REPORT 
OF THE 
DIRECTOR OF PHYSICAL 
TRAINING. 
[Reprinted from School Document No. 4 of 1895.] 
BOSTON: 
Press of Rockwell and Churchill. 
1 895. REPORT 
OF 
DE. EDWARD M. HARTWELL, 
Director of Physical Training. 
To the Superintendent of Public Schools: 
Dear Sir : Agreeably to your letter of request, dated Jan- 
-30, 1895, I respectfully submit the following report as 
Director of Physical Training. My last report, which was 
made to the School Committee, was published as School Doc- 
ument No. 8, 1894. It covered the period Jan. 1, 1892, to 
June 30, 1894. In that report the general condition and 
policy of this department were outlined as follows : 
In general terms it may be said that there has been healthy growth 
and expansion in the department of physical training during the inter- 
val since my last report in December, 1891. The policy of holding 
frequent normal classes for the teachers of the grammar and primary 
schools has been followed with good results, and will be continued. 
Toward the close of the school year 1891-92 the experiment was made 
of examining and marking the grammar-school classes throughout the 
city, and of furnishing the master of each school with a detailed state- 
ment as to the proficiency and rating of the several classes under his 
charge. The results of this experiment were so stimulating and help- 
ful that the practice has become a fixed policy. 
The novelty of the situation, due to the introduction of an orderly, 
progressive system of instruction in gymnastics, has worn off for the 
most part; and the ancient misleading notion that physical training is 
chiefly useful to afford an easy and inexpensive vent for the ticldesome 
“ animal spirits ” of tired and restless children and to enhance the live- 
liness and attractiveness of school exhibitions has been dissipated to a 
considerable degree, and bids fair to disappear utterly at least among 
the teachers —as time goes on. Increased experience on the part of 
the teachers in conducting class-exercises in gymnastics at the Avord of 
command, and their growing familiarity with the aims and methods 
peculiar to the Swedish school-gymnastics, have led to marked improve- 
ment in the manner and results of their instruction. This improvement 
has taken place all along the line, but has been particularly marked and gratifying in certain schools and classes in which comparatively 
feeble interest in the new gymnastics was manifested at the outset. 
My main aim is to secure steady, sustained, and increasingly intelli- 
gent effort on the part of the class-teachers, so that gymnastics shall 
become a regular, inevitable part of the daily course of instruction, 
receiving due attention, no more, no less. To this end, now that the 
mass of the teachers have acquired a fair amount of technical skill in 
conducting gymnastic instruction, I propose to throw greater stress than 
seemed advisable at first upon the principles of physical training and 
its relations to other branches of instruction. 
The full and lasting success of Boston’s present tentative effort to 
profit by the example and experience, in the field of physical training, 
of other cities and countries will depend very largely upon the charac- 
ter of the support given to the department of physical training in the 
Boston Normal School. This school is conspicuous, in its class, by 
reason of the fact that its managers have taken measures to provide its 
pupils with theoretical and practical instruction in Swedish school-gym- 
nasties, which measures have been cheerfully seconded hitherto by the 
School Committee. But the department is still in embryo, and its ex- 
pansion and efficiency have been hampered by the crowded state of the 
curriculum and the insufficient resources of the school. Provision has 
been made, however, in framing the new course of study for the Nor- 
mal School for better instruction in gymnastics than was formerly 
practicable. Gymnastics has been placed in the list of electives, and 
twelve members of the class of 1893-94 availed themselves of the op- 
portunity to elect it as a special study. Experience shows that the cor- 
ridors of the Normal School are a poor substitute for a well-fitted 
gymnasium. It is wisely proposed to include such a gymnasium in the 
projected extension of the Normal School building. At the suggestion 
of the head-master of the school, I have prepared sketch-plans for such 
a gymnasium. If a well-equipped gymnasium be provided it will add 
greatly to the usefulness and efficiency of this department, especially 
if the recently authorized experiment in developing departmental teach- 
ing in the grammar schools shall prove a success, and lead to a new 
departure in the management of those schools. 
At the invitation of Dr. Dunton, the principal of the Normal School, 
and with the consent of the Committee on Hygiene and Physical Train- 
ing, I have helped to frame the elective course of study in gymnastics, 
already alluded to, and have taken part in the instruction given in ac- 
cordance with it. 
Considerable progress has been made in the past two year’s to- 
wards unifying and simplifying the practice of gymnastics in the 
classes as regards the times set for exercise, the amount of time de- voted to instruction and practice, and the number and selection of the 
“ Days’ Orders” attempted. There is now much less diversity in these 
matters than obtained at first. Having, by periodical circulars of in- 
quiry, practically determined what may fairly be expected and exacted 
of the several classes, I propose to promulgate a provisional course in 
gymnastics for the guidance of the teachers during the ensuing year, or 
so long as it may be found to work. 
In January, 1891, as appears from a statistical inquiry made at the 
time, only 79.2 per cent, of the grammar and primary school teachers 
professed to teach Swedish gymnastics in 1,065 classes, while 20.7 per 
cent, taught “mixed” forms of gymnastics. In January, 1893, mixed 
gymnastics had practically disappeared, and 1,098 teachers were re- 
turned as teacher’s of the required Swedish gymnastics. The following 
table affords a comparative view of the results of each inspection and 
rating of the 55 grammar schools, by schools and divisions. The epi- 
thets “ excellent,” “ good,” etc., are based on the average mark of the 
school, which is obtained by dividing the sum of the division-marks by 
the number of the division-marks. Each division-mark is also an aver- 
age of marks touching five distinct particulars, viz., position, steadi- 
ness, precision, coi’reetness, commands. TABLE I. 
SHOWING COMPARATIVE RATING OF THE FIFTY-FIVE GRAMMAR 
SCHOOLS, IN PHYSICAL TRAINING, 1891-1894. 
First In- 
spection 
in 1891. 
Second In- 
spection 
in 1891. 
Third In- 
spection 
in 1892. 
Fourth In- 
spection 
in 1893. 
Fifth In- 
spection, 
in 1894. 
Number. 
Per cent. 
Number. 
Per Cent. 
Number. 
Per Cent. 
Number. 
Per Cent. 
Number. 
Per Cent. 
■ 
f 
Old Scale. 
Excellent, 1.00-2.00.. 
8 
14.5 
8 
14.5 
39 
70.9 
53 
96.3 
54 
98.1 
Good, 2.01-2.50.. 
18 
32.7 
20 
36.3 
16 
29.0 
2 
3.6 
1 
1.8 
Passable, 2.51-3.00.. 
17 
30.9 
20 
36.3 
0 
0 
Poor, 3.01-6.00.. 
12 
21.8 
7 
12.7 
0 
0 
o 
aJ 
S>\ 
55 
55 
55 
55 
55 
>> 
Present Scale. 
w 
9.0 
15 
27.2 
20 
3fi 3 
19 
34.5 
31 
56.4 
25 
45.4 
Good, 1 Sfi 9.20, 
24 
43.6 
9 
16.3 
10 
18.1 
7 
12.7 
0 
o 
3.01-6.00, 
0 
0 
0 
55 
55 
55 
Old Scale. 
