PREFACE 



From the university jubilee fund I received the means for con- 

 ducting an investigation of the average growth or physical development 

 of Norwegian school children. 



In my application for same J had presented the following plan for 

 the work: On the results of form.er investigations of children 6 — 14 years 

 (the counties in the region of M j osen in the inland country of Norway 

 191 3 — 14) a series of average types were to be selected for closer in- 

 vestigations (anthropological measurements, &c.). This material was 

 practically fully prepared according to this plan in the fall of 1918. 



But for several different reasons, however, the present work does 

 not refer to the mentioned material. The fact is that I was appointed 

 inspector of health in Christiania from December 19 18, and under this 

 administration belongs, as the most important part, the position as chief 

 medical officer of schools. Therein- I got access to an altogether more 

 valuable material, and the whole investigation work was started all over 

 again from the beginning. It is therefore now not presented as a study 

 of the average development through the years 7 — 14 made on only a 

 selection of children, but as a complete investigation of the school children 

 of the Capital (girls 7 — 18 years, boys 7 — 20) with average calculations 

 and variations in regard to bodily height, weight, and weight-height 

 proportions; also photographs of average types after objective numeric 

 selection with later subjective control (in order not to include as normal 

 types the abnormal or sick children with accidental normal average 

 numeric values). 



This school material applies to 28 700 pupils examined March 1920, 

 one single school in April. 



No representation of the practical-hygienic measures which present 

 themselves as a result of the school investigation (as the working out 

 of practical norms, distribution of places in the vacation colonies, ap- 

 portionment of milk or oatmeal gruel, judgment of results of vacation 

 colonies, &c.) will be mentioned in this work, which is purely anthropo- 

 metric in character. 



The practical-hygienic side has been treated in "Sociale meddelelser" 

 no. 6, 1920, in "Nordisk hygienisk tidsskrift" no. 5, 1920, no. i, 1923, 

 and in the daily press. 



