Child study in Chicago : [a report ] / [by Fred W. Smedley].
- Smedley, Fred W.
- Date:
- [1902]
Licence: In copyright
Credit: Child study in Chicago : [a report ] / [by Fred W. Smedley]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![1 of children, it is also one of numerous individual exceptions to this general law.' During this period a greater per cent of individuals than usual pass beyond the range of normal limits set by the mass. It is a time, therefore, when the weak fail and the able forge to the front, and hence calls for a higher degree than usual of individuali- zation of educational work and influence. 3. Unidexterity is a normal condition. Rapid and marked accentuation of uni- dexterity is a pubescent change. On the whole there is a direct relationship between the degree of unidexterity and the intellectual progress of the pupil. At any given age of school life bright or advanced pupils tend toward accentuated unidexterity and dull or backward pupils tend toward ambidexterity. The pupils of the John Worthy (Bridewell) School are more nearly ambidextrous than even the backward pupils of the ordinary schools. Training in ambidexterity is training contrary to a law of child life. 4. Boys of school age at the Bridewell are inferior in all physical measurements to boys in the ordinary schools, and this inferiority seems to increase with age. 5. Defects of sight and hearing are more numerous among the dull and backward pupils. These defects should be taken into consideration in the seating of pupils. Only by removing the defects can the best advancement of the pupils be secured. 6. The number of eye and ear defects increases during the first years of school life. The causes of this increase should be investigated and as far as possible removed. 7. There are certain parts of the school day when pupils, on the average, have a higher storage of energy than at other periods. These periods should be utilized for the highest forms of educational work. 8. The stature of boys is greater than that of girls up to the age of 11, when the girls surpass the boys and remain greater in stature up to the age of 14. After 14 girls increase in stature very slowly and very slightly, while boys continue to increase rap- idly until 18. 9. The weight of the girl surpasses that of the boy about a year later than her stature surpasses his, and she maintains her superiority in weight to a later period of time than she maintains her superiority in height. 10. In height sitting girls surpass boys at the same age as in stature, viz, 11 years, but they'maintain their superiority in this measurement for one year longer than they do in Stature, which indicates that the more rapid growth of the boy at this age is in the lower extremities rather than in the trunk. 11. Commencing at the age of 13, strength of grip in boys shows a marked accen- tuation in its rate of increase, and this increase continues as far as our observations extend, viz, to the age of 20. In girls no such great acceleration in muscular strength at puberty occurs, and after 16 there is little increase in strength of grip. The well- known muscular differentiation of the sexes practically begins at 13. 12. As with strength of grip, so with endurance as measured by the erg’ograph, boys surpass girls at all ages, and this differentiation becomes very marked after the age of 14, after wrhich age girls increase in strength and endurance but very slightly, while after 14 boys acquire almost exactly half of the total power in these two fea- tures which they acquire in the first twenty years of life. 13. The development .of vital capacity bears a striking resemblance to that of endur- ance, the curves representing the two being almost identical. [From report of Director Fred W. Smedley for 1900-1901.] SCHOOL DESKS. At the beginning of the school year we were directed by the committee on child study and pedagogical investigation of the board of education to determine what sizes of desks are best suited to the pupils of each of the different grades and what](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22467506_0025.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