342 
61.5 
466 
83.2 
499 
85.7 
Good, ‘>01-9.50.. 
179 
32.0 
85 
10.1 
75 
12.8 
Passable 2 51-300.. 
29 
5.2 
6 
1.07 
6 
1.0 
6 
1.7 
2 
0.3 
O 
o 
V / 
5> 
556 
560 
582 
\ Present Scale. 
cq 
• Excellent 1.00 1 50 
104 
18.7 
217 
38.9 
260 
44.6 
150 
26.9 
145 
26.2 
169 
29.0 
Good, 1.86 2.20, 
186 
33.4 
163 
29.1 
120 
20.6 
110 
19.7 
30 
5.3 
30 
5.1 
Poor, 3.01-6.00, 
6 
1.0 
2 
0.3 
3 
0.5 
556 
560 
582 7 
In 1892 the average school mark was 2.05, and 42 schools were rated 
above the average and 13 below. The average mark was 1.65 in 1893, 
when 27 schools were rated above and 28 below the average, all 65 
schools being above the average of 1892. In 1894 the average school- 
mark was 1.60, which mark was exceeded in the case of 26 schools, and 
unattained by 29 schools. In 1894 31 schools were rated above the 
average for 1893 and 54 above the average for 1892; while 24 schools 
were rated below the average for 1893 and one below the average for 
1892. These results warrant the conclusion there has been marked im- 
provement in gymnastic instruction in the grammar schools during the 
last two years. The progress made in the primary schools, though less 
marked for obvious reasons, has been fairly satisfactory. 
GYMNASTIC INSTRUCTION MORE GENERAL AND EFFICIENT. 
The “provisional course in gymnastics for the guidance of 
teachers,” alluded to above, was promulgated early in this 
year and is working so satisfactorily that it is likely to con- 
tinue in force indefinitely. It consists of a schedule of 
“ Required and Optional Days’ Orders,” varied in number 
and difficulty according to the grade and class of the pupils 
for whom they are prescribed. Since assuming charge of this 
department, it has been my custom to call for a statistical return 
showing the amount and character of the gymnastic instruc- 
tion given in each class during the month of January of each 
year. The returns for January, 1895, are most satisfactory, 
since they show that Swedish “ free standing movements ” 
are now taught and practised throughout the primary and 
grammar grades, and that the requirements of the schedule 
of Days’ Orders are very generally complied with. In this 
I find encouraging evidence of progress. And I take pleas- 
ure in expressing my high appreciation of the readiness with 
which the principals of schools have seconded my efforts and 
recommendations and of the zeal and fidelity shown by the 
class-teachers in giving gymnastic instruction. 
No new subject or new method of instruction in an old 
subject can be injected into a course of study after the man- 
ner in which Swedish school-gymnastics were introduced into 
the Boston schools by the School Committee of 1890, without 8 
causing more or less disturbance and jar. It has been my 
object from the outset to adapt the work of this department 
so far as possible to existing conditions, and to derange and 
jostle the existing school machinery as little as possible. I 
believe that my efforts in this direction have met with a fair 
measure of success. It is certain that there has been marked 
and steady improvement in the conduct and performance of 
our school-gymnastics during the past four years. But the 
necessity for giving normal instruction to the teachers, and 
for aiding them by means of suggestion and criticism in the 
school-room still exists, and must continue to exist so long as 
the corps of teachers is largely made up of persons who have 
passed through the normal school course without being called 
upon to learn or apply even the elementary principles of 
physical training. Comparatively few city and State nor- 
mal schools offer courses in genuine physical training. Hence 
the multiplication of summer and private adventure schools 
in this field. 
INSTRUCTION OF TEACHERS. 
The results of the annual inspection and rating in gym- 
nastics of the classes in the grammar schools, made towards 
the close of 1894, have been used as heretofore by Mr Nissen, 
the assistant in this department, as the basis for giving special 
help and criticism in the class-room to the teachers standing 
in greatest need of such aid. As during last year, so this 
year Mr. Nissen has devoted a considerable amount of time to 
the special assistance of primary teachers in their class-room 
work. Since the Christmas holidays normal classes have 
been resumed. At present primary school teachers are not 
required to attend them. With a view of giving variety to 
the gymnastics practised by the first and second classes of the 
grammar grade, and to improving the style of marching and 
filing in the halls, corridors, and yards, I have instituted for 
certain selected teachers a special normal class in marching 
and floor work, which is at present conducted by Mr. Nissen 9 
in the drill hall of the English High School; the class meets 
for an hour once a fortnight. Six meetings have been 
scheduled; teachers attending these classes are excused 
from attending such normal classes in gymnastics as may 
occur during the period Feb. 15 to April 26, 1895. 
In my last report I called attention to the fact that physi- 
cal training in the high schools for girls had been largely 
left to take care of itself, and had not been respected, in most 
cases, as a coordinate branch in the required course of study, 
which provides that high school girls shall devote the same 
amount of time to gymnastics that the boys give to military 
drill; viz., two hours weekly. My relations to physical training 
in the high schools were referred to as follows: 
PHYSICAL TRAINING IN THE HIGH SCHOOLS. 
As Director of Physical Training I am directly responsible to the 
Committee on Hygiene and Physical Training ; but inasmuch as the 
jurisdiction of that committee over physical training in the high schools 
appears not to be altogether clearly defined, my relation to physical 
training in those schools is somewhat anomalous, not to say embarrass- 
ing. I make it a rule, however, to inspect the classes from time to 
time, and to comply as far as possible with all requests from the head- 
masters for aid or advice with regard to instruction in gymnastics, 
though I do not consider myself responsible for the woxk done in the 
high schools to the same extent as for that done in the lower schools 
over which the Committee on Hygiene and Physical Training exercise 
undisputed jurisdiction. 
It seems to me to be extremely desirable, and in most cases practica- 
ble, that the instruction given in gymnastics in the high schools should 
be thorough and varied; that it should be adapted to the peculiarities 
and adequate to the needs of adolescents; and that it should constitute 
a distinct advance beyond the grammar-school course in gymnastics, 
which has hitherto been confined to free standing movements. It is im- 
possible to secure these ends without proper apparatus and competent 
teachers. 
The conditions alluded to above remain unchanged in 
most respects. I would respectfully repeat the following sug- 10 
gestions made on page 107 of my last report, as tending to 
improve the efficiency of physical training in the high schools : 
(1) That the Committee on Hygiene and Physical Training and the 
Committee on High Schools take measures to arrive at an understand- 
ing with regard to the nomination and supervision of teachers of physi- 
cal training in the high schools; (2) that the Committee on Hygiene 
and Physical Training and the Committee on High Schools take con- 
certed action towards preparing a programme for each high school in 
accordance with the course of study, so far as the requirements of the 
same in regard to physical training are concerned. 
