| Soiling the clothing of their companions | 3 |
| Abnormally spiteful | 2 |
| Intense envy | 4 |
| Frequent absence from school, to play games of chance | 4 |
| Tyranny | 3 |
| Immoderate vanity | 2 |
| Spirit of rebellion | 1 |
| Insolent answers | 1 |
| Absolute intolerance of supervision | 1 |
| Damaging the school furniture | 2 |
| Slandering the teacher | 4 |
| Slandering school-mates | 6 |
| Theft, limited to pens | 1 |
| Lascivious love-letters | 4 |
| Constantly speaking ill of her mother | 1 |
| Attempts to make school-mates unhappy | 1 |
| Unkindness toward animals | 1 |
| Unkindness toward old persons | 1 |
| Unkindness toward small children | 1 |
| Obscene writings in the toilet room | 1 |
| Harmful anonymous letters | 1 |
| Hatred of beautiful things | 1 |
| Spirit of contradiction | 1 |
| Corrupting companions | 1 |
| Thefts in school | 1 |
| Mutilating the clothing of companions | 1 |
The prevailing faults among the boys are: theft, obscene actions, tyranny over the weak; and among the girls: slander, extreme envy and lascivious love-letters.
If we compare the notes regarding the parents with those relating to the children, we find a connection amounting to that of cause and effect. We might almost say that the phenomenon revealed to us in school through the teachers' notes concerns not so much the pupil himself as his past history. To keep this sort of record of misconduct, so damnatory to the pupils in question, would be worse than useless, if we were unable to trace back their source to the presumable causes which determined them. There is an intimate relation between the environment and the products of that environment. If we should read the notes relating to the children who receive prizes for good conduct, and who are held up as moral examples, we could trace back and find the cause of these notes in a favourable family environment; hence, the qualities which we praise in the child are not a merit peculiar to the child, but are due to causes, of which the pupil himself is merely the fortunate epilogue.
And passing from studies taken from works of criminal anthropology to examples contained in works of pedagogic anthropology (these works all being based upon the same scientific standards), I am happy to cite a work which has even earned the praise of Lombroso: Notes on Infantile Psycho-physiology, written by Professor Calcagni.
Notwithstanding that this book of Menotti Calcagni's is inspired by the most advanced pedagogic conceptions, so that it well deserves to be cited in its entirety with much profit, I shall avail myself only of the part which particularly interests me at the present moment. It is the part containing the data collected and arranged by the author in a series of tables, in the form of a brief clinical history, of each pupil in the class studied by the author.
I shall pass over the statistical tables concerning the personal examination of the pupils (anthropological, physiological, etc.), and confine myself to just two tables: one in regard to the examination into the pupil's antecedents (name and surname; day of birth; place of birth; age of father; age of mother; vocation of father; vocation of mother; conditions of home environment, hygienic, economic and moral; conditions of other members of the family; maladies and casualties incurred by the parents before and after the procreation of the child; defects and vices of parents, and details regarding their psychic constitutions; conditions and accidents during pregnancy, birth and puerperal period; illnesses incurred by the child); the other in regard to the pupil's previous school record (name and surname; pupils enrolled at beginning of the year; those transferred to other classes; those promoted without examination; those promoted after examination; those permitted a second trial; those not admitted to examination; those dropped from their class, and for how many different years). I select from these the notes referring to the children promoted without examination and those not admitted to examination; i.e., the privileged ones before whom an obstacle has been withdrawn which the majority must surmount before continuing on their path in life: go forward in peace, you favoured ones! and those who are not even allowed a chance to overcome the obstacle: turn back, you to whom the path of other men is closed!
And I read these notes relative to those promoted without examination: "Father shoemaker, Mother dress-maker, home orderly, frugal and clean; brothers labourers;"—"F. professor of chemistry, M. housekeeping, condition of environment excellent, brothers studious;"—"F. assistant engineer, M. keeps house, conditions of environment good, deaths in family from acute diseases;"—"F. country tradesman, M. keeps house, conditions of environment excellent, very religious family;"—"F. man of means, M. housekeeping, conditions of environment excellent, brothers studious;"—"F. machinist, M. keeps the house, home somewhat damp because of adjoining garden; much anxiety on the part of the mother regarding the children, because her first husband was a consumptive, and the seven children she had by him all died. Children of second marriage all healthy; but the pupil in question frequently had attacks of fever;"—"F. cab-driver, M. keeps house, economic and moral conditions satisfactory;"—"F. antiquarian, M. keeps house, condition good;"—"F. manager of a lottery office, M. keeps house, economic conditions of the very best, moral conditions good," etc.
And here are a few notes on the pupils not admitted to the examinations: "Father itinerant vendor, Mother keeps house, home exceedingly dirty, utmost indifference regarding the children and their education. Insufficient nutriment for the mother both before and after the child's birth;"—"F. cobbler, M. wash-woman, poverty, squalor, and indifference, dwelling gloomy and cramped;"—"F. mason, M. dead, dwelling gloomy and unhealthy, through lack of supervision, Giacinto often runs away from home and goes to play on the banks of the Tiber; the mother died of tuberculosis; the father is an alcoholic; the child was brought up by a wet-nurse, etc."
To recapitulate: in the case of children promoted without examination there is an absolute prevalence of the most favourable social and biologico-moral conditions, while the opposite holds true of the children excluded from examinations.