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A considerable increase in the number of children examined at the Education Offices has taken
place, owing to the fact that all children nominated tor admission to Residential Homes are
examined in this Department. Cases requiring detailed examination, more particularly in regard
to Blindness or Deafness referred from the admission examinations, and certain cases referred by
Magistrates and Committees, are also seen at the offices.

Each of the Residential Schools has now to be visited at least once a quarter by the Medical
Officer (Education).
PHYSICAL CONDITIONS.
Measurements.—We have no trustworthy measurements of the development of London
children.
A scheme was put forward in November, 1903, for an inquiry into the relations between
(1) Educational status, (2) the physical condition, (3) the social position of about 50,000 London
children.
The cost of this work stood in the way, and even a more modest scheme which would not cost
more than £300 has been felt to be inopportune, and at present is in abeyance. Much care and
expense is involved in the recording and analysis of mortality statistics concerning those whose
lives have ceased. The vitality statistics of those who are about to enter on active service in the
affairs of life, and whose energy is the chief of the national assets, is surely worth the cost of
collection. The children whose measurements will form the units in the inquiry are not interfered
with in any way; their self-respect will rather be increased, their sense of belonging to the
community heightened by their participating in such measurements, and although the benefit to
any individual is scarcely worth considering, yet the results to be hoped for are such that some
effort must be made to conduct this inquiry, tedious though it may be, to those who do the work.
In accordance with the method advocated for a general survey, and chiefly to gain experience
in working it, a few measurements have been taken.
Dr. Frances M. D. Berry has investigated the conditions of 1,612 girls at Capland Street,
Honeywell Road, Prospect Terrace, and Victory Place Schools; and Dr. C. J. Thomas
1,861 boys, at the "Chaucer," Capland Street, Honeywell Road, Leipsic Road, "Michael Faraday,"
and Victory Place Schools. The numbers are insufficient to base any standards upon, but give
some indication of conditions of cleanliness, health, and nutrition among the scholars. These
have been charted as regards ages, sex, heights, and weights.
In the case of one school, where the Head Master has taken great pains to investigate the Home
Conditions, Dr. Thomas reports that one of the dominant characteristics of the population around
it is its stationary habit as opposed to the migrating tendencies of some other districts on the one
hand and its steady poverty on the other. Amongst the staple industries of the neighbourhood is
the making of baskets and brushes, although the osier beds have years since departed, and the raw
material has to be imported from outside London. The object of the inquiry was to discover the
causes of variation in the physical condition of children within the limits of this single school.
Each of the 405 boys was carefully weighed and measured without boots, a note was made of the