Speaking generally as regards the high school for girls, it 
may be said that less time is devoted to gymnastics this year 
than last in those schools. The explanation of this is to be 
found in the unusually congested state of certain schools, and 
in the makeshifts which it necessitates, e.g., in the Dorchester 
and West Roxbury High Schools. But lam convinced that 
in certain other cases more effectual measures might be taken 
to comply with the course of study. The completion of the 
new building for the Brighton High School will doubtless 
enable the principal of that school to secure two hours of in- 
struction in gymnastics per week, if, as I presume, the City 
Architect has planned a gymnasium for the girls in addition 
to a drill-hall for the boys. It was found necessary, early in 
the year, to turn a large part of the hall of the Dorchester 
High School into recitation-rooms, by the putting up of par- 
titions; consequently gymnastics have been suspended for 
the present in that school. lam informed that the Commit- 
tee on High Schools has decided to appoint a special teacher 
of gymnastics in the Roxbury High School for the ensuing 
year. I venture to express the hope that adequate measures 
will be taken also to put this important school, which has not 
far from three hundred girls among its pupils, on an equality 
with the Charlestown High School, in respect to facilities for 
apparatus gymnastics. 
Under Miss Towne, in the school last named, the gymnastic 
course continues to improve and is characterized by increas- 11 
inglj good results, which is in some measure due to the fact 
that the time-requirement of the course of study is carried 
out. The recent order of the School Committee regulating 
the character of the lunches offered for sale in the high 
schools owed its initial impulse to Miss Towne, who called 
my attention to the fact that pies, pickles, and candy consti- 
tuted too large a proportion of the edibles exposed for sale 
in that school. Deeming the matter of some importance, I 
brought it to the attention of the Board of Supervisors, and 
of the Committee on Hygiene and Physical Training, by 
whom the School Board was induced to provide a remedy. 
In September last Miss Ruth B. Whittemore, a graduate 
of the Dorchester High School and of the Boston Normal 
School of Gymnastics, was appointed, on the nomination of 
the Committee on High Schools, special teacher of vocal 
and physical culture in the Girls’ Latin School. Since 
Jan. 28, 1895, Miss Whittemore, by permission of the Com- 
mittee on High Schools, has also had charge of the girls’ 
gymnastics in the East Boston High School, and with 
manifestly good results. 
For the last three years physical training has been placed 
by the Board of Supervisors in the list of electives open to 
candidates for certificates of qualification. Thus far but one 
person, a candidate for a certificate of the third grade, at the 
examination in August, 1894, has chosen physical training as 
an elective subject. The candidate in question was strictly 
examined in the theory and principles of the subject, and, as 
is my custom in such cases, was also required to conduct a 
class in Swedish exercises, with apparatus, in the gymna- 
sium of the Charlestown High School. I found her qualified 
“to pass.” The fact of her being a graduate of the State 
Normal School, at Bridgewater, Mass., is worthy of special 
mention. 
SUPERVISORS’ EXAMINATIONS. 
At the request of the Board of Supervisors I prepared the 12 
questions in required and elective biology, botany, and 
zoology for the examinations conducted in August and Sep- 
tember, 1894, marked all the papers handed in on these sub- 
jects, and interviewed such of the candidates as came up for 
special examination in those subjects. Several of the candi- 
dates were of unusual promise, and showed that they had been 
trained to give better instruction in their subjects than is at 
present provided for or allowed in our high schools and 
normal school. 
THE NORMAL SCHOOL. 
The general and special work in physical training in the 
Normal School continues in the faithful charge of Miss 
Laura S. Plummer, who does as effective work as the re- 
stricted resources of that school will permit. The pupils of 
that school cannot be as well trained in gymnastics as in 
kindergartening and Sloyd so long as the school has no labora- 
tory or gymnasium, and is not provided with an adequate 
supply of illustrative apparatus for teaching purposes. The 
number of pupils in that school who have chosen physical 
training as a special elective study is the same as last year; 
viz., twelve. My lectures to this class began on Feb. 4,1895, 
and will continue till the close of the year at the rate of one 
a week. The character and purport of these lectures is in- 
dicated by the following list of topics : The Modern Doctrine 
of the Human Body; School Hygiene; The Physiology of 
Nerve and Muscle, and its Bearing upon the Education of 
Children and Adolescents; The Nature and Effects of Physi- 
cal Training; Comparative View of the Principal Systems of 
Physical Training; Practical Hints on Teaching School 
Gymnastics. ’ 
Early in the current year the teachers in charge of physical 
training in the Normal School and the Charlestown and West 
Roxbury High Schools expressed the desire to make certain 
measurements in connection with the physical examination 
of their pupils. As the undertaking met with the approval 13 
of the principals of the schools in question, and the pupils’ 
participation in it was wholly voluntary, I have encouraged 
its prosecution. There is abundant evidence that such pro- 
cedures serve to awaken a livelier interest on the pupil’s part 
in personal hygiene and physical training, and are helpful 
to teachers as an aid in the guidance and admonition of their 
pupils. 
PHYSICAL EXAMINATIONS. 
Thanks to the ready kindness of Dr. H. P. Walcott, chair- 
man of the Massachusetts Board of Health, three sets of 
measuring appliances, including scales, were put at my dis- 
posal. Two of these sets have been put to good use in the 
schools above named, and the third set has been assigned to 
Mr. Ripley, principal of the Bigelow School, to enable him to 
carry out his plan of periodically weighing and measuring 
the boys in the Bigelow School. If by repeated observations 
on the same individuals during a series of years Mr, Ripley 
shall be able to determine the annual growth-rates of so large 
a number of boys as are found in his school, his results will 
be of great practical value, and will constitute a genuine 
contribution to science as well. Anthropometrists are now 
in the possession of a large amount of data derived from 
measuring and weighing many school children and youth ; but 
data obtained by the individualizing method, i.e.y by subject- 
ing the same individuals to repeated observations during a 
series of years, are rare and greatly needed. 
THE INTRODUCTION OF ADJUSTABLE DESKS AND CHAIRS. 
Since my last report the new buildings of the Cud worth 
Primary School, in East Boston, and the Choate Burnham 
Primary School, in South Boston, have been occupied. They 
are furnished with adjustable desks and chairs. During the 
last summer vacation the first class of the Bennett Grammar 
School, in Brighton, was supplied with adjustable furniture,* 
* That is to say the desk boxes and chairs already in use were placed upon 
adjustable standards. 14 
and a considerable number of the same sort of desks and 
chairs have been placed in various rooms of the Robert G. 
Shaw Grammar School by the order of the School Committee, 
to obviate the inadequate supply of properly assorted sizes of 
seats in that school. Counting in the Charles C. Perkins 
Primary School, in the Prince District, there are nearly 1,400 
sets of adjustable furniture now in use in our schools. Rather 
more than half of that number are of the so-called Perry style ; 
not quite one-half of the remainder were furnished by the 
Globe Desk Company; while of the residue one-half, enough 
to fill three rooms, were furnished by, the Chandler and Bo- 
brick Companies respectively. If the School Committee 
holds to its present policy of furnishing new buildings with 
adjustable furniture, it is probable that between 2,600 and 
3,000 adjustable desks and chairs will be required during the 
next twelve months towards fitting up school buildings now 
in process of erection or under contract. 
