KNOWLEDGE 



mero jiaticnce to bear the miser}-— patiem 

 all may be at last overworn, or remainine 

 the patiouco of disgust instead of the patie 



•GilOWTH OF A FAMILY. 



By RiciiAKi) A. Proctor. 



MR. FHANCI.^ C 

 obtain from lu, 

 development of cliil^ 

 rarious ages. But I i 

 supply of f 



fuller infoi 



flin 



■ l;r 



r,ls of 



is likely tnsupplN 



Talnablc tli.iu tli. 



logieal recnr.l. w], 



useless loads in 



♦■kittle cattle (n s 



may lead us to i 



apt to project u- • 

 Still t.liere ,-;,i; 1 



compiled stati-t w 



would be interisii 



the heights «{ ( li 



may possess hiu'li pli v-ii 'luLMriil int-i-r'^t. r^jM'i-iilly if 



accompanied by iiifunniit ion as t' i I'ln-uiii-tain-fs w'hii-h 



may have affected gi-owtli. 



I have not myself been very attentive tu sueh matters, 



although so far as numerical relations are concerned I 



have had as good opportunities as most men. Since 1866 



(when the Corner House fell, and by its fall condemned 



many innocent persons to hard labour for life), I have 



not been so constantly with my family as Mr. Galton's 

 statisticians are expected to be. Many times I have 



been away from home for seven or eight months at a 

 stretch ; and once I was away nearly two years. And 



indeed, it has been merely in a casual way that I have 

 taken measurements, usually when by some lucky chance 

 my whole family were gathered together and the question 

 of growth chanced to be started. 



I was surprised, therefore, to find that the records I 

 had scrawled on the margin of a certain page, gave so 

 much information as, when analysed, they appear to me 

 to convey. That page is the one" in LarJner's " Common 

 Things Explained," in which Quetelet's curve of growth 

 is given. I used to compare the heights of my children 

 with those due to their several ages according to 

 Quetelet's mean curve ; and so I naturally pencilled in 

 my notes alongside that curve of comparison. 



A short time since I made a clean copy of these 

 pencilled notes. In the course of the work it"^ struck me 

 that a series of curves for comparison with Quetelet's 

 would be interesting. The smaller figttre in the accom- 

 panying engraving arose out of this idea. It will be 

 esen that the heights for the five children dealt with are 

 shown in curves set down on the same plan as Quetelet's 

 growth curve, so that one can see at a glance whether 

 the height of a child at any age was above or below the 

 aTjrago height for that age. (Quetelet's curve corre- 

 sponds to a height, when full grown, of rather more than 

 5 ft. 6i in.) 



Bnt'l first set out the heights of the different children 

 deait'with (I omit the records of several of my children 

 who died young) as they were recorded on given dates, 

 obJHaining the very curious series of curves occupying the 

 larger-scale portion of the drawing. 



_voU,J. Ur .-. ia-„.., L,.J ...y ivcurJs 

 lii-e uf a dehuite lAnu they would 

 I publishing. ' 



lie explanrltinn. The progress of 



f" 



■lit. 



, but the height 

 ird those in the 



'i! j-fret " (to tise an 

 I .1 no regular m^ea- 

 ; _• always a squaire- 

 . c .w..il it just touched 

 ■e on the head is a very 

 asy to determine when it 

 irface set with its plane 

 a vertical wall, you_qan 

 hi'iu'lit measurer, -c-j 

 drawings were made"" are 



To these I may add one measurement of my yoi 

 boy, who promises to be the tallest, viz. : — 



It wiU be seen from the smaller figure that at the same 

 age, 3 years 21 months, Richard measured almost exactly 

 3ft. Sin. (If I remei.il"r i:,ii;:y i ly eldest son was 

 taller than my younges; :• - ."I 



But the mo.st remar::;.! ' ' I have noticed 



from the avtr.igc curve, ar, 1 :• I i il • it from normal 

 growth, is in tlie case of one ci my .step-daughters who, 

 when aged 9 years 7 months, on May 13, 1885, measured 



