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Show STUDYING HUMAN NATURE. frel and Valuable Scientific Work Now Being Carried on In Washington. A new kind of scientific work is being be-ing carried on in Washington, in which the testing of 25,000 schoolchildren nektally, morally and physically is the preliminary step. Dr. Arthur McDonald is conducting the work under the aua pices of the United States bureau of education, ed-ucation, and the results wheji arranged and tabulated are expected to throw valuable light upon a number of mooted questions concerning the race. For example, it is desired to knov Whether boys of the laboring class are less bright than the sons of the well to do. Are they as well nourished? In London not long ago investigation proved that the children of laboring people in. that metropolis were bette nourished that is to say, weighed more at the same age than those belonging to higher social Btrata, the latter being fed on too much candy and cake. The work here being unfinished, conclusions con-clusions cannot be stated. To begin with, the height and sitting height of each child were taken. Long bodied races, generally speaking, are inferior. It is desired to know if long bodied Individuals are less clever or less strong than the short bodied of the 6ame race Are long bodied boys and girls apt to be stupid? Long headed children are usually usu-ally talL Tall people are most often long headed. Tall races are superior. The question naturally follows, Are long headed children Buperior mentally? When it is said that a man has a long head, is there not significance in tho remark? re-mark? Are tall children, then, superior? Nobody No-body knows as yet Those are among the things which Dr. McDonald is trying to find out In the classification the 8,000 negro children in Washington schools have been kept separate, so as to compare them with white children. How do they compare in respect to brightness, weight physical measurements, measure-ments, etc.? The colored child surpasses the white child up to 5 years of age in mental development then the white child goes ahead. Comparisons of girls with boys naturally follow. At the age of entering womanhood girls weigh more than boys. That age with city girls arrives a year earlier than with country yirls. Boston Transcript |