452 



NATURE 



\_Afarck 13, 1890 



I shall call attention hereafter to certain conclusions furnished 

 by this table as to the correlation of these various physical 

 characteristics. At present they are only appealed to in con- 

 firmation of the fact alluded to above. It is rather curious 

 that, when we sort out these first classes into their A, B, C con- 

 stituents, we find that, with the same single exception, the 

 distribution is about what it would be on a chance arrangement. 

 That is, the men of exceptional height or breathing capacity are 

 just as likely to be found amongst the A's as amongst the B's or 

 C's. This is the case even with the eyesight. Ihe first class 

 here was confined to men who could read distinctly the small 

 print (diamond) employed, at a distance of at least 35 inches ; 

 with the additional restriction that the weaker eye of the two 

 could read the same at 33 inches. Of such men there were 196 

 out of 2134. Now had these been taken indiscriminately from 

 the three classes A, B, C, the most likely proportions would have 

 been respectively 44, 84, and 68. The actual numbers were 46, 

 88, and 62. But when we select in the same way a first class 

 (consisting of 182) of the strongest "pullers," we find that 

 whereas A, B, C, should contribute respectively 41, 78, and 63, 

 they actually contribute 28, 78, and 83. Taken in connection 

 with our previous results, the conclusion seems inevitable that 

 this particular kind of physical superiority is, to a certain extent, 

 for some reason or other, hostile to intellectual superiority. 



The question why this is so is one which it is not easy to 

 answer with confidence, but the following suggestion may be 

 offered. The action of " pulling " is the only one in the above 

 list of physical tests which is much practised in any popular 

 games : it obviously is so in rowing, whilst in cricket a similar 

 set of muscles appear to be exerted. But no known game ap- 

 pears much to practise our "squeezing " power ; and, as regards 

 the height, weight, breathing, and seeing powers, probably any 

 form of exercise which keeps a man in good health offers 

 sufficient scope for development. It would therefore seem to 

 meet all the observed facts if we suppose that our hard-reading 

 men take amply sufficient exercise to develop their general 

 physical powers fully up to the same relatively high standard 

 found amongst the others ; but that the non-reading men, or a 

 certain proportion of them, are rather apt to devote themselves 

 to certain kinds of exercise which develop a proportional 

 ^ uperiority in one special muscular development. 



I should not have directed so much attention to this second 

 tab'e if it were not that such considerations have a very direct 

 bearing upon a question of importance at the present day. As 

 some readers of this journal probably know, it has been seriously 

 discussed, in influential quarters, whether it is not advisable to 

 take some account of physical qualifications in our Civil Service 

 or other State examinations.^ By this, we may presume, is not 

 to l)e understood any mere pass examination. The necessity of 

 so Be test of that kind may be taken for granted, and would 

 naturally be secured by a medical certificate. Something much 

 more serious than this may plausibly be defended, and on the 

 following grounds. 



In rnost of the examinations of any magnitude with which the 

 State is concerned, it may be taken as a fact of experience that 

 the number of selected candidates bears some moderate ratio to 

 that of those who compete. If two hundred men are found to 

 go in and try, it will seldom be the case that there were very 

 many more or less than fifty vacancies. Supply and demand, 

 in a country in the present social and economic condition of 

 England at any rate, will generally obviate any extreme dispro- 

 portion between the two quantities. Now it is well known that 

 where many aims of any kind are made at an object the so-called 

 "law of large numbers," or "law of error," comes into play. 

 At the two ends of our list of competitors the discrepancies in 

 their performances will be very great. But, for a wide range on 

 both sides of the middle, the differences will be comparatively 

 small. A glance at any one of the lists, which are published 

 m the papers from time to time, of the selected candidates for 

 the army, with the number of marks gained by each, will 

 illustrate this. Near the top the difference between one can- 

 didate and the next may be measured by hundreds of marks, 

 whilst towards the bottom of the selected candidates {i.e. to- 

 wards the middle of the cornpetitors) the difference will be given 

 in tens only, or even in units. So marked is this tendency that 

 any well-informed statistician could often give a very shrewd 

 guess, from the mere inspection of such a list, as to the number 



' See Mr. Gallon's paper on this subject at the last meeting of the British 



of candidates who had failed to pass, and whose names therefore 

 were not mentioned. 