In accordance with the order passed by the School Com- 
mittee, Oct. 25, 1892 (see page 108 of my last report), 
it has devolved upon me to render advice and assistance to 
the principals for the purpose of securing the proper use of 
these new and improved styles of desks and chairs. Besides 
which I have been called upon to study the seating of the pupils 
in rooms recently fitted up for the use of primary pupils in 
the Agassiz, Dudley, Hancock, and Wells districts ; to inspect 
the redistributed furniture in the Brimmer Grammar School; 
to report upon the misfitting of pupils in the Robert G. 
Shaw Grammar School, and to suggest a remedy for the same ; 
and to furnish plans for seating the pupils in the Cudworth 
School mentioned above, and in the Oak-square Primary 
School, in Brighton. Necessarily, therefore, much of my 
time and attention have been occupied during the current 
year with various phases of the “ seating problem.” 15 
THE PROBLEM OF SCHOOL SEATING. 
Having had occasion to study somewhat closely the pecul- 
iarities, as regards construction, working, and effects, of the 
desks and chairs now in use, both fixed and adjustable, and 
being more than ever convinced that the present amount of 
unhygienic seating in our schools is so large as to constitute 
a serious obstacle to the legitimate success of the department 
of physical training; I feel called upon to devote the re- 
mainder of this report to questions connected with the seat- 
ing of school children. 
School seating is primarily a question in animal mechanics, 
and the rules which govern it must be based upon the laws 
of human anatomy and physiology. But the development of 
a strictly scientific and hygienically sound system of school 
seating has been halting and incomplete, particularly in this 
country, because scientists and educationists have been slow 
to perceive the full significance of the fact that the school 
population is made up of growing animals, whose growth- 
rates, in respect to length of legs and length of arms, as well 
as in respect to total height, differ in the two sexes and vary 
in each sex during school life. Moreover, the problem of 
school seating is complicated and rendered difficult by the 
predilection of teachers for certain conventional forms of 
procedure in the management and discipline of their pupils, 
and by the commercial exigencies which regulate the manu- 
facture and sale of school furniture. 
THE MECHANICS OF THE SITTING POSTURE. 
The most searching and convincing researches in this 
connection are those of Prof. Hermann Meyer, of Zurich, 
whose paper, “ Die Mechanik des Sitzens mit Riicksicht auf die 
Schulbankfrage ” (Virchow’s Archiv, Bd. XXXVIII., Heft. 
1., 1867), should be studied by all who undertake to pass 
critical judgment on the claims of alleged improvements in 
school chairs. As a succinct summary of Meyer’s views is 16 
found in Cohn’s “ Hygiene of the Eye in Schools,” London, 
1886, I have taken what follows from that work. 
At the lower part of the pelvis are the two seat-bones (iubera ischii), or 
lowest parts of the great hip-bones. They are curved like a bow and 
rock easily. A line drawn through these two seat-bones may be called 
the “ seat-bones’ line.” The centre of gravity of the human body is situ- 
ated in front of the tenth chest vertebra; a line drawn perpendicularly 
from that place to the ground is the line of gravity. Now, it is only 
when the line of gravity falls exactly upon the seat-bones’ line that 
the body can remain at rest in a sitting posture. The slightest move- 
ment of the trunk that displaces the centre of gravity, and therefore also 
the line of gravity, must bring the line of gravity either before or 
behind the seat-bones’ line, and then a third point must be sought for 
which will secure equilibrium in a sitting posture in spite of the insta- 
bility of the seat-bones. This third point may be situated either before 
or behind the seat-bones’ line. We must therefore distinguish between 
a forward and a backward sitting posture. In the forward sitting 
posture the third point of support is furnished by the front edge of the 
seat. The line of gravity may now fall on any part of that surface which 
is determined by the seat-bones and the front edge of the seat; the 
nearer, however, it approaches to the latter, the more easily is the 
equilibrium disturbed. A quiet sitting posture, therefore, will only 
be possible when the sui’face of the seat on which the thighs rest 
is very large; things are best when this surface extends forward 
as far as the knees. If, moreover, the knees being bent at a right 
angle, the feet are planted firm and flat on the floor, their resting-places 
form auxiliary surfaces of support. 
No one, however, can remain in the forward sitting posture for any 
length of time, because the trunk is not immovably fixed in the hip- 
joint, but is joined raovably to the thigh. The attitude, therefore, is only 
maintained by very complicated work of the pelvic muscles. These 
muscles grow fatigued and the trunk, obeying the law of gravity, would 
fall forward if the chest or arms did not support it by leaning against 
the desk. When we prop ourselves up with our arms, we in a manner 
catch the body as it falls forward. 
In the backward sitting posture, in which the line of gravity falls 
behind the seat-bones’ line, the third point of support, firmly connected 
with the seat-bones, is found in the end of the coccyx. The pelvis being 
now inclined backward, this point does not need to be determined, but 
is an immovable datum. But as the body, with this backward inclina- 
tion of the pelvis, would have to fall backward its fall must be arrested 
by the back-rest. The lower down the back-rest is applied, the more 17 
upright is the position of the pelvis and the trunk. Applied at the height 
of the last vertebra the back-rest allows the best upright sitting posture. 
In writing the head is slightly bent forward on its horizontal axis, the 
arms are stretched forward and somewhat upward, and the body curved 
slightly forward; and thereby the centre of gravity is brought forward 
in front of the seat-bones’ line. Any arrangement, therefore, which 
brings the centre of gravity further back will help the child to sit up- 
right. 
TYPICAL SITTING POSTURES. 
There are, then, three typical sitting postures, in each of 
which the following general conditions obtain, viz. : the 
thighs are more or less fixed at a right angle to the trunk, 
the leg makes a right angle to the thigh at the knee, an d the 
feet are placed flat upon the floor or a foot-rest. These are : 
(1) the erect posture, in which the line of gravity falls be- 
tween the tubera ischii, when the muscles of the legs are 
relaxed and the rigid trunk is maintained in a position of 
mobile equilibrium, by a minimal amount of action on the 
part of the muscles of the neck, trunk, and pelvis; (2) the 
forward posture, in which the line of gravity passes in front 
of the seat-bones’ line and the body is kept from falling for- 
ward on its rockers either by “ the complicated work of the 
pelvic muscles,” or by an anteriorly placed prop of some 
sort; (3) the backward posture, in which the line of gravity 
falls behind the tubera ischii, and the body is prevented from 
falling backward, either by the fixation of the trunk upon 
the thigh, the legs being kept extended, through the action 
of the flexor muscles of the hip and the extensors of the 
leg, or by means of a prop supporting the pelvis and the 
back. 
THE CHAIR-MAKER’S PROBLEM. 
