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108
for the average heights of the boys engaged upon them. When working at the
benches the boys are continually moving, not only their arms but their backs and
legs. Whatsoever the material worked upon they are stretching for tools, using
their implements, bending to work, or to lift, or to alter the position of the material
they carry or fetch. There is continual alteration of position, alternately muscular
tension and relaxation.
The hours in the workshops are comparatively low and are well spaced in the
time-table. Close study of individual boys in relation to their work makes it quite
clear that the conditions are not detrimental to health or posture, on the
contrary, the work done in the shops is generally beneficial to the well-being of
the boys.
Physical Training.—Generally the amount of formal physical exercise is
restricted to two periods of 45 minutes each in the week, at the Westminster Technical
Institute, the chefs have apparently only one such period, a definite disadvantage.
In the summer term one afternoon each week is spent in the playing fields
which are unfortunately necessarily at a long distance from the schools. (At the
Brixton School of Building this is carried out also throughout the winter.)
Each school has its athletic club, cricket or football matches being arranged on
Saturdays; this is of course, outside the curriculum, the organisation being undertaken
by the physical instructors, in each of whom keenness, interest in and knowledge
of his work was evident. But, of course, only the physically fit are selected
for match play and this does not help the weedy boy whose physical needs require
most attention.
As the time allowed for physical training is so restricted it is considered that
specialisation or even remedial medical work for the individual or for a group unless
done at a special time or out of school hours must be done at the expense of the
general training of the average boy and for that reason should be subsidiary to
universal training on broad lines. It should be the rule in all the schools, however,
that all the boys should repair to the playing fields, weather permitting, on one afternoon
in each week throughout the year.
Individual differences..—In carrying out individual inspection the boys
were found to fall into one or other of three types of physical function and development.
:
(а) Broad shouldered and broad waisted—the " barrel " type of manhood.
(б) Broad shouldered and slim waisted—the " wine-glass " type.
(c) Boys with long bodies and undifferentiated waists—the " test tube "
type.
Each of these three types has its own mental and physical characteristics which
differentiate the types further. For instance, the " test-tube" type presents
persistent childish traits and in comparison with the two other types is unstable and
erratic ; body movements are ill conducted and loose.
The general appearance of any particular class will depend largely upon the proportion
of these three types which happens to exist in it, and it is type (c) which
needs most the careful attention to nutrition and physical exercise. Roughly one
third of the boys fall into this type and no great differences were noted in the various
schools. There was a slight proportion of boys living under better social conditions
at the Central School of Arts and Crafts and in a Polytechnic, perhaps accounted
for by the fact that the Central school boys' fathers were mostly printers, while the
Polytechnic boys paid higher fees than the fee-payers of the other institutes. It was
not found that cycling to school had any connection with habitual posture or physical
development.
A very large number of observations was recorded and tabulated, but these
tables, on account of the complexity and number, cannot be reproduced in this report.
Conclusions.—(1) Postural defects do not arise in these technical schools in