3. Acuity of Audition The acuity of hearing was tested by two methods: the whisper method and the Seashore audiometer. In the whisper test (Andrews' method) the stimuli are special lists of number words prepared by Andrews. The whisper was kept as uniform as possible by always using for it the residual air after a deep inspiration and expiration. Each ear was tested separately, a piece of cotton being placed in the external meatus of the ear not being tested. The child was seated with the ear in line with the examiner, eyes looking straight ahead, and told to "Say just what I say." It is sometimes necessary to explain very fully what is desired; one child so persistently said a totally different number than the one spoken by the examiner that misunderstanding was suspected and it was discovered that she thought we were playing a kind of game in which the examiner thought of a number and then she thought of a number. The percentage of successful repetitions for each ear was recorded. After the whole group had been tested, the mean performance for each ear was found and this was used as a norm with which each child's performance was compared. The child's score was computed in terms of per cent of these norms. If a child made no error his score was of course above the average, and therefore necessarily above 100 per cent. A perfect performance with the right ear equaled 108, the average for the group being 92. A perfect performance with the left ear equaled 109, the group average being 91. Only two very low scores were obtained: one was right ear 64 per cent, left ear 43 per cent; the other, right ear 76 per cent, left ear 77 per cent. The latter is an adenoid case; the former's source of trouble has not been ascertained. The findings are presented in Table I. It was found necessary to examine ears for wax before testing and to wash out many. Otherwise, the wax deposits acted as stoppers and reduced the hearing. The acuity of hearing was tested with the Seashore audiometer. For testing these children the audiometer was wired in series with one dry cell, a rheostat being introduced to keep the voltage constant at 0.8 volts. The sound is conveyed to the children's ears by telephone receivers and each ear is tested separately. The sounds are produced in descending order from loudest to softest and then in ascending order, and the child is told to say "Now" or to nod the head when he hears it. With our little children only the descending order was used, as the children found it hard to fixate their attention upon the sound and it was difficult to hold them for more than three readings with each ear. Unavoidable noises from the street and school rooms distracted them somewhat. Three readings were secured for each ear and these were averaged to obtain the score. The highest readings in absolute numbers are the lowest scores because the highest numbers represent the louder sounds. There are no norms for children with which to compare our findings except our group average obtained from 44 children, which is right ear 25.3, left ear 24.8. The average adult hears down to 12. The scores are presented in Table I, and may be compared directly with these averages. With the right ear, the poorest score, 37, was that of child No. 2, with 108 in the whisper test, and the next lowest, 34.5, was that of child No. 32, who made 87 in the whisper test. The best scores, 14.3 and 18, were made by children No. 14 and No. 52; child No. 14 made 108 in the whisper test and child No. 52 was not tested. One boy failed entirely who made scores of 87, right ear, and 77, left ear, in the whisper test. This boy was, however, a peculiar child, made reticent by a speech defect, a boy who would not be apt to respond until he was thoroughly familiar with the environment and the examiner. The children were also tested for pitch discrimination, by means of resonators and tuning forks, varying from 435 v. d. to 465 v. d. by the steps 12, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 12, 17, 23, and 30 in terms of vibration difference. In regular procedure the standard fork is sounded, then another, and the subject is asked to state whether the last tone is higher or lower than the first. As children of five years as a rule do not know the meaning of high and low in relation to sound, they were asked to sing the sound they heard. The frequently occurring exaggerations of interval by the children, if in the right direction, were taken to mean that the children really appreciated the difference in pitch. The least difference in pitch that the child distinguished with certainty was recorded as the score. The variations in the findings are so great that the group norm is useless. The scores vary from 2 to 17 vibration differences, with 13 total failures. The individual scores are given in Table I. The singing ability of the children was also judged by listening to each sing any little song he happened to know. The examiner noticed that there were as many ways of singing a song as there were children to sing it, and that the little ones had individual variations to which they clung. He also noticed that many of them had difficulty in changing from one tone to another when the difference was a half or whole step, or in some cases when the difference was a greater step. 4. Dental Examination The dental examinations were made in a special room to which the children were brought one or two at a time. The examination charts were filled out at the dentist's dictation. The tabulated records are given in Table I. They show in 43 children 220 carious teeth, 15 abscesses and 5 cases of malocclusion. The teeth of 36 children needed cleaning by a dentist. Probably as a result of a school health crusade in progress at the time, 31 children had toothbrushes. Only one child had had a tooth filled, though the number of carious teeth, as previously mentioned, was 220. Apparently these conditions are due to the deplorable belief found among parents and even among some dentists that the condition of the first teeth does not matter because they will soon come out. The remedy would seem to be a school dental clinic. To sum up the physical situation, every child in the group is in need of physical help and all but one in need of medical attcntion for more than one condition. Eight defects were found in each of two children, seven in each of five, six in each of eight, five in each of seven, four in each of five, three in each of nine, and two in each of six children. These children were not, however, from the poorest class of society, but lived in comfortable homes and had as much physical care as the children of the average working man receive. The appended type study sketches indicate the character of their environment. In spite of this, they were handicapped by the defects and malnutrition noted and were in poor physical condition for meeting the strains of school work. III. ANTHROPOMETRIC MEASUREMENTS "If in the future a scientific pedagogy is destined to rise, it will devote itself to the education of men already rendered physically better through the agency of the applied positive sciences, among which pedagogical anthropology holds first place." So writes Montessori in the introduction to her Pedagogical Anthropology. In it she not only brings together an immense amount of anthropological data, but clearly points out that the school is the field in which anthropology may step beyond the limits of pure speculation and diagnosis and actually contribute toward the practical work of bringing school children up to the ideals of bodily form set by itself. Physical anthropology concerns itself with gathering data on bodily form. Anthropology as applied to education concerns itself with gathering data on the developmental stages of form and variations of these. In process of the work it discovers variations from the usual in an individual child's development and points the way for ameliorative treatment before the parts of the body become fixed and set in faulty fashion, too often accompanied by just as faulty organic functioning. Thus pedagogical anthropology adds to the research function of anthropology a practical application which will be far-reaching in its effect upon the wellbeing of the present generation. For a concrete illustration, if we find a child is too narrow chested and we know that with such a chest the lungs cannot develop or function as they should, that chest measurement is taken as a basis for special training and exercise which may, if it is begun in time, lead to the development of the chest and the saving of the child from tuberculosis. Special stress is laid by anthropometrists upon the relation of various measurements to one another. For example, the ratio between sitting height and the height known as index of stature, is considered by many to give more information concerning bodily power and strength than either absolute measurement. For example, Montessori holds that the essential height is the sitting height because this measurement includes the trunk in which the vital organs are situated. According to her, the greater the size of the trunk in proportion to the height, the more room there is EFFERHeight in Cm. Sitting Height in Cm. Index of Stature Weight in Kgm. Weight-Height Index Chest Circumference Vital Index Chest, anteroposterior diam. Chest, transverse diam. Chest Index Arm Span Span-Height Index Head, Greatest Length in Cm. Head, Greatest Breadth in Cm. Head, Aural Height in Cm. Head, Circumference Cephalic Index Head, Capacity 62.5 61.27 18.5 8 B 6 118.5 67.5 56.9 22.6 .190 54 .181 13.4 12 13.3 50 79.7 1115 12.6 12.6 49 12.2 52 84.9 1230 11.8 48 86.3 1103 11.8 50.5 79.7 1147 11.7 49 83.7/1104 13.1 14.2 53 53.5 |