Final report of the Anthropometric Committee / F. Galton, Chairman.

Date:
[1883]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Final report of the Anthropometric Committee / F. Galton, Chairman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    43/74 (page 29)
    Children and Adults op both Sexes. 51. A large portion of the statistics collected by the Committee refer to children, and these, together with those referring to the adults already considered in the early part of this Report, have been arranged in Tables XV. to XXV. to show the influence of age, sex, nurture, occupation, and sanitary surroundings on the physical development of the British population. The children are chiefly those of English parents, as few returns have been received from other parts of the kingdom. All classes of the community are represented, from the upper and professional classes whose children attend the Public Schools, like Eton, Marlborough, and Radley, to the poorest town population, whose children are found in the public elementary (or Board) schools, charitable institutions, and industrial schools. The adults also include all classes, from the Univer¬ sities of Oxford and Cambridge, to town labourers and factory operatives. 52. In deciding upon the arrangement for practical purposes of returns so varied in their origin, and yet consisting in so large a proportion of information derived from special sources, the first consideration has been to establish a classification of the returns according to the media, or in¬ fluences which have been instrumental in differentiating one class from another. The Committee has adopted the subjoined scheme, prepared by Mr. Roberts, and first brought before the Association in a paper read in the Anthropological Section in 1878. It is based on the principle of collecting into a standard class as large a number of cases as possible which imply the most favourable conditions of existence in respect to fresh air, exercise, and wholesome and sufficient food—in one word, nurture —and specialising into classes which may be compared with this standard those which depart more or less from the most favourable condition. By this means, in respect to social condition, the influence of mental and manual work; in respect to nurture, the influence of food, clothing, &c., on development; in respect to occupation, the influence of physical con¬ ditions ; and in respect to climate and sanitary conditions, the influence of town and country life may be determined. 53. The classification has been constructed on the physiological and hygienic laws which are familiar to the students of sanitary science, and on a careful comparison of the measurements of different classes of the people, and especially of school children of the age of from eleven to twelve years. This age has been selected as particularly suited to the study of the media, or conditions of life, which influence the development of the human body, as it is subject to all the wide and more powerful agencies which surround and divide class from class, but is yet free from the disturbing elements of puberty and the numerous minor modifying influences, such as occupation, personal habits, &c., which in a measure shape the physique of older boys and adults. The data on which the classification has been based are given below. The most obvious facts which the figures disclose are the check which growth receives as we descend lower and lower in the social scale, and that a difference of five inches exists between the average statures of the best and the worst nurtured classes of children of corresponding ages, and of 3^ inches in adults.