Now, this being so, it follows that the differences between, 

 say, the last 20 per cent, who succeeded, and the first 20 per 

 cent, who failed, are extremely slfght, in respect of the qualities 

 thus tested. Might it not then be wise to take account of some 

 other quality, and what better could be found than the physical ? 

 If by sacrificing little or nothing of mental superiority we 

 can gain a good deal of physical superiority, there is much 

 to be said in favour of such a final appeal. If, for instance, 

 we accepted, in the first instance, 20 per cent, more than we 

 wanted to retain, and then subjected the whole number to some 

 physical test, for which a moderate amount of marks were 

 assigned, the men finally excluded would at worst necessarily be 

 those who were only just admitted on the customary plan, and 

 those finally admitted would at worst necessarily be those who 

 otherwise would only just have been rejected. 



There is not space here to discuss fully any such proposal, but 

 if any scheme of this kind is ever introduced its justification must 

 rest on considerations such as those displayed in our second 

 table. One or two results may be pointed out. In the first 

 place, it must be insisted thatthe whole merit of any such scheme 

 rests upon the assumption that mental superiority may be con- 

 sidered as perfectly "independent" (in the mathematical sense) 

 of physical. This we find is not quite the case as regards the 

 "pulling" power, but is the case as regards every one of the 

 other qualities here displayed. If we set much store upon tall 

 men, or upon men with good eyes, we may rest assured that 

 little or nothing will be sacrificed in the way of mental results by 

 giving reasonably good marks for such excellence. Again, it 

 may be remarked to what extent these different kinds of physical 

 superiority are correlated. It appears that great superiority in 

 any one kind of physical power is accompanied by considerable 

 superiority in every other. It is a striking fact that in only one 

 of the thirty subdivisions there indicated, do we fail to find the 

 "first class" man, in any one department, standing above the 

 average man in every department. 



This being so, it is rather for the physiologist, or for the man 

 of affairs, to select the particular physical test which is likely 

 best to serve the public interest. So far as mere statistics are 

 concerned, I should give the preference to the breathi)ig power. 

 For one thing, this appears, in my judgment, to be correlated, 

 on the whole, with a higher general physical superiority than is 

 the case with the other qualities. I apprehend also that good 

 breathing power could not readily be " crammed," so to say, by 

 attendance at a gymnasium, and by aid of professional advice 

 and direction, as can be done to some considerable extent in the 

 case of muscular power. 



It has been already remarked that high excellence in one 

 physical capacity seems correlated with decided superiority in all 

 the others. This is evident from a glance at the tables. But it 

 deserves notice that equally high excellence is not by any means 

 implied. The chance of a man who is in one of these physical 

 first classes being also in another such class is not very much 

 more than what it would be if the two capacities were distributed 

 at random. As a matter of fact, four men only out of the entire 

 number are in every one of these first classes. As between the 

 exertions of muscular strength apparently so closely similar as 

 those of pulling and squeezing, it is found that only 44, out of 

 the total of 195 in the latter, also secured a place in the former ; 

 whereas a purely chance distribution might have been expected 

 to secure as many as about 20. As between the corresponding 

 selections, of about equal numbers, from the best in respect of 

 eyesight and breathing, it appears that not more than 30 obtain 

 a place in both classes. 



Turn now to some of the less obviously certain conclusions. 

 Comparing the " head- volumes " of the students, two facts 

 claim notice, viz. first, that the heads of the high-honour men 

 are distinctly larger than those of the pass men ; and, second, 

 that the heads of all alike continue to grow for some years after 

 the age of 19. 



The actual amount of difference as between the A and C 

 students is, of course, small. On our scale it is just about 7 

 inches — that is 3 per cent, on the real size of the head. Is 

 this small difference to be regarded as significant ? The answer 

 can only be given by an appeal to the theoiy of statistics, which 

 yields the following conclusions. 



I must premise that the figures given here as average head- 

 volumes were thus obtained. The average was taken of each of 

 the three separate head-measurements (in the three directions 



