective in its process.—Century Magazine.

The Startling Area of Our Coal Fields. It Is estimated by experts that the area of American coal fields, at present open to mining, is more than five times as groat as that of the coal fields of England, France, Germany and Belgium; the great coal producing countries of Europe. While practically all the available coal areas of those countries have been opened to mining, ours have scarcely been estimated. When we take into consideration the fact that coal Is one of the great mgtive powers in the manufacturing world it is evident that this immense wealth of coal will be of such an advantage to the United States as to be beyond any man's calculation. —From “Success."