Expressed in general terms the problems which confront 
the designers and makers of chairs are : (1) to provide a 
base of support or seat having a sufficient and intelligently 
proportioned area, be., a bottom whose length and breadth 
are proportional to the under surface of the thighs and 
buttocks of the person to be seated; (2) to place the seat 18 
at such a height from the floor, or foot-rest, that the sitter’s 
feet may rest flat upon the floor or foot-rest when his legs 
make a right angle at the knee with his thighs ; and (3) to 
provide the seat with a back that shall support the sitter’s 
back whether he be quiescent or be actively engaged, e.g., 
in writing or drawing. But a properly constructed chair 
may be rendered nugatory or even positively harmful, if its 
occupant is forced to work at a desk whose upper surface is 
too high or too low, or insufficiently sloped, or whose under 
surface exercises a cramping influence upon his knees or 
thighs, or if he is given a desk which, though correct in its 
proportions, is so placed with relation to his chair that the 
backward sitting posture is beyond his reach, and the for- 
ward sitting posture can only be maintained at the expense 
of prolonged and wearisome muscular exertion. 
Again, the occupant of a correctly designed and properly 
constructed chair may be prevented from reaping its benefits 
through the stupid or injudicious requirements of his teach- 
ers as to the manner of using his chair and desk during 
recitation, when studying, or when engaged in the act of 
writing or drawing. 
NORMAL DIMENSIONS OF DESK AND SEAT. 
Figure 1, adapted from a similar cut in Eulenberg and 
Bach’s “ Schulgesundheitslehre,” Berlin, 1891, p. 217, will 
be of assistance to us in further discussing the normal dimen- 
sions of desks and seats. It represents the dimensions 
recommended by Eulenberg and Bach, for a seat and desk 
adapted to a pupil 175 centimeters (68.89 inches) in height, 
R, the total depth of desk and seat, equals 78 centimeters. A, 
the outer height of the desk, equals 84 centimeters. The 
inner “ height of the desk,” equals the sum of the lines C and 
MD, i.e., 78 centimeters, C, '■'•the height of the seat,” being 
48 centimeters (yT of the total bodily height), and MD, 
technically termed '■‘•the difference,” being 80 centimeters, or 
about 17 per cent, of the total height. The width of the 19 
horizontal part of the desk L equals 10 centimeters and that 
of the sloping part K equals 35 centimeters. The book-shelf 
N is placed 25 centimeters (| of the body-height) below the 
surface of L, and is 22 centimeters Q of the body-height) in 
width. C, the “ height of the seat,” equals 48 centimeters 
(t3t of the body-height). The length of the seat equals 58 
centimeters (1 the body-height). E, “ depth or breadth of 
seat,” equals 35 centimeters (| the body-height). The total 
height of the back-support equals 44 centimeters (1 the body- 
height) ; G, the total “ height of cross-rest ” (S) for the small 
Figure 1. 
of the back, being 22 centimeters (f the body-height). The 
back-support slopes backward, it will be noted, some 3 centi- 
meters, so that J, the shoulder-rest, cannot come into contact 
with the pupil’s back unless the upper part of the pupil’s 
trunk is slightly inclined beyond the perpendicular line J S. 
This is to enable the pupil to assume the so-called “ back- 
sitting ” or “reclined position” which is strongly advocated 
by Prof. A. Lorenz, of Vienna. Eulenberg and Bach recom- 
mend hollowing out the seat to a depth of 14 centimeters as 
shown at E, instead of inclining the surface of the seat from 
front to rear. It will be observed that the line MD, techni- 20 
cally called “ the difference,” does uot strike the edge or sur- 
face of the seat. The result is that “ the distancei.e., 
the distance between the rear edge of the desk and the for- 
ward edge of the seat, is a plus or positive distance, which 
was usually found in school-seating twenty-five years ago, 
but which is almost universally condemned by modern au- 
thorities, since it involves the necessity of leaning forward in 
writing, which is sedulously to be avoided. In the present 
case the plus distance noted is a concession to convenience, 
since it is easier for a pupil to get in and out of his seat when 
the distance is plus than when it is minus ; i.e., when the line 
M D falls inside the line made by the front edge of the seat, 
or when the distance is nil; i.e., as when the line MI) just 
strikes that edge. 
CARDINAL POINTS IN DESK CONSTRUCTION. 
Cohn, in his work already cited, says: 
The points which are of main importance in school-desks are four: 
the difference, the distance, the seat-height, and the desk-slope. 
(1.) The difference, that is, the vertical distance, between desk and 
seat. (See MD, Fig. I.) The higher the desk-surface the nearer it is 
to the eye of a straight-sitting child. Thus the greater the difference 
the more the child will have to exert his accommodation. Now, the 
writing ought to be from 35 to 45 centimeters [l4-18 inches] from the 
eye, for that is about the distance of a child’s eye from the elbow when 
hanging straight down, and the text of the school-books should be easily 
legible at that distance. If, however, the difference is great, so that the 
elbows have to be considerably raised in writing [as is generally the case 
in our Boston schools] the shoulders will not hang from the body, but 
the body from the shoulders, and the writing hand will be too near the 
eye. 
(2.) An exceedingly important correlative of the difference is the 
horizontal distance between desk and form. (See D, Fig. 1.) In the 
right arrangement of distance lies the kernel of the school-desk reform. 
The greater the distance the more the body will have to fall forward 
of the seat in order that the arms may reach the paper; and the more 
Avill the head be obliged to drop and to get near the writing. Thus, 
whenever we intend to sit upright at a table for a considerable time, 
we instinctively push the chair so far under the table that the table’s 21 
edge is vertically over the chair’s edge, or, if possible, overhangs it by 
an inch. For the upright position of the head, therefore, the distance 
must be nil or, still better, negative. ... I once proposed a minus 
distance of one inch; but after further observations I think that the 
upright position is sustained still longer when the thigh is supported 
still further towards the knee, and therefore I agree with Buchner, who 
requires a minus distance of two inches. 
Here every inch is of consequence. No physician has ever opposed 
the requirement of nil or minus distance . . . the opposition has 
come solely from individual teachers. 
(3.) The height of the seat. (See C, Fig. 1.) If the legs are not 
bent at a right angle at the knee and the feet resting with the entire 
sole flat upon the foot-board (or floor), the feet must be left dangling in 
the air. Then the child soon grows tired. He tries to reach the floor 
with the tips of his toes at least, and in so doing he bends his thigh 
downward, slides forward on the edge of his seat, and presses his chest 
on the edge of the table. The necessary result is a further collapse of 
attitude. (In all this we are leaving quite out of account the hindrance 
to breathing and the compression of the intestines.) The height of the 
seat must accordingly be equal to the length from the knee to the sole ; 
that is, s- of the child's height. The knee must be bent at a right 
angle. No attention is paid to any of these projmrtions in the old 
school-desks. 
(4.) The slope oj the desk. (See K, Fig. 1.) AVe can read easily, 
without any stoop of the head, from a book placed vertically before us. 
If the book slopes back at an angle of 45 degrees with the horizon, 
reading is equally easy, because the eyes can be directed downward 
without bending the head forward. But if the book lies flat and the 
reader sits upright, the eyes are turned downward very far. This con- 
tinued for any considerable time is very tiring, and so we prefer to bend 
the head forward. It follows that the desk must not be horizontal, but 
sloped. A slope of 45 degrees, however, is not to be recommended, 
because it would make writing difficult, and the writing materials would 
fall down. A slope of lin6 is the best. The old school-desks are all 
flat and therefore wrong. 
