8 MUMFORD, PJiysiqiic of MancJiestcr Grauuiiar School Boys. 



lessened, which would have been of great benefit to the 

 child at the period of life when wide range of vision is 

 an all-important necessit}- for largeness of view. 



Effect OH scholastic attaniDients of early interference 

 ivitJi grozvtJi Giving to disease in early life. Our attention 

 lately has been directed to the necessity of recognising that 

 even in the middle classes attending Secondary Schools 

 there are a certain number of boys who cannot progress at 

 the same rate as the majority of their fellows. They offer 

 quite a different problem to that of the mentally deficient, 

 for some of them are capable of being useful and even 

 able citizens. They fall one or two years, or even more, 

 behind their fellows. When they are two years behind, 

 and do not show any capacity to in any way catch up, we 

 speak of them as retarded boys. Some of these boys 

 may have been artificially retarded owing to their previous 

 preparation having been inadequate. Some of them, 

 though by no means all, come late to the school, say at 

 14 or 15, or even 16, and from lack of mastery of the 

 elementary points essential to a Secondary' Education, 

 they cannot be placed with boys of their own age. It 

 looks at first sight as if this might be purely a matter of 

 bad preparation, but, on full enquiry at the medical 

 examination, I have found that in the majority of cases 

 on careful search there could be detected some evidence of 

 early ill-health having occurred which was the cause of 

 their retarded progress at the present or at a previous 

 school. A certain small proportion of cases that can only 

 be put down to bad preparation still exists, but it is a very 

 small one, and, of course, a certain small proportion due 

 to imperfect brain power. 



It is easy to be misled as to the cause of retardation 

 occurring in late arrivals to the school, say, when the boy 



