It has not been

looking to the four main classes of defect in each case. possible in our examinations conducted in schools to use anthropometric methods to any extent, but new information has been supplied upon an extended basis of observation as to the significance of deviations from the normal proportioning of the bodily development.

It has been fairly established by observation, independent of arguments derived from other sources, that the 'nerve-signs' recorded in this investigation correspond to disordered brain conditions, such as produce in their mental function dull and backward children.

Of cases with 'nerve-signs' 41.5 per cent. of boys, 42.6 per cent. of girls were reported as dull; of development defect with nerve-signs,' 45'1 per cent. of boys, 51.6 per cent. of girls, were reported as dull. Ill-proportioned bodies with motor indications of disorderly or slowly acting brains are very apt to be dull mentally. In these facts we find further evidence of a physical basis of mental action and expression. The probability that the children reported by the teachers as dull were backward children is indicated by the large proportion of them found to be over age for the class or educational standard in which they had been placed in school.

In Table I. is given a class, 'G. Exceptional Children.' This includes all children whose physical or mental conditions show them to be obviously at a permanent disadvantage therefrom in social life. This group includes idiots, imbeciles, children feebly gifted mentally'; children mentally exceptional or deficient in moral sense; epileptics and children with history of fits during school life; dumb children and all children crippled, deformed, maimed, or paralysed. All these exceptional children need to be considered individually they form about 1.5 per cent. of the school population.

Reviewing the work of which we thus give a brief account, it may be stated that the object has been to furnish a reliable statement of the conditions observed among children seen in schools. The inquiry commenced in 1888, and 100,000 children in all have been examined and reported on. The points worthy of note have been defined and enumerated; the children have been distributed in groups according to the combinations of points they presented, and classified in other ways, including special particulars as to the children with mental or other deficiency, the numbers in each class being recorded. The methods of reporting and preparing statistical statements have been carefully elaborated and systematised.

Information has from time to time been supplied to the Government departments and other public bodies as to the provision needed for dull and backward children; the classification of children in schools providing secondary education; children in Poor Law schools and other institutions, and on other important questions.

It is hoped that the scientific classification of children and enumeration of conditions existing among them will lead to the adoption of means of social improvement, and we recommend the continuation of such inquiries in other parts of the country.

The Committee desire to be reappointed, and ask a grant in aid of the work.

TABLE I.-Showing the Numbers of the Main Classes of Defects a noted distributed in Groups of Schools represent

Primary groups-presenting only the main class of defects

indicated

A. Cases with defect in development only

802

15.7

445

11.5

3:0

1.9

abnormal nerve-signs only

1059

20.7

762

19.7

4.0

3.2

low nutrition only

108

2.1

110

28

.4

.5

ABD. Cases with defect in development, with nerve-signs

323

6.3

224

5.8

1.2

Groups with only three main classes of defect

Total of cases noted with some defect

5112

100-0

3819

100 O

19.2

16.1

Ethnographical Survey of the United Kingdom.-Third Report of the Committee, consisting of Mr. E. W. BRABROOK (Chairman), Mr. FRANCIS GALTON, Dr. J. G. GARSON, Professor A. C. HADDON, Dr. JOSEPH ANDERSON, Mr. J. ROMILLY ALLEN, Dr. J. BEDDOE, Professor D. J. CUNNINGHAM, Professor W. BOYD DAWKINS, Mr. ARTHUR EVANS, Sir H. HOWORTH, Professor R. MELDOLA, General PITT-RIVERS, Mr. E. G. RAVENSTEIN, and Mr. E. SIDNEY HARTLAND (Secretary). (Drawn up by the Chairman.)

1. As in the two previous years, the Committee have had the advantage of the co-operation of several gentlemen not members of the Association, but delegates of various learned bodies who are interested in the Survey. They have to deplore the loss, by death, of one of these gentlemen, Mr. Granville Leveson-Gower, one of the delegates of the Society of Antiquaries. His place has been filled by the election by the same Society of its Director, Mr. F. G. Hilton Price, as a delegate to this Committee. His colleague, Mr. George Payne, and Mr. E. Clodd, Mr. G. L. Gomme, and Mr. J. Jacobs, the representatives of the Folk Lore Society, Sir C. M. Kennedy, K.C.M.G., representing the Royal Statistical Society, Mr. Edward Laws, the Ven. Achdeacon Thomas, Mr. S. W. Williams, and Professor John Rhys, representing the Cambrian Archæological Association, and Dr. C. R. Browne, a representative of the Royal Irish Academy, have continued their valuable services. Some other members of the Committee are delegated by the Anthropological Institute.

2. In their first and second reports, the Committee presented a list of 367 villages or places which, in the opinion of competent persons consulted by the Committee, appeared especially to deserve ethnographic study, and they appended to the list observations furnished by their correspondents on the special characteristics of such villages and places, which rendered them typical. This considerable number does not exhaust. the supply of names of places, several observations having been made in places not mentioned in the list.

3. The Committee have issued, in the shape of an octavo pamphlet of twelve pages only, the forms of schedule which they had prepared. They believe that it presents, in the most compendious manner possible, a body of instructions for observers under the five heads into which the Committee's inquiries have been divided, viz. :—

(1) Physical types of the inhabitants;

(2) Current traditions and beliefs s;

(3) Peculiarities of dialect;

(4) Monuments and other remains of ancient culture; and

(5) Historical evidence as to continuity of race.

Arrangements have been made with the printers for supplying this pamphlet to Societies which may be desirous of circulating it among their members or incorporating it with their Transactions, at a cost of 21s. for