THE GROWTH OF ST. LOUIS CHILDEKEN. 
INTRODUCTION. 
In November, 1891, I applied to the Teachers’ Committee 
of the St. Louis Board of Public Schools for permission to 
make a series of physical measurements of the St. Louis 
school children. The ends in view were the study of the 
phenomena of growth, the making of physical standards for 
each age in the period of school life, and the adjustment of 
school tasks to the pupil’s strength. On the recommendation 
of Mr. Long, superintendent of the Public Schools, Dr. Hick- 
man and Mr. Walter F. McEntire, at that time chairman of 
the committee, it was resolved to lay before the Board a 
statement of the purpose of the measurements and to advise 
that the permission to make them be granted. This favorable 
report, for which thanks are due the gentlemen just named, 
caused the Board to authorize the measurements at its sitting 
December 8, 1891. 
The measurements were collected by what statisticians know 
as the generalizing method. In the generalizing method, a 
great number of children is measured once, and the measure- 
ments classified according to age. The mean height of the 
boys or girls at each age is regarded as the height typical 
of that age. When these typical heights are arranged 
in order, they show the increase in the height of the type- 
child during his period of growth and thus express a 
law of growth. A similar procedure reveals the growth in 
weight, girth of chest, or any other physical dimension. It is 
believed that the values got by the generalizing method are 
the same as would be obtained if a smaller number of children 
was measured yearly during the growth period. In either 
case, the accuracy of the result depends on the number of 
observations at each age, and a high degree of accuracy 
requires the making of many thousand: measurements. 
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