Pedagogical Anthropology

by Maria Montessori

Accordingly, there are thirty articulations in all; and of these, 23 are the intervertebral disks, which constitute, taken together, a fourth part of the complex height of the vertebral column.

Furthermore, the height of the body cannot be considered simply the sum of the component parts, since these are not superimposed in a straight line. As a matter of fact, if we examine the vertebral column, we see that it is not straight as in the case of animals, but exhibits certain curves that are characteristic of the human species, and must be taken into consideration in their relation to the erect position. In fact, the vertebral column presents two curvatures, the one lumbar, and the other cervical, which together give it the form of an S. These curvatures are acquired along with the erect position, and are not innate; one of the points of difference between the skeleton of the new-born child and that of the adult is precisely this, that the former has a straight vertebral column.

A fact of no small importance to note, since in the course of growth a certain determined form of normal curve, and no other, ought to establish itself; otherwise, abnormal deviations in the vertebral column will become established. And for the very reason that it is plastic and destined to assume a curve, the vertebral column may very easily be forced into exaggerating or departing from its morphological destiny. In such a case, the resulting stature would be inferior to what it should normally have been.

Accordingly, the stature is the resultant of the sum of anatomical parts and of morphological conditions.

Hence it is a linear index not only of biological man, that is, of man considered in relation to his racial limitations; but also of social man, that is, of man as he has developed in the struggle for adaptation to his environment.

The limits of stature, according to race. Stature is an anthropological datum of great biological value, since it is a definite racial characteristic and is preserved from generation to generation by heredity. The first distinguishing trait of a race is the height of the body in its natural erect position. It is also the first characteristic that strikes us when a stranger comes toward us for the first time. And that is why we make it the leading descriptive trait: a person of tall, or of low stature. If, for a moment, we should picture to ourselves the legend of Noah's Ark—quite incredible, because emigration and embarkation of all the known species would have required more than a century of time (it is enough merely to think of the embarkation of the tortoises and the sloths!), and the necessity of an ark as big as a nation, what must inevitably have struck Noah and his sons would have been the stature of the individuals belonging to each separate species.

The stature is the linear index of the limit of mass.

Among the human races the variations in stature are included between fairly wide oscillations: coming down to facts, the average stature of the Akkas is 1.387 m. (4 ft. 6½ in.) for the males; and that of the Scotchmen of Galloway is 1.792 m. (5 ft. 10½ in.). Accordingly between the average heights of the two races that are considered as the extremes, there is a difference of 40 cm. (15¾ in.); but since the averages are obtained from a complex mass of normal measurements, some of which are above and others necessarily below the average itself, we may assert that the "normal human individuals" may differ in stature to an extent of more than half a metre; the oscillations of normal individuals on each side of the racial average being estimated at about 10 cm. (3.937 in.).

If we should see a little Akka 4 ft. 4 in. (1.33 m.) in height alongside of a Scotchman 6 ft. (1.83 m.) high we should say "a dwarf beside a giant." But such terms are pathological and should never be employed to indicate normal individualities. As a matter of fact dwarfs and giants are as a class extra-social and sterile; normal individuals, on the contrary, represent the physiopsychic characteristics of their respective races. Consequently we may say that normal people have a low stature, or a high stature; or if it is a question of extremely low stature (such as that of the Akkas) we may make use of the term pigmies or of the pigmy race, in speaking of such individuals. Sergi has proved the existence, among the prehistoric inhabitants of Europe, of various pigmy races.

In the field of anthropology the scientific terminology ought always to be based upon certain determined limits. The authorities indicate the normal extremes of individual stature, beyond which we pass over the into realm of pathology, incompatible with the survival of the species; and even in the pathological cases they determine the extreme limits, obtained from the individual monstrosities that have actually existed in the course of the centuries, and that seem to indicate the furthest limits attained by the human race.