264 Introduction. 
So large an undertaking demands great labor and a consid- 
erable expenditure of money. The labor was in the present 
instance shared by many hands. Most of the measurements 
were made by the teachers. The measurements of the head 
and face were made by undergraduates of the St. Louis 
Medical College. Other members of the same institution 
were of the greatest service as ‘‘ special assistants.’’ Messrs. 
Taussig, Gooden, Soper, Blair, Gross, Schlossstein, Lemen, 
Loth, Newcomb and Simmons served in this capacity. 
To their unwearied and long-continued labors and to the 
support unselfishly given them by their fellow-students the 
success of the work is chiefly due. 
The expense of the investigation was for apparatus, printing 
and the hire of clerks, and was borne by gentlemen of public 
spirit in St. Louis. Some of the apparatus was given or 
loaned free of charge. The Simmons Hardware Company 
gave callipers and measuring tapes ; the Fairbanks Scale Com- 
pany loaned scales; Mr. F. W. Humphrey loaned a dozen 
watches; Dr. John Green and Dr. A. E. Ewing gave cards 
for testing the acuteness of vision, and the Nixon-Jones 
Printing Company made special rates for printing. 
The cordial support of Chancellor Chaplin, Professors H. 
S. Pritchett, G. Hambach and E. A. Engler of Washington 
University, the valuable advice of Dr. John B. Shapleigh, and 
the interest of the Academy of Science of St. Louis are 
gratefully acknowledged. 
The data collected are necessarily of unequal value. Many 
of the curves constructed from them are highly satisfactory ; 
others present irregularities to be ascribed to an insufficient 
number of observations at those points. Some investigators 
have withheld the curves in which such irregularities occur. 
They have all been printed here, because the wide-spread use 
of anthropometrical methods in the Public Schools, so much 
to be desired, seems at present only possible where the meas- 
urements are made by the teachers, and it is necessary to 
know by the examination of the total material of such inves- 
tigations, what degree of accuracy can be expected. 
