Physiological Age as A Basis for the Classification of Pupils Entering High Schools? Relation of Pubescence to Height
- Author:
Wilfked L. Foster, M.D.,
Brooklyn, N. Y.
About one-tliird of all the boys who enter high schools in New York City are discharged during the first term. It is hard to believe that it is necessary for so many to leave school so soon, or that the great majority of those who leave would not be benefited by at least a year or two longer. Of course, some are obliged to go to work to help their parents, some are eager to begin to earn money so that they may be more independent, but there are many others who leave because they have become dissatisfied and discouraged with their work. Many of the rapidly growing larger boys feel out of place and out of sympathy with their studies when they find themselves grouped with very much smaller and less developed boys. It seems as if there must be some way to make the work less irksome, not necessarily by changing the work itself, but by making the boys’ environment more pleasant. Boys of a certain stage of development naturally associate with boys of a similar stage of development. In their thoughts, feelings, and actions they have more in common with one another than they have with boys who are above or below them in the scale of maturity. The intuitive class distinctions among boys are more firmly and unchangeably based upon physical and mental development than upon the standards of birth and wealth which they will have to recognize later in life. Boys approximating the same degree of maturity, play the same games, have the same instincts, and are more at ease with associates of the same physiological age. Larger boys are unwilling to associate with smaller boys. They feel a sense of embarrassment and offended dignity when they have to be classed with the “youngsters”. Smaller boys are not unwilling to associate with larger boys, but they are usually not found with them “outside of the school”. The average height of a boy of fourteen is about five feet, but this relationship between height and age is quite variable. A boy of fourteen may be physiologically older than a boy of sixteen.1 Chronological age is not a good index of development. Through illness, poor nutrition, or lack of fresh air and sunshine, growth may be retarded, while under better hygienic conditions it may go ahead of the standard height and weight of a certain stage of growth.2
The majority of boys who enter the IsTew York City high schools are between the ages of fourteen and sixteen, the age of pubescence. The degree of pubescence in each case may be taken as an indication of the boy’s physiological age. A classification of pupils on this basis can easily be made, the degree of pubescence being simply one fact among the several noted in the course of the physical examination. Of course, some will be found to be pre-pubescent and others post-pubescent, but by far the greater number are pubescent.
A classification according to degree of pubescence was made of the entering class of a ISTew York City high school. This class was of the cosmopolitan character usual in this city. The following list classifies them according to nationalities, or rather according to the country where their parents were born:
Number Per cent Number Per cent America 146 31.60 France 7 1.52 G-ermany 886 18.73 Canada (French) 3 .65 Russia 50 10.92 Scotland 3 .65 Austro-Hungary … 46 10.02 Switzerland 2 .43 Ireland 46 10.02 Spain 2 .43 Italy 17 3.71 Portugal 1 .22 England 10 2.18 Miscellaneous 32 7.20 Sweden 8 1.72 Total 459 In weight, height, and age this group of boys proved similar to others analyzed. Nearly one-half of the total number were between the ages of fourteen and sixteen. Height Weight Age Feet inches Pounds Years months Minimum 3 5% 58.3 12 2 Average 4 1% 103.58 14 8 Maximum 5 10% 164.67 17 8 Part of the entering class, 295 boys, were separated into eight sections of the usual size and were classified according to physiological age based upon pubescence. The results of their daily work and examinations at the end of six months were as follows: Wramp’on, 0. Ward. The Influence of Physiological Age upon Scholarship. The Psychological Clinic, Vol. I, No. 4, June, 1907. See also American Physical Education Review, April-June, 1908. 1Marro, A. La Puberty, Paris: Schleicher Fr&res, 1901.
Group I. Eight classcs arranged according to physiological age. Registered. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 39 38 38 37 41 32 34 36 295 Discharges (by ages) 14 15 16 17 Total Per cent 0 0 4 3 7 17 4 1 13 2 3 0 0 5 1 5 2 0 8 2 4 3 1 10 2 10 1 4 5 2 0 0 7 3 0 0 0 4 162214 6 58 18. 34.1 13.1 21.6 24.4 12.5 20.6 11.1 19.66 Failures. No. Per cent. 14 36 4 10.6 11 28.95 11 29.7 5 12.2 3 9.3 2 5.8 8 22.2 58 19.66 Promotions No. Per cent. 18 46 21 55.3 22 57.99 18 48.7 26 63.4 25 78.2 25 73.6 24 66.7 179 60.68 Physiological Age. Most mature Least mature
One hundred and forty-nine boys, making four other sections, entered the high school at the same time, and these sections were also ranked as above, judging their efficiency from the number of discharges, failures, and promotions. They were not classified according to physiological age, but according to the number of the school from which they came. There is no reason to suppose that they were in any respct inferior or superior to the boys who were classified according to physiological age. The results of their daily work and examination marks were as follows:
Group II. Four classes, not arranged according to physiological age. Registered. 1. 2. 3. 4. 45 32 26 46 149 Discharges (by ages) 14 15 16 17 18 Total Per cent. 6 7 2 1 0 17 2 2 3 2 1 10 2 2 2 0 0 6 7 4 10 1 13 17 15 9 3 2 46 37.8 31.2 23.0 28.3 30.9 Failures No. Per cent. 11 3 5 6 25 24.4 9.4 19.2 13.0 16.8 Promotions No. Per cent. 17 19 15 27 78 37.8 59.4 57.8 58.7 52.3
Further investigation of a previous class of over three hundred boys, classified rather indiscriminately, shows the following percentages of discharges, failures, and promotions:
Group III. Not Classified. Registered, 318; Discharges, 27 per cent; Failures, 17 per cent; Promotions, 56 per cent. For easy comparison we may group the results of the three investigations: Registered Discharges Failures Promotions (number) (per cent) (per cent) (per cent) I. Eight classes arranged according to physiological age …. 295 20 19 61 II. Four classes, not arranged according to physiological age 149 31 17 52 III. Previous class, not arranged according to physiological age 318 27 17 56 We notice that the group of boys classified according to physiological age has a higher percentage of promotions and a very much lower percentage of discharges (11 per cent lower than Group II, and 1 per cent lower than Group III). The failures are about the same in all; though Group I has a slightly higher percentage than either of the others. The marked difference seems to be in the matter of discharges. May this difference not be due to the grouping of the boys of the same development making work so much more enjoyable that they do not have the same inclination to leave school? Class 1 of this group was composed of the most fully developed boys; Class 2 of those less fully developed, and so on until we reach Class 8, which was composed almost entirely of pre-pubescents. It might be expected that boys of the best physical development would show the best results in scholarship. In fact such a result was thought of when this classification was first planned, but the facts prove the smaller boys of the group to be the better students. Records of smaller boys, as given above, show fewer discharges, fewer, failures, and more promotions. In fact the four classes of the smallest boys average almost 20 per cent more promotions than the classes of largest boys. This apparently bad showing of the larger boys is to be explained by the fact that many of them have been delayed in their progress at school or by circumstances at home. Going to work is usually out of the question for a small boy, and in social affairs and in athletics he is not at all successful. The influences that tempt the big fellow to neglect school duties do not have the same force against the smaller boy. Some boys entered the high school a year or two after their graduation from the elementary schools. Some of them are in fact too fully developed to be classed as pubescents; they are post-pubescent. Their physical development has been normal, but intellectually, perhaps from innate mental dullness or from interrupted attendance at school, we find them poorly equipped to compete with the smaller boys. For these reasons it is quite certain that the boy of Class I will never be first in scholarship, but his records show that he will do much better when he is classed with boys of his own age than when any other classification is made.
Here, too, we might note the close relationship between pubescence and height. The average height of the pre-pubescent was less than that of all others, and the average height of the classed of pubescents gradually increased with the advance in pubescence.
Height in Different Geades op Pubescence. Number Average Maximum Minimum Total range 38 Prepubescents 146.7 cm. 165.2 cm. 130.9 cm. 35 cm. 22 Pubescents of 1st grade 148.1 cm. 157.8 cm. 136.9 cm. 21 cm. 20 56 40 46 47 37 2d ” 152.2 cm. 162.5 cm. 140.2 cm. 22 cm. 3d ” 153.6 cm. 167.0 cm. 140.8 cm. 27 cm, 4th ” 157.7 cm. 175.4-cm. 140.0 cm. 35 cm. 5th ” 160.5 cm. 171.3 cm. 148.4 cm. 23 cm. 6th ” .. 164.6 cm. 176.7 cm. 151.9 cm. 26 cm. 7th ” 167.6 cm. 178.7 cm. 156.2 cm. 22 cm.
There is some overlapping of height in the different grades of pubescence, but the relationship is so close between height and pubescence that it might seem to a person who had a view of the different classes at the same time as if the classification had been made according to height. All the smallest boys are found in the first grades, and all the largest in the last grades, although in the physical examination not the slightest attention was paid to the boy’s height when the degree of pubescence was noted. In classifying the different grades, since the dividing lines are not mathematically accurate, there is some room for variation due to the personal equation, especially in the middle grades. But this variation is practically negligible in its bearing on the result. Placing a student in grade 2 or grade 3, for example, will not make much difference. There is so moderate an advance from one grade to the next higher, that he will be placed with boys of very near his own development, which is the object for which we are striving.
The average variation of the different grades of pubescence was 26 cm., or about ten inches. In observing a single class, one would judge all the boys to be about the same height. In some schools where physical examinations are difficult or impossible, it would appear that similar results might he obtained by classification according to height. Classifications according to mental ability, which are sometimes made in the first term of the high school, stimulate ambitious boys to place themselves in those classes which are known to contain the brightest students. This stimulating effect may be a good thing for a successful student, but we should bear in mind also that in this classification we place a stigma upon the unsuccessful. It is apt to discourage the very boy whom we should help the most. The problem in the high schools at present is not so much with the bright boy as it is with the boy who is not so talented and who has to struggle under this handicap. If by making school life more agreeable, we can arouse in a student a desire to stay in the high school as long as circumstances will permit, we shall have gone a great way toward solving one of the many problems of the education of our adolescents. Summary.
1. It is more agreeable for boys of the same development to associate with one another. 2. A classification of high school students according to physiological age, based upon pubescence, is easy and practical. 3. By an experiment in a ]STew York City high school it was shown that the efficiency of the students was increased by such a classification. The percentages of discharges was very materially decreased( from 7 per cent to 11 per cent decrease). 4. This increased efficiency is due to pleasanter associations with students of the same development. 5. There exists a very close relationship between height and pubescence. 6. In schools where physical examinations are impossible, a classification according to height would probably produce almost the same results.
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