The breadth of seat usually termed “ seat-depth ” (see E, 
Fig. 1) and the “ seat-back ” (see J P, Fig. 1) are of scarcely 
less importance than Cohn’s “cardinal points” noted above. 
The seat-depth is determined by the length of the sitter’s 
thigh, whose mean value, according to most observers equals 
J the total height. Provided the soles of the feet can rest 22 
flat upon the floor, a seat may be theoretically too narrow 
without entailing prejudicial effects; whereas, too deep a seat 
is to be scrupulously avoided as it prevents the sitter from 
availing himself of the support offered by the seat-back. 
That no one, not even a child, can maintain the erect sitting 
or the backward sitting posture for any considerable length 
of time without the aid of some sort of back-rest or prop, no 
longer admits of argument. This matter of back-rest or seat- 
back is of so much importance that Professor Lorenz, in his 
admirable “ Die Heutige Schulbankfrage,” Wien, 1888, de- 
clares that the present school-seat- question is “ first of all a 
question of seat-back.” 
Figure 2. 
THE SEAT-BACK. 
Seat-backs may be continuous from top to bottom and as 
wide as the seat is long (see Fig. 2) ; or they may consist 
of one or more transverse rests, as in Fig. 1, with free spaces 23 
below or between them ; or they may consist in their essential 
features of a transverse shoulder-rests borne by or con- 
nected with an upright back-prop (see Fig. 3) as is the 
Figure 3. 
case in most of the chairs used in our schools. Con- 
sidered chiefly with regard to the height of the prop to sup- 
port the trunk in the backward-sitting posture, the various 
kinds of seat-back present three principal types, viz.: (1) 
the low-hij) or pelvic rest, when the support (see S, Fig. 1) 
extends no higher than the upper edge of the pelvis ; (2) the 
high-hip or loins-rest, when the prop is so placed as to support 
the back in the region of the lower loin-vertebrse; and (3) 
the so-called “ high back-support ” which reaches at least as far 
as the most prominent point of the curve made by the chest- 
vertebrse. The seat-back JP, shown in Fig. 1, belongs to the 
third type. Were its upper part, designated by the line JS, 
omitted, it would belong to the second type. As a rule, seat- 
backs of the first and second types are placed perpendicularly 
to the seat-surface, while those of the third type, as a rule, 
are more or less inclined backwards from the seat-surface, at 
least in their upper portion. 24 
It is chiefly to the researches and inventions of the eminent 
orthopaedic surgeons, Dr. Felix Schenk, of Bern, and Dr. 
Adolf Lorenz, of Vienna, that the school-seat constructed to 
give support to the back of the child in the “ reclined sitting 
position” has come into vogue in Europe. The special pur- 
pose of this form of seat-back, whose essential characteristics 
are fairly well illustrated in Fig. 1, is to afford adequate 
and comfortable support to the back of the child whether he 
be writing, studying, or simply engaged in “sitting still.” 
By reason of the backward inclination of the support, above 
the loins-rest S, it is claimed that the upper portion of the 
back of the sitter is pressed by its own weight against the 
support and not simply brought into contact with the upper 
rest. In other forms of the same type of seat-back, the 
back-support is continuous and is curved so as to conform 
to the S-form of the backbone, in the chest and loins regions. 
Fig. 1 represents the seat as being placed at a slight 
plus distance, both seat and desk being immovable. This is 
a compromise between the demands of hygiene and. the re- 
quirements of convenience. To enable the child to maintain 
the reclined sitting position when engaged in writing, the 
seat should be at a considerable minus distance from the 
desk. This is usually effected by rendering the desk-top 
movable so that the distance may be made plus or minus at 
the pleasure of the sitter. It should be said that the Schenk 
seat is somewhat sharply sloped from front to rear. 
MALPOSITION IN WRITING. 
Cohn (op. cit., p. 95) quotes from “ Das Kind und der 
Schultisch,” Zurich, 1865, by Dr. Fahrner, the following de- 
scription of the mechanism of the collapse of the child’s 
posture in writing, consequent upon the use of an unsuitable 
desk and seat: 
Before the writing begins the children sit perfectly upright with both 
shoulder-blades thrown back equally (that is, so that the shoulders are 
parallel to the edge of the desk), and the slate or copy-book is so placed 25 
before the child that its left margin lies a little to the left of the middle 
of the body. But as soon as the writing begins all the children move 
their heads slightly forward and towards the left, without perceptibly 
altering their attitude in any other way. Soon, however, head after head 
drops down with a rapid jerk, so that the neck now forms a considerable 
angle with the rest of the spinal column. In a shoi't time the upper 
part of the back also collapses, so as to hang from the shoulder-blades, 
which in their turn are supported by the upper arm. From this moment 
the scholars are divided into two groups, according to the part of the slate 
at which they happen to be writing. Those who are writing on the upper 
half of the slate or at the beginning of the line are able to support 
themselves on both elbows, and they let their chests sink straight for- 
ward against the table. The back in this way becomes curved simply ; 
it becomes what I call a round back. The eyes are three or four inches 
distant from the desk and look straight down upon the writing. For 
the points of support the child uses the front of the chest, the left elbow 
(which is constantly moved outward till it is a long way from the body,) 
and the right fore-arm anywhere between the elbow and the wrist. But 
those scholars who at the critical moment are writing at the end of the 
line or near the bottom of the slate cannot any longer support them- 
selves on the right elbow, because it too much overhangs the table and 
is too far from the body; they are therefore forced to lean on the left 
elbow alone, and in so doing not only to bend the spinal column, but to 
twist it on its axis towards the right. The position is that of the skeived 
back. The points of support are the left side of the chest and the left 
elbow, which lies very much to the left of the body and forward from the 
body; the head is bent towards the left shoulder; the right arm, with 
its shoulder-blade standing out like a wing, rests anywhere between the 
elbow and the wrist; the eyes, now frequently only from two to three 
inches distant from the writing are rolled considerably towards the right 
and almost squint over the paper. ... In the normal position the 
head has its centre of gravity resting upon the bony framework of the 
spine and is supported by it, so that the muscles of the neck have noth- 
ing to do but to balance the head. That slight stoop forward, however, is 
enough to push this centre of gravity over the front edge of the spinal 
column. The muscles of the neck must now hold up the head if it is not to 
drop downward. The work thus laid upon them is considerable; the 
muscles of the neck are accordingly soon tired out, their tension is re- 
laxed, and the work now falls upon the muscles oj the back; these in their 
turn are soon tired out and the child is then forced to lean on other 
points of support. He tries first one or both elbows. The elbows sup- 
port the upper arm, the upper arm supports the shoulder-blades, and 26 
the body hangs upon the shoulder-blades until they also give way and 
the chest must needs find a stay and support at the edge of the desk. 
