I started out with good intentions, dear reader. I planned to tell you all about Sir Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, who was one of those delightful Victorian inventors who could be wrong-headed on so many levels (including eugenics), but also managed to come up with some highly useful things that we still employ to this day.

I got interested in him because I heard about his invention called a Gumption Reviver, which he created during his student days, when he would study obsessively. Basically, it would drip water on your head to keep you awake and focused on the task at hand.

I need one of those. But I suspect the reason it never caught on was that it would create one heck of a mess. It probably didn’t do textbooks much good, either.

But I think the name he gave this invention tells you a great deal about this man’s level of creativity. The fact that he also invented a system of classifying fingerprints that we still use in modern times tells you even more about his intelligence.

And here’s where my gumption seems to have left me. Because while reading up about this fascinating man, I came across an article entitled But I Regress, by Dave Studeman, which is so well written and gives you so much detail about Sir Francis Galton that I know I couldn’t possibly compete with it. So I hope you’ll work up the gumption to click on over to this article, because it’s really a fascinating read.

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