ON THE PHYSIQUE AND ABILITY OF OFFSPRING 21 



Now compare this with the exact words of the Report 

 concerning the school whose children were investigated : 



It has upon its rolls children from the poorest parts of 

 the city, and yet it has also an admixture of the sub- 

 stantially comfortable and thoroughly respectable working 

 class. . . . 



In the poorest part of a city of many centuries' growth 

 there are also many ' old families ' who continue to reside 

 in the houses their fathers and grandfathers lived in for 

 old times' sake, despite of the degeneration of the imme- 

 diate neighbourhood. This gives the school a widely 

 representative character which especially commended itself 

 to the Committee i^i making its selection. 



The itaUcs in both the extracts from Professor Marshall's 

 letters and the Report are mine, and I would ask the 

 reader to fix his attention upon them. The Committee 

 chose the school because it was of a ' widely representative 

 character '. And why was it widely representative ? 

 Assuredly because it embraced an " admixture of the 

 substantially comfortable and thoroughly respectable 

 working classes ". Why does Professor Marshall change 

 majty into few and again into soine ? Why, when the Report 

 only tells us that ' old families ' live on in their ancestral 

 houses for ' old times' sake ', a reason of sentiment, does he 

 suggest that they stayed there because they were lacking 

 in vitality ? It is clear that Professor Marshall's pre- 

 conceived views are such, that he cannot quote accurately 

 the language of the Report. No one can suppose that he 

 misquoted it consciously. Yet that he has misquoted it 

 verbally and in spirit is obvious. How can a population 

 which the Committee selected as of a ' wddely representa- 

 tive character' be 'with few exceptions of a low grade 

 character ' ? We took it, and I still take it, with Rown- 

 tree's York and Booth's London in mind, with data as to 

 tens of thousands of children before us in the Laboratory, 