VIEWS OF LORENZ AND SCHENK. 
It is now generally held by competent authorities, e.g., 
Schenk and Lorenz, that collapse of the writing position due 
to bad seating tends to produce the round-backed or fatigue 
posture or the skew-backed or scoliotic position, or both; and 
that each of these undesirable postures is bad for the eyes 
as well as the back. The main objects of the movement for 
school-desk reform and the introduction of vertical writing 
which movement having spread from Switzerland and Ger- 
many has at last begun to be felt in this country and city 
are the prevention of impaired vision and of scoliosis 
(lateral curvature of the spine). It is noteworthy that both 
Lorenz and Schenk distinctly prefer furniture that is more 
or less adjustable to fixed seats and desks, for the purpose of 
protecting the eyes and backs of school children from the 
untoward effects of their occupation. In this connection the 
following may serve as a condensed statement of Lorenz’s 
views: 
In general, fixed furniture cannot be recommended, though it may be 
tolerated under certain restrictions. It is needful above all not to pro- 
long the period devoted to writing, since it is impossible for the seat- 
back to support the writer’s back in a chair fixed, for the sake of con- 
venience, at a positive distance 1-2 centimeters (.4-.8 inch) from the 
desk. During the intervals between writing periods, it should be 
possible tor the child to rest his back comfortably against a properly 
curved high-back-support, having an inclination of 10°-15°. 
The posture of the child in writing is to be judged differently Jrom that 
oj the adult. The forward sitting position, in which the trunk is some- 
what bent forward and supported on the desk by the elbows, which 
we adults prefer, almost without exception, is a dangerous one for the 
child, since it tends to injure his eyesight through the sinking forward 
of the head when the neck and trunk muscles become fatigued, and 
also leads to the production of “ round-back.” The upright (military) sit- 
ting position, in seats with perpendicularly placed low-hip or hip and 
loin supports is too rigorous, calls for an excessive amount of muscular 27 
exertion, and does not afford sufficient support to the back of the child 
either in the writing-periods or in the intervals between them. The 
reclined-sitting position, in which the back is supported at all times by 
a properly curved back-support inclined backwards from the inclined 
seat-surface at au angle ot 10°-15° is to be recommended as the 
best and simplest means of preventing impaired eyesight and of com- 
bating the dangers of rounded back and skewed back. For one who 
writes in the reclined position, a relatively very large minus distance of 
7-12 centimeters (2|-4| inches) is demanded, together with an in- 
creased desk-slope, to correspond to the inclination of the seat-back. 
Through devices for changing from plus to minus distance and vice versa, 
freedom of movement is assured to the trunk. For purposes of adjust- 
ment a movable desk or desk-top is preferable to a movable seat, 
since if the latter is used the negative distance must be maintained in 
the intervals between writing-periods, which may prove an inconven- 
ience. The adjustability of the desk-plate is preferably to be secured 
through contrivances which produce a to and fro sliding motion. 
It is evident from Schenk’s latest paper “ Zur Schulbank- 
frage ” (see “ Zeitschift fur Schnlgesundheitspflege,” No. 10, 
1894) that he does not altogether agree with these views 
of Lorenz, which were published in 1888, as to the superiority 
of the reclined-backward-sitting position in writing as a means 
of preventing the skew-backed malposition; though he still 
holds that the reclined seat and seat-back, which he himself 
introduced some years since, afford an efficient means of pre- 
venting the collapsed attitude of fatigue, he., is the rounded 
back. Schenk’s original desk and chair were fixed, it may 
be remarked. His so-called “ Simplex ” school-seat, which is 
described at length in the article cited above, is movable in 
respect to seat, desk-top, and foot-rest. It approximates 
more nearly to an automatically adjustable seat and desk 
suitable for occupants of various sizes than any adjustable 
school-seat hitherto offered the public on either side of the 
ocean, so far as I can learn. Schenk’s “ Simplex ” desk and 
chair embody the results of his elaborate experimental study 
of the mechanism of writing with copy-books in different 
positions. His claim that they afford an effectual means of 
preventing the skew-backed malposition in writing is plausible 28 
and deserving of careful study. His arguments in favor of 
placing the paper or copy-book so that its edges shall be 
parallel with the corresponding borders of the desk-top, in the 
so-called straight position, appear to be quite conclusive. 
He favors vertical writing as a powerful influence towards 
habituating the pupil to maintain the correct position in writ- 
ing ; i.e., squarely facing the desk without any deviation of 
the spine to right or left or any rotation of the shoulders or 
the pelvis on the long axis of the body. Schenk’s rules for 
the position of the paper are as follows : The straight position 
is necessary both in sloped and ■ vertical writing. In vertical 
script the middle, in oblique script the beginning of the line of 
script should lie in front of the median line of the body. 
Schenk holds, on the strength of his ingenious and search- 
ing measurements of the amount of distortion in shoulders, 
spine, and pelvis conditioned by various positions of the paper 
with relation to arm and forearm, that the greater the abduc- 
tion of the upper arm from the trunk, the more crooked, bent, 
and twisted is the carriage of the body. “ The best writing 
posture, then, is that in which the abduction of the arm used 
in writing equals zero; i.e., when the upper arm lies lightly 
against the body. ” 
Schenk’s views may be condensed as follows: 
The school-seat is adjusted to this best ])osition of the body, when it 
brings the paper in front of the body in such wise as to necessitate rota- 
tion only, without abduction of the upper arm in the shoulder-joint, dur- 
ing the act of writing a line of script. This is possible only when the 
horizontal distance between the desk and the back of the seat, which I would 
call “distance,” even though it be contrary to the usage followed 
with regard to this term hitherto, equals the length of the forearm 
(elbow to wrist) of the person writing, and when the so-called “ differ- 
ence” is equal to the height of the elbow, when hanging straight down- 
wards at the side, from the seat. Since by chance this last-mentioned 
distance corresponds to the length of the forearm, we have the following 
very simple and valid formula for the construction of the school-seat, 
viz.: Distance-Difference —Length of Forearm of the person 'writing, 
when as I have said the term “ Distance ” denotes the distance between 
desk and seat-back. To the usual pedagogical and technical requirements 29 
of a school seat, such as convenience in stowing the pupils’ utensils; 
adaptation to the various uses and needs of the individual pupil, so as 
to avoid all interference with his neighbor; noiseless play of its mov- 
able parts, which must be so constructed so as to prevent pinching of 
the pupil’s clothing or fingers ; that it shall present no obstacles to the 
easy, daily cleaning of the floor; economy of floor-space, solidity, and 
cheapness I would add a new one which seems to me of the very 
highest hygienic and pedagogical importance, viz.: that every seat, with 
its desk, should be adjustable for any and all sizes of children. The height 
of children of school-age varies between 90 and 175 centimeters (35.43 
and 68.89 inches). Accordingly most current systems of school-seating 
provide 5-8 sizes of seats and desks, which gives under the most favor- 
able conditions a new size for an increase of 10 centimeters (3.9 inches) 
in height. Inasmuch as children in a given class vary from 20-30 
centimeters (7.8-11.7 inches) in height, three sizes of furniture are 
placed, as a rule, in each class-room. This is usually deemed sufficient. 
