MEASUREMENTS OF MEN. 57 



vantage of not causing injurious straining to weakly persons. Trials 

 of lifting heavy weights are positively dangerous. If a multitude of 

 persons were tested in that way, some instances of broken blood- 

 vessels and of abdominal ruptures would be almost sure to occur. 



Agility may be defined in terms say of the number of seconds 

 required to run a hundred yards, of the greatest horizontal distance 

 that can be covered by a leap, of the distance to which a cricket-ball 

 can be thrown, and by means of various gymnastic feats. The several 

 merits of the latter, however, require to be carefully considered, and 

 those that can be performed in-doors and in a confined space should be 

 selected as standards. 



The co-ordination of muscles and eye is another faculty that varies 

 widely in different persons, while it is also greatly increased by educa- 

 tion. Some persons are gifted with a high power of accurate move- 

 ment, while others are as notoriously clumsy. In all cases, however, 

 this faculty may be largely developed in special directions, as is shown 

 by the superior dexterity of artisans to that of amateurs. It seems a 

 most simple faculty to be tested, nevertheless I know of no recognized 

 methods of doing so ; and, in default of one, the best plan of defining 

 its amount might be, in the case of youths, by their measured skill in 

 well-known games, as racquets, cricket, rifle-shooting, billiards, and 

 wherever else a good eye and steady hand are required. 



The faculty of sense-discrimination has in many respects been the 

 subject of most elaborate experiments, chiefly in regard to the rela- 

 tion between the amounts of stimuli, as measured by objective stand- 

 ards (such as weight in pounds, as brightness in units of intensity, 

 etc.), and the corresponding amount of evoked sensations, measured 

 by subjective standards, namely, by the feelings of the several persons 

 operated on. Out of all the contrivances that have been devised for 

 these experiments, some of which are extremely delicate, we want a 

 battery of the most simple ones that are sufficiently effective for ordi- 

 nary anthropometric purposes. I find it difficult, in obedience to the 

 programme already laid down, to enter as much as I should like to do 

 into particulars concerning this wide and important part of the sub- 

 ject before us. The sources of error to be guarded against, the prin- 

 ciples that have to be attended to, and the instruments already in use, 

 can not be properly explained in a few paragraphs. The reader must 

 take it for granted that all this is a familiar subject to many writers 

 and experimenters, such as Fechner and Delbceuf, and that the work 

 remaining to be done is to select out of extant instruments those that 

 are sufficiently inexpensive and quick in manipulation to be appro- 

 priately placed in an anthropometric laboratory. Under these circum- 

 stances I will refrain from doing more than specifying the more im- 

 portant measurements among the many that admit of being made : 



Sight. Its keenness ; the appreciation of different shades ; that 

 of different colors. 



