PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION I. 609 



VI.- ON THE COMPILATION OF DATA IN SCHOOLS. 



The transfer of tte records from the individual cards to the com- 

 pilation sheets is very rapidly done. It has been found that the 

 taking, recording, and compiling of measurements of height and 

 weight, and making calculations from the data, may be made profitable 

 in school instruction in arithmetic. Boys and girls of higher primary 

 classes find interest in comparing the earher measurements with those 

 taken at a la'er date, since these furnish rates of growth for indi- 

 vidual children or for groups of children. Comparisons of the 

 variation of these rates at different ages are also of interest. 



Calculations of averages, &c., though ordinarily looked upon as 

 mere arithmetical exercises by children are found to be of interest, 

 when the data are derived from themselves and their school, and by 

 employing graphic as well as numerical schemes of representation, 

 they readily learn how errors may be detected. 



Where Metric measurements are made, the mutual conversion of 

 the Enghsh and Metric Standards renders them familiar to the 

 children, and centimetres and kilograms come to be appreciated a& 

 readily as inches and pounds avoirdupois. 



The preliminary sorting of l.he cards (see hereinafter, section VIII.,. 

 iii) and the tabulation of the data are simple processes ; and serve as a 

 suitable introduction to statistical methods, and inasmuch as intelli- 

 gent citizenship is based, inter alia, upon a proper comprehension of 

 statistical results, such work may well form part of the ordinary school 

 curriculum. If precision in making the measurements and accuracy 

 in the records and calculation can be secured these school observations 

 may be regarded as the first step of a training in scientific method. 



By investigations of the results, the interest of the children in phy- 

 sical fitness can of en be stimulated in regard to the influence of various 

 hygienic factors (air, food, sleep, physical exercise, game, sand 

 training, &c.). These assume a new significance when they can see 

 for themselves the correlation based on facts which they have estab- 

 lished from their own observations. 



In schools in England, where heights and weights have been 

 systematically taken and recorded, the numerical and graphic records 

 have led also to an increase of interest on the part of parents in 

 the health of their children, and deviation:; from normal (diminishing 

 weight, or diminished rate of increase in height, &c.) have led parents 

 to inqiiire into the circumstances of the child's life, and to get appro- 

 priate advice in regard thereto. 



In general, it may he said that the amount of work involved in 

 what has been suggested is shght, and is more than compensated by 

 increased interest in their work on the part of the children, and oftsn 

 actual physical improvement is referable to attention being drawn to 

 facts brought to light by these observations. 

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