Stnt'mtical FuvcutlgationH 387 



(\ pinari claims to consideration, it did not merit acceptance, and therefore 

 he gave it up. But it is difficult to discover a really strong answer to his 

 papers, and it will undoul)tedly Ix) revived some day, when tne official world 

 18 slightly more enlightened. Prohahly marks will l)e given for a complete 

 series of anthropometric tests, mental as well as physical. There can be no 

 better remedy against cramming than examinations of this kind wherein it is 

 quite easy to vary the tests, and to prevent anything but general intelligence 

 and good phyaiiiue scoring. 



In 1878 a Joint Committee of the War Office and Civil Service Com- 

 missioners had been appointed to inquire into the question 



"whether the preHeiit literary exaiuinations for the ariuy should be supplemented by physical 

 coinp<;tition." 



The reconunendations of this Joint Committee deal principally with marks 

 to be assigned for athletic performance, and very reasonable objection was 

 taken to the proposals. In a report of 1889 the Civil Service Conunissioners 

 stated that the War Office were satisfied with the physique of the young men 

 selected by their examinations, but the Commissioners remark tnat sliould 

 any department of the public service be desirous of testing the physical 

 qualifications of its officers more severely than at present, they anticipated 

 no more difficulty in determining the relative capacities of the individual 

 candidates in this respect than is experienced in the literary examination. 



"Moreover encouragement would be given generally to candidates to maintain a good state 

 of healtli while prewiring for the literary examinations, and any tendency to overpressure 

 would thereby Ix) diminisht^l." (p. 24; B.A.K. p. 472.) 



This is the point from which Galton starts, and he remarks that to define bodily 

 efficiency and to measure it both in individuals and races is the special task 

 of the anthropologists, who concern themselves with the practice of human 

 measurements, and devise tests that give warning whether growth and de- 

 velopment are or are not proceeding normally. Galton at once states that 

 what he has in view has no relation whatever to the paas-examination now 

 made by medical men to eliminate candidates who are absolutely unfit. These 

 pass-examinations are obviously a necessity. The reform asked for consists 

 m giving additional marks to those youths who are not only fit for service, 

 but exceptionally well fit as far as bodily efficiency is concerned. 



"The curious and hardly accountjible disregard of bodily efficiency in those examinations 

 through which youths are selected to fill posts in wliich exceptional Iwdily gifts happen to be 

 peculiarly desirable, must strike the attention of anthropologistw with special force, and they 

 of all people are best able to appreciate how much is sacrificed by its neglect." (p. 24; B. A. R. 

 p. 472.) 



Galton next cites the reduction by Dr Venn' of the data from the 

 Cambridge Anthropometric Laboratory to show there is no significant asso- 



' Journal of the Anthropolo(/ktU Itmtitute, Vol. xvill, pp. 140-54. Galton provided the instru- 

 ments for the Cambridge Anthropometric Liilx)ratory and when over a thousand students liad 

 been meiisured Venn reduced the data with tlio above-mentioneti result. Galton supplemented 

 Venn's paper with some discussion of the a.s,sociation of intelligence with sir^e of head (pp. 155— 

 56), and considered that it was possible to show that there was increased intelligence with 

 increasetl heiui size. This matter is of such importance that a number of years ago I got 



49—8 



