6 Anthropological Investigations. 



secure for these children the best future that it may be possible to 

 provide for them. 



Besides benefiting the whole class of children concerned, such in- 

 vestigations as have been undertaken on the inmates of the New 

 York Juvenile Asylum will also benefit the examined subjects in- 

 dividually and immediately. 



If we should examine any given class of children in a thorough 

 way, we would find, now and then, in some individuals of the class, 

 certain small, physical deficiencies or irregularities, either natural or 

 acquired. We should find frequently, for instance, no matter how 

 normal mentally the class of children examined might be, and to 

 what social class it might belong, such abnormalities as adherence 

 of the prepuce in the boys, or as drooping shoulders on one side of 

 the body, due to habitual faulty positions, or a faulty position of 

 some of the teeth, etc. Most of the irregularities of these kinds can, 

 under the appropriate direction, be corrected, and such a correction 

 undoubtedly benefits the individual. It will be seen from the follow- 

 ing report how useful in these directions our examinations have 

 been. 



So far I have spoken only of the direct advantages of the investi- 

 gations, but there are further and by no means secondary advan- 

 tages resulting from the same which are purely of a scientific nature. 

 This point will be best appreciated by a perusal of the report itself. 

 It will be seen that we have gained certain interesting data concern- 

 ing the evolution of the children in different ages. This study 

 enables us to state for the first time the physical differences in all 

 parts of the body between the white and colored children. The rec- 

 ords will also give us some notion as to the structural differences 

 among the children of several nationalities, etc. The majority of 

 the following data, however, should not be looked upon as definite 

 conclusions on the particular subject which they may concern. 

 They are really but indications of what can be expected from pro- 

 longed studies in the same direction. 



The Mode of Execution of the Work. 



In conducting examinations of this extent, the first and very im- 

 portant condition is to properly arrange the recording of the data. 



