Man In The Modern World

MAN IN THK MODERN WORLD
Stales, 9 arc Hindus, 4 1 Cur ope; ins, L> from the British Dominions, and
one is a native African.
However, the selection of representatives of foreign countries is
curiously haphazard. For instance, Hemingway is in, but not
Faulkner; Sherwood Anderson, but nol Stark Young; William
Beebe, but not Thomas Harbour; Lindbergh, but not Professor
Piccard; Frankic liuclunan of the Oxford Groups, but not Aimee
Scruple MacPherson; Ktlil'h Wharton, l>ut no! (Jcrlnule Stein;
Charles Sclt/.er (author of 'lite MJ.V.V of the Lazy Y\ <'I<'M <^<%-)j but not
Christopher Morlcy; Mary (jarden, but not Lawrence Tibbett;
General Smuts, but not General Botha; Kthcl Barrymore, but not
Ruth Draper; the Abbe Dinme.t, but not Ogden Nash. . „ . It is all
very mysterious.
This quantitative method of study is capable of almost indefinite
extension. In fact, it might be good for the progress of science, if for
a year, say, our army of sociologists were to relinquish all other
research, and make a vast co-operative study, intensive, extensive,
and comparative, of the "Who's Whos" of the world.
There is the question of Clubs, for instance. What sort of men are
those without a single club, and those who belong to more than one?
Is there as much correlation as is popularly supposed between clubs
and professions'—the Athenaeum and the upper ranges of an ecclesi-
astical career, for instance, or the Authors' and the practice of litera-
ture? There is further the question of recreation. What sort of men,
on the average, are they who have no recreations, or at least, do not
record them? Of what type arc the comparatively rare few who
comply with editorial request and insert their motor-car numbers?
What types of men and women omit to state their ages?
On all these and many other points of absorbing interest Who's Who
could provide an answer if only sociological science would undertake
the research. Unfortunately, the statistical labour involved is too
great for an unaided worker, and I must pass on to the less precise
but none the less absorbing facts to be gained by the merely quali-
tative methods of browsing and pouncing.
I cannot pretend, for example, to any precision of result on the
question of length of entry. For a considerable time, I thought that
the record was held by Nicholas Murray Butler—a proud position for
a foreigner to hold among alien hosts! But he is exceeded, by another
Bu, curiously enough—Sir Ernest Wallis Budge, the archaeologist,
who runs to 165 lines against N. M. B«'s 135 (and this in spite of the
list of the latter's foreign orders running to 20 lines).
However, it is true that the United States entries tend to be on the
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