Heights and Weights of New York City 

 Children 14 to 16 Years of Age* 



A STUDY OF MEASUREMENTS OF BOYS AND GIRLS 

 GRANTED EMPLOYMENT CERTIFICATES 



The New York State Labor Law provides that no child 

 between the ages of 14 and 16 shall be employed in a factory 

 or in a mercantile or other specified establishment, unless he 

 or she is in possession of an employment certificate. As a con- 

 dition for granting this certificate, the law requires that the 

 child shall have completed the work prescribed for the first 

 six years of the elementary schools, and that in the opinion of 

 the issuing officer the child shall have reached the normal 

 development for his age. He must be in sound health, as de- 

 termined by a thorough medical examination, and must be 

 physically able to perform the work he intends to do. As the 

 law in no way controls the nature of the work which the child 

 may be called upon to do, except by prohibiting his employ- 

 ment in dangerous trades, it can readily be seen that the 

 only construction of this law which will adequately protect the 

 child is to determine his physical fitness for any work in which 

 he may lawfully engage. This investigation has concerned 

 itself in part with the determination of certain norms of phys- 

 ical development which may serve as a guide to those upon 

 whom devolves the duty of issuing employment certificates. 



Height and weight are obviously important factors in the 

 examination to determine physical fitness, but emphatically so 

 in the decision of the medical officer as to the normal develop- 

 ment of each applicant. Hence, the chief object of this investi- 



*An abstract of this paper was read before the Eighth Congress of 

 the American School Hygiene Association, San Francisco, June, 1915. 



The authors desire to acknowledge their indebtedness to Miss J. V. 

 Minor, Assistant Secretary of the New York Child Labor Committee, 

 who suggested this study; to Dr. S. S. Goldwater, former Commissioner; 

 to Dr. Haven Emerson, Commissioner; to Dr. S. Josephine Baker, Director 

 of the Bureau of Child Hygiene, Department of Health of the City of New 

 York; and to Mr. I. S. Adlerblum, of the Statistical Bureau, Metropolitan 

 Life Insurance Company, under whose immediate direction the tabu- 

 lations contained in this paper were made. 



1 



345859 



