ON ASSIGNING MARKS FOll BODILY EFFICIENCY. 475 



be absurd to make the marks for the three supposed cases to ran propor- 

 tionately either to 25, 35, and 45, or to 0, 10, and 20. The achievement 

 of 45 inclies would deserve much higher recognition. Relative rank and 

 absolute performance should not be confused together. 



I use the term relative rank in a large sense, with reference to all 

 persons who have been, or are likely to become, candidates, and not to 

 the small number of them who may happen to bo present at a particular 

 examination. Statistical tables concerning the class of persons in ques- 

 tion have to be compiled from past examinations, and the rank of the 

 individual has to be determined amidst these. I have often described 

 how this is to be done ('Natural Inheritance,' p. 38: Macmillan & Co., 

 1859), but the form of a diagram that I now submit is a new and, I 

 think, the simplest of all for the use of an examiner. It tells at a glanco 

 the rank held by a man among his fellows in respect to any single and 

 separate faculty. The class from which it is constructed might have been 

 of any length, subject to the condition that the distance between the 

 limits ivithin tvhich it extends shall be always divided into centesimal 

 grades ; that is to say, running from 0° to 100°. This diagram refers to 

 keenness of eyesight, but the method is of general application. I lay on 

 the table several similar diagrams for various qualities, such as are hung 

 up in my Anthropometric Laboratory in London. 



Keenness of Etjesight, measured hij the greatest distance in inches at tohich 

 Diamond Type can he read. 



Grades of Performance. 



0° 10" 20° 30° 40° 50° 60° 70° 80° 90° 100° 



I I I I I I I I I I I 



I I I i I i~ 



10 15 20 26 30 36 



Distances in inches. 



This same method admits of being extended in more than one way. 

 That for which there is most call is where the rank of the quality imme- 

 diately in question has to be considered in reference to some other quality. 

 Thus it is of little use to know the breathing capacity of the man unless we 

 also know his stature or his weight. Lungs capacious enough to enable 

 a small man to labour violently without panting would be wholly in- 

 sufficient for the ordinary purposes of a giant, just as an excellent little 

 boiler for a small steam-engine would be inetfectivc with a large one. 

 The diagram appropriate to the case we arc considering could not be 

 compressed into a single line, but requires many. Successive lines in 

 the same page would refer to the successive weights of, say, 100 lbs., 

 120 lbs., 140 lbs., and so on, and a diagram of breathing capacities for 

 each of these weights would be constructed, but in pencil, just on the 

 principle of that, shown above, for keenness of eyesight. The grades 

 along the top of the page would refer equally to all the lines below. 

 Then bold lines have to be drawn from above downward to connect all 

 the pencilled entries of the same value, just as iso-bars, iso-therms, and 

 other contour lines are drawn (to which the general name of isograms 

 might well bo given). This completes the figure of which I submit a 

 specimen to the meeting. It hardly needs further description, either how 

 to make or to use it. 



When the quality that has to be marked depends upon more than one 

 other quality, as breathing capacity may have to be marked with reference 



