3« 



Anthropological Investigations. 



I have extracted the heights of children born in this country and 

 of American parentage and will give next the measurements of the 

 height of these children and, for a comparison, the heights of Boston 

 school children who were born in this country.* 



Height of American-born Children — Males. 



(1) Asylntn children. (2) Boston school children. 



Females. 



o> 



(2) 1053 



1567 



The preceding table shows that the American-born children in the 

 Juvenile Asylum are on an average somewhat smaller at almost all 

 the ages than the free children of American parentage from the 

 schools of Boston. The comparison, however, is not fully satisfac- 

 tory. We ought to have a row of figures showing the height of the 

 American-born children of New York City instead of Boston. 

 The Boston population is principally composed of Americans and 

 Germans. A great many of the American people of Boston are of 

 English or German descent, and people of both these nationalities 

 are above the average in stature. The American-born population of 

 New York is composed principally of the German and Irish ele- 

 ments, but besides this there enters into it a large percentage of 

 Hebrews, principally of Russian or Polish origin; of Italians and 

 of people of other nationalities, and the average height of many of 

 these people is low. Thus it may be expected that the New York- 

 born American children would show a somewhat smaller average 

 stature than the children born in Boston. This point cannot, how- 

 ever, be here decided. The inmates of the Juvenile Asylum are on 

 an average undoubtedly of a somewhat subnormal height. It cannot 

 be otherwise upon pure physiological laws, with children who come 

 from the poorest classes of the population. A similar fact was found 



*•' Massachusetts School Children," by Dr. 

 publication, 1877, 1890. 



H. P. Eowditch, Mass. St. Board of Health 



