OCR Text |
Show School Kbildren SHust Sfetid e$t$ Physical Condition of Chicago Pupils Measured to Indicate Mental Capacity May Work Great Changes Re- ! suits Indicate Danger in Co-education Children Apparently Stupid Way be Made Clever Elaborate Instruments Used. , Chicago, Oct. 1C The Chicago school ' board has begun an innovation which may bring- about sweeping- reforms in the whole American schpol "'.vtitcm. Not satisfied with watching- ' the mental development of the chil- I oren in us cnarge, it h::s gone arout the study of their physical develop-. develop-. ment with minute care, in the belief that brain growth in school children is much more strongly influenced by their physical condition than has hitherto been realized. If the plan works out as it at present seems likely to. the grading of pupils and the matter of co-education in public-school will be greatly affee'led. Many children now accepted a students will be sent to their homes for physical care, and many who are now regarded as being stupid in their studies will, through the co-operation of the scientific school examiners and the pupils own family physicians,' be brought to a condition where their minds will work freely and quickly. In the meantime it may be found wise to separate girls and boys in the pursuit of education. The uninformed un-informed Visitor to the Alcott school, work done is made automatically, and the record is preserved to correspond with the individual card upon which 1 the child's other records are written, j A specimen ergograph record, or ergogram. made by a person in first- j class condition, is shown herewith. It j will be observed that its lines are remarkably re-markably even at the beginning, but decrease with conspicuous regularity. Records quite different in appearance are made by children who are not in good shape physically, and it has' been found in practice that the ergograph at once reveals the nervous child, the child of highstrung- temperament and the child with irregular capacity for work. Thus the ergograph is supposed to indicate nerve power, rather than muscular strength. Singular as it may seem, the results obtained, appear to bear out this notion, since it is not at all unusual for a person of delicate j physique and with a comparatively j undeveloped muscular system to make i a better showing than a far more .nus-eular .nus-eular individual. ! The manuometer,Tised for testing-the grip, is of the ordinary type. .v It is a little metal apparatus which, can be l-13"" Testinc Lvnc CapacityT' 13 Testinc the Hearing TESTS CHICAGO SCHOOL CHILDREN UNDERGO. i . ' at "Wright wood avenue and Orchard ' street, Chicago, who should stray through the door marked "Library," on the second floor of the building, would see this system at wont and be puzzled, decidedly, by what he would see. All through each, school day an in-1 in-1 termitient procession of pupils from S to 16 years of age passes into the library from the various grades, while another procession moves constantly away. No one. of the children chil-dren remains in the library long, but, while there, each is measured and weighed and tested in half a dozen ways, thus unconsciously playing a highly import-ant part in one of the nwi4 interesting latter day developments develop-ments in the science of education. The measuring and weighing and testing are all parts of a carefully thought out scheme. For the time being the little library is the laboratory of the nc.w department of child study and pedagogic investigation established at the beginning of the present school I.-ii int; inciio uoaru oi educa tion. The measurements and tests made by riic new department have to do especially espec-ially with the height, weight. vover of endurance, lung capacity, grip (right unrt left hands), sight and hearing of the pupil. Yet. while the work occupies occu-pies the entire attention of F. W. Smedley and C. V. Campbell, two experienced ex-perienced educators wh.ise training has given them special qualifications for the carrying on of the department's details, it lias been so simplified and systematized that each child has to give up only a few minutes occasionally occasion-ally while being examined. weighing and measuring. Each boy or girl who enters the library of the Alcott schviol is requested request-ed to step upon a ssmall platform at the back of which is a standard, with j gait.ue. for taking the height by the ifii-i'iiiit-u nullum in i'erc.inon. i. o measurements are tak.m. height standing stand-ing and height sitting, the figures, being be-ing recorded, as taken, on individual cards, which, already bear one sot of figures, the result of similar work done arly last spring, and summer. Closely approximate figures as to height standing stand-ing are obtained by the use of a little gauge which measures the thickness of tne shoe heeels. When this is deducted de-ducted from the gross the result is almost, al-most, exactly what it would be were the measurement taken without the S'hoes. Weighing comes after the measuring, Mid is quite as carefully done. Gener-I Gener-I ally no comment is made when the new j figures and the earlier ones are com pared, but .if The expected increase in height nr1 weight lie hot shown, the c hild is questioned regarding its health in the vacation, season. Lack of normal nor-mal physical growth is considered a bad : ign by the managers of the department, de-partment, and the