28 MAL-NUTRITION AND THE TEACHER'S 



found between every pair of defects is due to his method of 

 examination. 



Strong evidence for this view of the matter is to be found 

 in Dr. Warner's description of his examination of the palates 

 of the children. On p. 1 1 of his Report he says that ' the 

 palate is inspected in every child ', but this is very far 

 from being the case. In Table XI, p. 98 of his Report, the 

 occurrence of Binary and Triple Defects is discussed, not 

 among the whole of the ioo,coo children but only among 

 5,344 children who formed the material for Dr. Warner's 

 first interim report.^ Now of these 5,344 children, the records 

 of whose examination were selected for specially detailed 

 analysis, only 459 were examined for defects of the palate. 

 I have already shown that the method of examination of 

 the 82 % of children who are said to be normal in every 

 respect was extremely cursory, but we see here that not 

 even all of the ' scheduled ' children were examined for all 

 the characters tabulated. Yet this sample of children is 

 actually selected for a discussion of the occurrence of binary 

 defects, of defects of cranium and palate together, &c. ! 

 Tables XI, XII, and XVIII of his Report are of course 

 valueless and actually misleading. 



But that is not the only objection to the examination of 

 the palate. Among those 5,344 children whom Dr. Warner 

 first examined there were 51 deaf and dumb children, aiid 

 the palates of these children were exami7ied iji every case. 

 Head measurements of these children and particulars of 

 their general health were also obtained, and inquiries made 

 as to the occurrence of cousin marriages. This furnishes 

 the real explanation of Mr. Yule's extraordinarily high 

 coefficients of association between pairs of defects. A child 



^ Dr. Warner says * The number of children presenting binary defects has 

 not been determined '. (^Report, p. 28.) 



