SCHOOL ANTHROPOMETRICS. 691 



Culture. Among the best known series of the latter are records 

 of Bowditch of Boston and MacDonald of Washington. 



A further development from the hygienic aspect was the 

 enquiry into the physique of groups of the population according to 

 environment, comparisons being made between rural and urban, 

 manufacturing and agricultural, professional and artisan classes. 

 An enquiry of this kind was begun, Haddon says, as early as 1834 

 by Villerme, who also examined the physique of children in coal 

 mines. 



Special mention should be made of the first state of health of 

 school cliildren. Warner examined 1,000,000 school children. In 

 his book on the study of children, which was the text-book on the 

 subject for many years ; he insisted on the necessity of obtaining 

 exact physical records. 



The foregoing series of measurements are classic. Within the 

 past ten years the investigations have multiplied enormously and 

 the comparisons been extended. Among the more important in the 

 British Empire have been — ■ 



(1) The Report on the Physical Condition of Glasgow School 

 Children, by Dr. W. Leslie Mackenzie and Captain Foster, who 

 analysed the records of the height and weight of over 72,000 

 children, and investigated the relation of their physical condition 

 to their housing conditions, i.e., according as there were children 

 living in one, two, three, or four-roomed houses. 



(2) The Report of the London County Council on the Examina- 

 tion of 20,000 children. 



(3) A series, small, but significant for us, since they have been 

 made in Australia. The first systematic survey of Australian 

 children was made in 1901 on Sydney boys and girls and reported 

 to the congress of tliis Association at Hobart in 1902 — an experi- 

 mental and suggestive survey. More recently obser^^ations have 

 been made in connection with medical inspection in some of the 

 States. 



It will be seen from the above series of measurements how much 

 attention has been paid during recent years to the anthropometry 

 of childhood or school anthropometrics. It is natural that this 

 should be so in what has been called " The Century of the Child." 

 Every phase of liim from the prenatal period (teratology) through 

 infancy, childhood and adolescence to adult hfe has been the subject 

 of special study, in the physiological, psychological and antliropo- 

 metrical aspects. The progress on the physiological side has been 

 sound and thoroughly scientific, as from its nature it can only be 

 pursued in a laboratory and by the speciaUy-trained expert. The 

 psychology of childhood has engaged earnest thinkers and 

 become the basis of the newer educational method. The pseudo- 

 scientist has been abroad, however, and brought much of the work 

 into disrepute. There is to-day a healthy reaction against him 

 in favour of extended experimental research. Physical anthro- 

 pometry on the other hand has not made the sound progress that 



