The Benefit of Variability.—Another climatic condition which may have an effect upon health and business is illustrated by two sentences from the sporting page of a morning paper: "With a marked change in the weather the men of the university football team showed Ima,e spirit than they have displayed all the week." " A touch of winter in the air made the football practice a little snappier this afternoon." The two reporters who wrote these words touched on something which we all know, but whose importance is perhaps greater than we realize. When today's temperature is the same as yesterday's, people tend to work slowly, while if there is a change they work faster. Of course the change may be too extreme, but that occurs only occasionally. In three Connec ticut ,factories a rise in temperature, taking the year as a whole, was slightly stimulative, while a drop of from four to ten degrees causes people to work faster than at any other time. This means that each of the storms which pass over us probably gives a distinct impetus and makes us work faster. Fig. 20 shows the average effect of clear and cloudy days on 300 factory operatives during a year in Connecticut, regardless of temperature. Most people think that they work fastest on a bright clear day after a storm, but these hundreds of factory operatives did not do so. The people whose work is illustrated in Fig. 20 worked most slowly on the first clear day. Their work increased a trifle on the next clear day, and on the partly cloudy days, and was highest at the end of a storm. The first cloudy day was not favorable, but the second cloudy day when rain perhaps fell in the morning and the sky began to clear in the afternoon was the time when they were most efficient. Fig. 20 suggests that the passage of each successive storm spurred them to greater activity. 'We are prone to complain of the weather, but frequent storms and the consequent changes of temperature are per haps one reason for the energy of the United States.
The preceding pages, especially Fig. 1S, suggest that there is a dif ference in people's capacity for business from season to season. In the northern United States as a whole the best conditions seem to prevail from about the middle of April to the middle of June and again from mid September to mid-November. Therefore if extra work is needed, or if some specially difficult task is to be done, it might well be undertaken when people can think most clearly and work most accurately and rap idly. Midsummer, as everyone recognizes, is not the time for extra work, but midwinter is perhaps equally unsuitable. The common prac tice of closing the books in January may not be so sensible or so econom ical and accurate as it would be to close them about the first of October or of April, for it involves unusually hard, careful work.
The Distribution of Health and Energy in the United Having seen how health and business efficiency vary from season to season, let us see how they vary from place to place. The distribution of health in the United States is shown in Fig. 21 which is based on the mortality statistics of three large life insurance companies. This is better than using the mortality statistics compiled by the United States Census because the census figures are greatly influenced by differences in the race and occupation of the people of different sections, and by the relative number of children and old people. The life insur ance statistics make allowance for differences in age. Moreover, when the map was prepared, each company insured about the same kind of people in all parts of the country, so that the number of deaths com pared with the number of people who are insured gives a good measure of the general conditions of health. The map shows that the best health
is in the northeastern quarter or more of the country and on the Pacific coast. The prairie states of Nebraska and Iowa stand highest. Much of their advantage is due to the fact that so large a proportion of the people who are insured are prosperous farmers who live outside the big cities, and therefore breathe pure air, and are not under the nervous strain of active city life. From the healthful region of the northeast there is a rapid decline southward so that the deathrate in the southern tier of states is 30 to 50 per cent higher than in those of the North. A noteworthy feature of the map is an area of poor health running north into Nevada, and a band of relatively poor health across the entire Rocky Mountain region.
The Relation of Health to Achievement—Where people's health is good their energy is usually high. This would be expected to have an important influence upon all sorts of conditions including business.
Fig. 22 shows the opinion of 23 leading geographers, ethnologists and others, as to the relative rank of the states in all kinds of progress. The 23 men classified the states according to the following definition of civilization, which is also a statement of the best conditions for business: Civilization means those characteristics which are generally recognized as of the highest value. It depends on " the power of initiative, the capacity for formulating new ideas and for carrying them into effect, the power of self-control, high standards of honesty and morality, the power to lead and control other races, the capacity for disseminating ideas, and other similar qualities which will readily suggest themselves. These qualities find expression in high ideals, respect for law, inventiveness, ability to develop philosophical systems, stability and honesty of government, a highly developed system of the capacity to dominate the less civilized parts of the world, the ability to carry out far-reaching enterprises covering long periods of time and great areas of the earth's surface," and also the power to develop all that is best in literature, religion, and all the varioug forms of art.
On this basis the 23 men classified the states into six divisions accord ing to the general ability and influence of the citizens, but without regard to the actual number of people. The map represents the opinion of a group of the most highly trained and best informed men in the country. Notice how closely it agrees with the map of health, Fig. 21. There is the same high area from New England to Kansas, a decline south ward and westward, a tongue of low conditions extending up into Nevada and a high area on the Pacific coast. In other words initiative and capac ity in business and various other lines appear to be at a maximum where health is best. This does not mean that people in the southern states or in other countries where the health is not so good have less real ability. Their inheritance is probably uninfluenced by environment. A man of unusual ability is as likely to be born in the South as in the North. In the North, however, if he lives in an equally wise way, he usually has more energy and hence is more easily able to accomplish great things. In the South he has to contend against greater obstacles and therefore is deserving of greater credit if he succeeds.