Tilt Groioth of Children. 81 



He writes : '' There are always in the develo[)ineiit of an 

 individual periods of slow as well as of rapid growth. These 

 anomalies are to be observed about tlie age of puberty, and 

 especially as the result of diseases. The perfectly normal 

 development of all the physical faculties would require a 

 rare combination of favorable circumstances. In dealing 

 with a large number of individuals, these little anomalies 

 disappear in the general average, and the deficient develop- 

 ment of one individual is balanced by the excessive growth of 

 another; at least this is what experiment tends to teach us." 



In referring to the rate of growth of a boy whose height 

 had been annually recorded, he writes: " It will be noticed 

 that the development was very rapid in the early years of 

 life ; then there were slight irregularities of growth between 

 the ages of eight and fifteen years. At this latter period a 

 rapid increase of height took place ; and I have noticed the 

 same thing in the case of my son. This increase preceded 

 the age of puberty. Something of the same sort is to be 

 observed in the case of girls, but here it occurs a year or two 

 earlier. It seems, however, that there is nothing constant in 

 the matter ; hence these periods of retarded and accelerated 

 growth balance each other to a certain extent, and leave but 

 slight trace of their passage." It seems, therefore, that the 

 period of rapid growth preceding the age of puberty had, in 

 individual cases, attracted Quetelet's attention, though he 

 found no trace of it in his tables of averages, and was inclined 

 to regard it as a pathological result of civilization.* Inas- 

 much, however, as the phenomenon has in this community 

 and in England been found to be sufficiently constant and 

 sufficiently marked to impress itself upon the curves repre- 

 senting the averages of large numbers of measurements, it 

 seems reasonable to conclude that if similar methods of 

 investigation (viz., measuring large numbers of individuals 

 and rejecting none except for manifest deformity) had been 

 adopted in Belgium, similar results would have been reached. 



* D\x Systeme Social, p. 24. 



