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1886.] Anthropology. 747 
effort in our country to collect such records, that I have been 
able to find, is a circular issued in 1881 by the Education Depart- 
ment of the American Social Science Association, which con- 
tained a short register for the physical and mental growth of 
children, requesting parents to send them a duplicate. As I could 
find no circular since that of 1882, I wrote to the secretary, Mrs. 
Emily Talbot, of Boston, to know if they continued the work, to 
which she replied under date of January 4th, 1886: “ The Social 
ience Association only pointed to the open door, hoping and 
expecting that the right sort of a scientific enthusiast would some- 
time enter in.” 
The British Medical Association has a Collective Investigation 
Committee, whose object it is to collect such data as any mother 
can furnish. In France the measuring and weighing of babies is 
a matter of such common practice that in shops devoted to babies’ - 
Wares and wardrobes, one always finds weighing machines, which 
are regarded as a necessary part of every baby’s outfit. Lothrop, | 
and Lee & Shephard, of Boston, each publish books for mothers 
to keep registers of their children’s growth. Dr. Elizabeth Stow 
Brown, of the New York Infant Asylum, who has seventy children 
under her care, is recording their development. 
hat may we learn from these facts ? 
First. That there is a need in the world of such information. 
a a That women are best fitted to collect this valuable ma- 
erial, 
Third. That fathers and mothers stand ready to do the work 
*ystematically, asking only a guiding hand. ] 
ince the above article was read the Woman’s Anthropological 
Society has decided to begin the work above described, and, in 
the main, to adopt the system used by the Collective Investiga- 
tion Committee of the British Medical Association, who publish 
a book with the questions to be answered, giving full directions 
for taking measurements, weights, testing sight and hearing. — 
These books are to be kept in duplicate by the parents, and every 
year the duplicate to be sent to the society to become a part of 
.. 1 records, thus furnishing material of priceless value for scien- 
