324 Memorias de la Sociedad Científica 
METHOD OF INQUIRY. 
In the study of the children two methods of investigation 
have been followed. 
One is an anthropometrical and sociological study of all 
(21930) the school children, based upon measurements by the 
teachers. This includes also a purely psychological inquiry as to 
comparative mental ability in the different school studies as re- 
ported by the teachers and a study of the abnormal children in 
the schools as reported by the teachers. 
The other is a special study of 1,074 children, which consi- 
dered cephalic index and sensibility to heat and locality upon 
the skin, with relation to sex, mental ability, and sociological 
condition. It is based upon measurements by the writer. 
The teachers were asked not only to mark each pupil bright, 
dull, or average, in general, but to specify the studies in which 
such pupil was bright, dull, or average. In this way a more 
complete judgment of the pupils ability was obtained. Thus, 
some children generally bright are nevertheléss dull or average 
in certain studies. 
The difficulties of estimating intellectual ability in a quan- 
titative way are well known, yet when there is an agreement 
in the report of say, more than ten teachers as to twenty or 
more pupils, there is a strong probability as to the general 
truth of the teachers' judgment. In questions where there is 
difference of opinion, the agreement of ten or more trustworthy 
than the opinion of any single individual who is liable to have 
some cherished theory. For it must be noted that pupils in the 
same category in the table may come from any one of four dif- 
ferent high schools, or from all; or from any one of fifty differ- 
ent gramar schools, or from all; that a large number of dif- 
ferent teachers were. engaged in marking the pupils, so that 
they agreement as to-any «category An the tables (say girls of 
