The Physical Condition of the School Children of the School of Observation, The University of Pennsylvania
- Author:
Walter S. Cornell, M.D.,
University of Pennsylvania and Bureau of Health, Philadelphia.
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 Children receiving parents’ notices for physical defects 97 ” regarded as physically normal 59 , . Number of Percentage of Defecta Cases all Children Eye Strain 32 20.5 Enlarged Tonsils 8 5.1 Nasal Obstruction 21 13.5 Defective Hearing (marked 3) 8 5.1 Poor Nutrition 7 4.5 Decayed Teeth 60 38.5 Nervous Exhaustion 3 2. Stoop Shoulders 3 2. Spinal Curvature 1 Weak Heart 1 Infantile’ Spinal Paralysis 1 The eye strain cases were subdivided as follows: Normal vision, with headache and eye tire, 14; three-fourths vision, 12; two-thirds vision, 3; one-half vision, 3; one-third vision, 1. The number of children already wearing eye-glasses was twelve. The total number of children with defective vision was thus forty-four, or 28 per cent.
The proportion of children with decayed teeth was 38.5 per cent, the proportion being much greater in the lower grades owing to the decay of the temporary teeth. This is shown in the following table:? Percentage with Grade Decayed Teeth 8 25. 7 24. G … 34.5 5 54.5 52.4 3 53.8 2 50.
The following table shows the number of normal and physically defective children in each grade, the total number of defects found, and gives a thoroughly intelligible idea of the number of defects found in each grade after the subtraction of the large number of cases of decayed teeth which comprise sixty of the one hundred and forty-five defects found.
Grade 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 Total Total number of Children. 32 29 29 22 21 13 10 150 Normal Children. DEFECTIVE CHILDREN. NUMBER OF CHILDREN POSSESSING Physical defects other than decayed teeth 14 10 18 4 12 | 7 5 . 5 3 ! 7 3 J 3 4 1 59 37 Decayed teeth and other defects 3 1 4 2 6 3 1 20 Decayed teeth only 5 6 6 10 5 4 4 40 Total 18 11 17 17 18 10 6 97 Total number of defects 32 13 24 25 30 14 7 145 Percentage 37.8 23.7 12.8 25.7 62.2 36.5 ‘ 38.5
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