PHYSICAL DETERIORATION.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPEOTATOR.1 SIR,—You ask for evidence respecting the mental effect of city life, and express doubt as to the soundness of "the old notion of the people that the cit.' was distinctly brighter, shrewder, and better qualified to think than the 'yokel." (Spectator, August 27th). Three or four years ago I asked the Head-Masters of two large pupil-teacher " centres " their opinion on this point. In both centres there were a large number of pupil-teachers from the schools of a large town, of whom a considerable pro- portion were natives of country places and had been taught in country schools. Both the Masters said that though as a rule the urban young people were at first brighter and quicker, those from the country in the long run showed more mental and physical strength, more staying- power, and that their early knowledge of country things gave them a great advantage over their town comrades. You say also : "The world has a notion that brain and body are, in some degree at least, antagonistic." Trustworthy evi- dence on this point has been obtained in German schools. In an article which appeared in Part I. of the volume for 1903 of the Zeitschrift fiir Schulgesundheitspjlege, Dr. F. A. Schmidt and Mr. Lessenich, a teacher, both of Bonn, refer to the fact that, according to Burgerstein and Netolitsky's " Handbuch der Schulhygiene," Porter has shown by the weights and measurements of thirty-three thousand scholars, boys and girls, in the schools in St. Louis, -U.S.A., that, as a rule, and with surprising regularity, those children of a given age who, owing to their ability and industry, have reached the higher classes are heavier, taller, and larger in the chest than the children of the same age who are in lower classes. Dr. Schmidt and Mr. Lessenich then show that the examination of four thousand two hundred and sixty boys and girls in the schools in Bonn gives the same results ; that in the case of both boys and girls, and at all ages, those who are in a higher class are, as a rule, taller and heavier than the boys and girls of the same age who are in lower classes. In a recent number of the same Zeitschrift a teacher in Halle has shown that there also strong and healthy bodies contain strong and healthy minds. That schools, by failing to supply the conditions necessary for the health of the body, can make brain and body seem antago- nistic, there is no doubt ; but careful examination shows that the treatment which injures the body injures the brain also. In the year 1877 Dr. Finkelnburg showed by the publications of the Prussian Statistical Bureau that of seventeen thousand two hundred and forty-six young men who were entitled by their higher education to serve as one-
year Volunteers, only 20 per cent. were physically qualified to serve, while of the ordinary recruits, who were less highly "educated," from 50 to 55 per cent. were physically fit for service. The remarkable results obtained in the cure of tuberculosis in the last few years by the German Infirmity Insurance institutions suffice to show that by better education and the enforcement of better housing and working conditions great improvement could be effected in our towns and villages. A statement of these results is given in Appendix XXI. in Vol. III. of the Report of the Committee on Physical Deterio.
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