The Physical Condition of the School Children of the School of Observation, University of Pennsylvania

The Department of Pedagogy of the University of Pennsylvania conducted during the summer of 1909 a School of Observation for teachers, comprising seven graded classes containing a hundred and fifty-six pupils. These children attended the school usually for the purpose of qualifying for the grade higher than that occupied in June at the closing of the public school. Some of them had failed of promotion on account of absence due to sickness, others had failed apparently from inability to do the regular work in the prescribed time. Others were precocious children desirous of advancing an extra grade during the summer season. As a whole they presented an appearance equal to and possibly slightly above the average school child. The physical condition of these children, when the results of the examination were summarized, proved to be about the same as that of public school children generally, except that the cases of poor nutrition and skin disease found so frequently associated with poverty and squalor, were absent. The percentage of children showing physical defects and receiving parents' notices was 62.2 per cent of the whole number. Of these, however, 25.7 per cent received notices for decayed teeth only, so that the percentage of defectives, disregarding decayed teeth, was 36.5 per cent. The principal defects found were eye strain, enlarged tonsils, nasal obstruction, defective hearing, poor nutrition, and decayed teeth. They are given in the following table: Total number of children examined 156