cause thereof is a proper part' of its records. A, boy who was weighed and measured while the writer was present, was asked to stretch his arms out straight from the shoulders shoul-ders an J afterwards to extend his hands unl spread his fingers. Had tremor of the extended arms or spread fingers been shown, it would have been clear, perhaps, that the boy's condition was not satisfactory, and possibly a lightening- of his school work would have been recommended, though as yet the dejiartment confines itself .mainly to making records. Later, after the -a,lue i if its work has been clearlv demonstrated demon-strated by results, a. definite scheme of l eco.mmendations -will be formulated ,-and adonted. LUNG TESTS AND NERVES. Next the child is tested for lung r apacity. The spirometer used by the department looks like a miniature gasometer. gas-ometer. It consists of a sheet of metal cylinder closed at one end and open iat the other, which is immersed in a second cylinder containing water. The child to be tested forces its breath into 1 he immersed cvJinrie-r h- hlnn-inu- . through, a flexible tube, and the lung capacity is determined by the height to which the cylinder is raised. The results obtained with this spirometer have been very satisfac tory. The ergograph. by which the tests of endurance are made, is a unique apparatus ap-paratus and much the most interesting of those used by the department. The band and arm of the child undergoing the ergograph lest are so strapped down that the middle finger only can be moed. Then, this linger is inserted In a. loop connected with a weight exactly ex-actly 7 per cent of the child's weight, and the child is requested to bend the finger and thus raise the weight forty-live forty-live times' in a minute and a haJf. or once every two seconds- during that period. By a revolving scroll and j-U-lus arrangement, a rewrd of the easily grasped and contains a spring which may be compressed by closing the hand. To the spring Is attached an index which measures the muscular force developed in kilogrammes. Tests of sight and hearing are also made, the sight tests being not dissimilar dis-similar to those of the ordinary optician. opti-cian. The apparatus used in testing the hearing is the most delicate ever used anywhere. WHY AND WHEREFORE. Similar study of children has been carried on in the past in many places and by many investigators, but never before under the auspices of a municipality munici-pality or state as a part of the regular educational system or in conditions making it possible to study a large number of children by exactly the same methods of a considerable period. The establishment of the department in connection with the Chicago school system was brought about by the efforts ef-forts of Dr. "W. S. Christopher, a member mem-ber of the Chicago school board, whose specialty as a physician is the treatment treat-ment of children, and who has been convinced for years that the efficiency of the public schools everywhere could be increased vastly were a careful and scientific scheme of child study to be inaugurated. Dr. Christopher's view, shared by many eminent educators, by the way, is not that the measuring and testing are of value in themselves to the school department, but that, considered in relation re-lation to age and class standing, they may be made the basis of deductions which will suggest highly useful changes in the grading of the children and in the school courses themselves. This view seems borne out with special force by the records obtained in one of Chicago's ungraded schools. Only pupils who are backward in their mental men-tal development are sent to this school. Hitherto their low standing has been attributed to obstinarv and vicionsnew in many instances, but the records show clearly that backwardness may be. and frequently is. due to physical causes, the low mental status of the child being accompanied by sqne bodily defect in nearly every case. Some were found to be victims of insufficient in-sufficient nutrition in other words, they didn't have enough to eat. -and, J being partially starved, it was impossi-i impossi-i ble for them to do the regular school j work. Others were short in lung capac-j capac-j ity, and close investigation showed that the nasal passages of most of those suffering from this defect were too small to allow normal breathing. It was I found that one girl who had never been ' by middle class American families. On the presentation of the report the board passed a resolution for the continuance of the work till Jan. 1, 1900, as an independent inde-pendent department,; in charge of a standing committee. Despite the obvious ob-vious importance of the department's operations, the expenses incurred so far and anticipated in the near future are surprisingly smalt. Some of the statements and conclusions conclu-sions of the report may be indicated briefly here. For instance, it has been shown by the ergographic records, taken ta-ken at the Alcott school, that the young child's endurance is greater in proportion propor-tion to its age than the endurance of the older child. It has been found also that the endurance of girls does not increase in-crease in the same proportion w ith the age as the endurance of boys, from which it is suggested that after a certain cer-tain age boys and girls should not be f educated together, nor should girls bear j the same school burdens as boys