166 LESTER R. WHEELER 



ures for the fifth grade, and in all measures for the eighth grade except for 

 intensity and probably time. These differences are verified by a study of 

 the percent of overlapping. Another comparison was made between moun- 

 tain children and William Larson's study of public school pupils in instru- 

 mental music classes. Mountain children appear superior to Larson's pupils 

 in the beginning music classes and in the junior high school orchestra group. 

 This comparison might indicate that the mountain children with no training 

 are superior to Larson's groups already in music classes. A comparison of 

 mountain children with a study of fifth and eighth grade children in San 

 Jose, California, reported by Farnsworth and Church, shows mountain 

 children are above the fifth and eighth grade in all measures except memory. 



We have made three Comparisons on the musical ability of mountain 

 children with other groups having adequate reliability measures. The 

 mountain children are above in two of these comparisons and below in one. 

 We have attempted to make four other comparisons without reliability 

 measures. In these the mountain children seem to be above in three of the 

 four comparisons. We are not able to say to what extent the scores of the 

 Seashore Test measure innate music ability, or how much they are influenced 

 by environment, but it seems that the mountain children compare favorably 

 with normal children in musical talent as measured by the Seashore Test. 



In order to further study mountain children we have measured the height 

 and weight of 1475 unselected cases from ages six to seventeen. It is gen- 

 erally accepted that these two measures give as fair an index of physical 

 status as any other two traits, although they may not be a true index of nu- 

 trition. No attempt was made to select the cases according to race. It is 

 fairly well known that these mountain people approach a relatively pure 

 North European stock. These people are the direct descendants of the early 

 Scotch, Irish, English and German settlers. It is a popular opinion that 

 mountain people are above the average in height, and as a general rule under- 

 nourished. No attention is given by the average family towards providing 

 a well balanced diet. The economic status of the mountain people where 

 these data were gathered is very low, and in many cases extreme poverty 

 exists. 



We have compared the height and weight of mountain children with Bald- 

 win's final norms for American children. These data seem to show that the 

 mountain children are below Baldwin's standards for height and above in 

 weight, but when we study the number of cases and the size of the mean 

 deviations, the significance of the differences disappears. There seems to be 

 no significant difference between mountain children and Baldwin's final 

 norms. 



