Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 84.djvu/262

258 Engelsperger and Ziegler (4) measured about 500 children, five to six years of age on entering school and again two months later, and found that 20 per cent, had lost weight. This appears significant in view of the fact that the early fall is normally the season of most rapid growth in weight. The retarding effect was most marked in the youngest pupils, those under six years of age. The authors conclude that entrance before the age of six years should not be permitted and that in many cases it ought to be postponed until seven or eight.

Quirsfeld (14) followed the growth of 1,014 children through the first four years of school life and found that 46 per cent, failed to gain weight during the entire first school year, while 21 per cent, showed an actual loss. The number failing to gain during the second year was only 10 per cent., the third year 8 per cent, and the fourth year about 6 per cent.

One of the evils most often blamed for school overpressure is the formal examination. In 1896, Serafani found that examinations caused a marked reduction in the amount of nourishment taken by university students, and a corresponding decrease of weight. His conclusion was to the effect that prolonged examinations tend to bring about a condition of the nervous system resembling that characteristic of persons who are chronically neurasthenic.

Ignatieff (8) made a study of the physical effects of examinations on 242 pupils, ten to sixteen years of age, in a Moscow military school. The pupils were weighed just before they began preparation for the examinations, again at the close of the examinations, and finally after the close of the ensuing 3 months of vacation. Comparing the second weighing with the first, Ignatieff found that 79 per cent, had lost weight, that about 11 per cent, had not changed and that only 10 per cent, had made any gain. Since the examination and the preparation for it extended over a period from one to two months, and since the pupils were at an age when growth from month to month is normally very rapid, all ought to have shown a gain. As it was, those of the lowest grade lost on an average 2 per cent, of their weight and those of the highest classes over 3 per cent. Quite different is the result when we compare the weight records before vacation with those after vacation, for here we find loss of weight with only 4.6 per cent, and gain with 90 per cent. For 13 pupils, however, the extended vacation was not sufficient to make up the loss of weight suffered during the strenuous pre-vacation period. Ignatieff concludes that in its physical effects the examination is comparable to a severe illness, and that a mental strain severe enough to cause such profound alterations in