after that age. f In lung capacity also the boy. increases much faster than the girl after 9, though until that age they are about on an equality in this respect. At Ifi ni"T7 thero is a tx-iA iiiffm. favovof the boy. IMPORTANT COMPARISONS. Perhaps the most important facts were obtained from ' comparing the weight and height of the children with their intellectual development. At all events, size and mental capacity have been found to go together with remarkably remark-ably few exceptions among the children of the Alcott school. The diagrams show ihat as a rule the tallest and heaviest pupils of any given age are also fur-therest fur-therest along in their studies, and while there are some abnormally small and light children who have outstripped ! their heavier (fellows, the exceptions are : so few as to confirm rather than vitiate the rule. From this the suggestion comes naturally that the test for first admittance of children to the public -schools be based upon weight and height, in connection with, instead of ujxHi, age aione, as now. From the results re-sults obtained in the ungraded school it is hoped that in time much help may be given to backward pupils by the study of individual cases to be followed by special training. The physical force of the child has been found to vary noteworthily throughout the school day; thus, at 9 o'clock in the morning it is fair, at 10 it is strong, at 11 decreasing, and at noon very low. At 1 there is a slight revival, at 2' it is fairly good, and at 3 there is a second decline. Continued and . closer' study along this line may be of great value. The degre of physical endurance shown by some of the pupils in the highest grade is almost as low-as low-as the lowest shown in the lowest grade, though the highest degre of endurance in the highest school grade is much higher than the highest in the lowest. From this it follows , that the grading of pupils for. physical culture exercises should be based on the bodily condition of the children instead of their mental status, as now. The extreme variations of strength shown in puoils of the same age and the same mental grade would seem to indicate that there should bit- increased elasticity in the various school courses, particularly as the upper grades are reached. It is held that standards fixed and deductions made from the examination examina-tion of children strictly American by birth and parentage may not fit at ail when children of other nationalities are examined. Scientific investigation is not necessary to show that Italian. bwedish, Hungarian, Finnish and other I children differ materially in mind and body from American children. Yet exactly ex-actly how and in what degree they differ dif-fer cannot be determined accurately until they are systematically investigated. investi-gated. This may point the way to modification of the school courses for the benefit of children "having different racial qualities. The examining of truant children may lead to much good, on the basis that intense dislike of school and consequent truancy may depend largely upon abnormal physical physi-cal conditions which, while not always removable, may be modified materially. With regard to the thoroughness of the examinations it is realized that it ia not feasible and would not be proper to carry them, beyond certain limits, and that much more can be done in some individual cases, through private than public agencies. But the records made by the new department may suggest, extended investigations by the family physician. I It seems more than probable that the v., ,Jy uib vyiucago ocnooi Board in establishing this department is the beginning of sweeping reforms in the American public school system generally, and in taking the initiative the Chicago School Board has shown itself ready to adopt an advanced position posi-tion in educational, matters. The value of such a department depends wholly, of course, upon the nature of . the men who attend to the detailed and general work. They should be thoroughly competent com-petent and possessed of that strictly scientific spirit which seeks to prove no theory whatsoever, but to learn the facts exactly as they are and to base 'all future operations upon them j Dr. Christopher, the head of the Chicago Chi-cago department, is almost an ideal person- for the place. It was due to his- intelligent initiative and steady-persis-nce that the department was established. Its work is now being conducted by competent specialists uunii uy mm, ana there is no doubt that future investigations investiga-tions will equal or exceed in value those which have already been made f t . ' 3 The EacocRAPH- " . ; J -Ji MACHINE FOR TESTING ENDURANCE. I able to talk plainly was partially deaf, not having heard spoken words with ! distinctness she was, of course, herself unable to articulate them properly. In fact, 60 per cent of all in the school were below normal in hearing. Other backward children were pronouncedly asymmetrical or one-sided in their physical-development, and various other physical causes for intellectual slowness were brought out. RECORDS ANALYZED. The prime object of the early work was the obtaining of data regarding the normal child, and, in. fact, this is the chief purpose of the work now- in progress. This is why the bulk of the operations have been carried on so far at the Alcott school, for it is located in a part of the city populated mainly |