When an anthropological datum is of such fundamental importance as the stature, its limits of oscillation must be established, and its terminology must be founded upon such limits expressed in figures that have been measured and established by scientists (medium, tall, low).
The stature is the most important datum in pedagogic anthropology, because it represents the linear index of the development of the body, and for us educators is also the index of the child's normal growth.
Biopathological Laws.—In cases of total arrest of development of the personality (infantilism) the first characteristic symptom usually consists in a diminution of stature in relation to age; the morphological evolution, as well as the psychic, fails to progress in proportion to the age of the subject; but it corresponds to the mean bodily proportions belonging to the age which would be normal for the actual stature of the subject.
Weight
The weight is a measure which should be taken in conjunction with the stature; because, while the stature is a linear index of the development of the body, the weight represents a total measure of its mass; and the two taken together give the most complete expression of the bio-physiological development of the organism.
Furthermore the weight permits us to follow the oscillations of development; it provides educators with an index, a level of excellence, or the reverse, of their methods as educators, and of the hygienic conditions of the school or of the pedagogic methods in use.
The fact is, that if a child is ill, or languid, etc., his stature remains unchanged; it may grow more slowly, or be arrested in growth; but it can never diminish. The weight, on the contrary, can be lost and regained in a short time, in response to the most varied conditions of fatigue, of malnutrition, of illness, of mental anxiety. We might even call it the experimental datum of the excellence of the child's development.
Another advantage which the measure of weight has over that of stature is that it may serve as an exponent of health from the very hour of the child's birth; while stature does not exist in the new-born child, and begins to be formed (according to the definition given) only after the first year of its life, that is, when the child has acquired an erect position and the ability to walk steadily.
Variations.—Weight is one of the measures that have been most thoroughly studied, because it is not a fruit of the recently founded science of pedagogic anthropology; but it enters into the practice of pediatricians (specialists in children's diseases) and of obstetricians (specialists in childbirth), while even the general practitioner can offer precious contributions from his experience.