possessed by 72 students. This figure is near the average for the British Isles; and likewise, it should be added, for Hottentots and the wild men of Borneo, as our world map shows. Comparisons have been instituted in parts of Europe between the professional and uncultured classes in the same community. The differences in head form are as apt to fall one way as another, depending upon the degree of racial purity which exists in each class.[1] In our study of the proportions of the head, therefore, we are measuring merely race, and not intelligence in any sense. How fortunate this circumstance is for our purposes will appear in due time.
Basel, Teutonic Type. |
Berber, Tunis. |
Island of Ischia, Middle Italy. |
Equally unimportant to the anthropologist is the absolute size of the head. It is grievous to contemplate the waste of energy when, during our civil war, over one million soldiers had their heads measured in respect of this absolute size, in view of the fact that to-day anthropologists deny any considerable significance attaching to this characteristic. Popularly, a large head with beetling eyebrows suffices to establish a man's intellectual credit; but, like all other credit, it is entirely dependent upon what lies on deposit elsewhere. Neither size nor weight of the brain seems to be of importance. The long, narrow heads, as a rule, have a smaller
- ↑ Dr. Livi finds that in northern Italy the professional classes are longer-headed than the peasants; in the south the opposite rule prevails. The explanation is that in each case the upper classes are nearer a mean type for the country, as a result of greater mobility and ethnic intermixture. This topic is discussed by the author in Publications of the American Statistical Association, vol v, p. 38 seq.