But in truth it is quite otherwise. The smallest children are frequently 
found occupying the largest seats. Of careful fitting there is very little. 
Where are the children measured every six months in order to seat them 
in accordance with their growth in height? Where are the seats redis- 
tributed, if tall, middle-sized, and short pupils happen to be allotted to 
a class in numbers that are disproportionate to the quota of variously 
sized seats? Above all, where do we find hygienic insight and good 
will among the teachers, combined in the same school with facilities for 
fitting the furniture to the pupils ? Certainly such instances are very 
rare. Here as elsewhere theory is agreed to and there it rests. The 
carrying out of the theory in practice is too troublesome and en- 
counters too many obstacles of all sorts. This will continue until we 
have a school-seat which shall render the ranking of the pupil com- 
pletely independent of the position of his seat; which shall permit the 
teacher to arrange his pupils so as to meet the demands of instruction, 
as he must do, for instance, in the case of short-sighted, deaf, or merely 
inattentive pupils, if they are to profit from his instruction. In short, 
we need a school-seat adjustable in a wholly automatic way to children 
of all heights. This is the principle on which my “ Simplex ” seat has 
been constructed, for whose use only one direction need be given by the 
teacher to the pupil in order to rectify the vicious writing posture. It is 
this : take hold of the desk-plate in front of you a,nd draw it towards you 
till your elbows touch the seat-back! By this easy and simple means of 
adjusting the school-seat to its occupant Ave shall be able to combat the 
ill-conditioned writing posture (skewed-back) with the same success 
that has crowned our efforts to prevent the evil fatigue-position 
(ronnded-back), through the “ reclining ” of the seat and seat-back. GKOWTiT AND ITS BEADING ON SCHOOL SEATING. 
The fact of capital and inexpugnable importance with re- 
gard to our school population is that it is made up of the 
growing young of the human species. Dr. Bowditch showed 
twenty years ago that the average yearly increase in height 
of Boston school children of five to fifteen years inclusive 
ranges between one and three inches per year. The import- 
ance, nay, the necessity, of providing children of all ages with 
easy-fitting head-gear, collars, overcoats, and shoes is tacitly 
admitted and generally acted upon.1 It is fully as important, 
to say the least, that they should be equally as well fitted 
in respect to their seats and desks, since under our com- 
pulsory education acts, neglect of school-seating practically 
amounts to condemning large numbers of pupils to deleterious 
“ confinement with hard labor ” without due process of law. 
The actual amount of misfitting in our schools, taking them 
as a whole, has not been fully determined, but Dr. Scudder’s 
investigations and my own (see School Document No. 8, 
1894, p. 112-115) leave no room for doubt that it is excessive 
and largely preventible. 
An examination of our course of study in respect to the 
time devoted to sedentary and non-sedentary pursuits yields 
some interesting results, which I have brought together in 
the following table : 31 
TABLE 11. 
SHOWING (1) THE RELATIVE AMOUNT OF TIME ALLOTTED TO SEDEN- 
TARY AND NON-SEDENTARY EXERCISES BY THE COURSE OF STUDY 
AND (2) THE ACTUAL TIME IN HOURS CALLED FOR BY” THE SAME 
IN THE SCHOOL YEAR 1893-94. 
Sedentary 
Occupa- 
tion. 
Kon- 
Sedentary 
Occupa- 
tion. 
Recesses. 
Physical 
Training. 
Manual 
Training. 
Total. 
Primary schools, Class 
III 
1. 
86$ 
825.6 
14$ 
134.4 
10? 
96.0 
4$ 
38.4 
100$ 
960.0 
2. 
Primary schools, Classes 
II. and I 
1 
84$ 
16$ 
153.6 
10$ 
96.0 
6$ 
100$ 
960.0 
2. 
806.4 
57.6 
Grammar schools 
C: 
88$ 
844.8 
12$ 
115.2 
7$ 
67.2 
5$ 
48.0 
(8$) 
(76.8) 
100$ 
960.0 
86$ 
14$ 
134.4 
10$ 
96,0 
100$ 
Girls’ Latin 
L 
825.6 
38.4 
960.0 
i 
82$ 
18$ 
10$ 
8$ 
100$ 
960.0 
High Schools 
L 
787.2 
172.8 
96.0 
76.8 
lii the above table no account is taken of the Mechanic 
Arts High School or of the Normal School. Manual training 
in the grammar schools, excepting that given in the second 
class, i.e. 2 hours a week, or 8 per cent, of the school 
period per week, is practically a sedentary pursuit. That so 
much as 86 per cent, of the school period in the first year of 
the primary grade, and 84 per cent, in the second and third- 
years of the same grade should be allotted to sedentary occu- 
pations, especially as the rudiments of penmanship are taught 
in the primary school, emphasizes the need of special attention 
in regard to the seating of primary school children. TABLE 111. 
Sno WING (1) INCREASE IN HEIGHT OF BOSTON GIRLS AND BOYS, OF 
5-15 YEARS, AND CORRESPONDING CHANGES IN DIMENSIONS CALLED 
FOR IN CHAIRS AND DESKS; AND (2) INCREASE IN CERTAIN MEAS- 
UREMENTS OF GIRLS AND BOYS OF iO-15 YEARS WHICH ARE USED AS 
STANDARDS IN “SIZING” CLOTHING, ETC. 
TotalHeight. 
Height of 
Chair. 
Difference. 
Height of 
Desk. 
Depth of 
Seat. 
Height of 
Back-Rest. 
1. 
2. 
3. 
4. 
5. 
6. 
Girls. 
Boys, 
Girls. 
Boys. 
Girls. 
Boys. 
Girls. 
Boys. 
Girls. 
Boys. 
Girls. 
Boys. 
At 5 years . 
41.29 
41.57 
11.25 
11.34 
7.01 
7.06 
18.25 
18.40 
8.25 
8.31 
5.16 
5.19 
At 13 years, 
61.10 
62.30 
16.65 
16.98 
10.38 
10.59 
27.05 
27.57 
12.22 
12.46 
7.63 
7.80 
Increase 5- 
15 years.. 
19.HI 
20.73 
5.40 
6.64 
3.37 
3.52 
8.88 
9.17 
3.97 
4.15 
2.47 
2.61 
Average 
yearly in- 
crease — 
1.98 
2.07 
0.54 
0.56 
0.33 
0.35 
0,87 
0.91 
0.39 
0.41 
0.24 
0.26 
2. 
Girth of Head. 
(Hats.) 
Girth of Neck. 
(Collars.) 
8. 
Girth of Chest. 
(Coats.) 
9. 
Length of Foot 
(Shoes.) 
10. 
Girls. 
Boys. 
Girls. 
Boys. 
Girls. 
Boys. 
Girls. 
Boys. 
At 10 years 
20.7 
21.1 
10.4 
10.9 
24.4 
25.6 
8.3 
8.3 
At 15 years 
21.7 
21.8 
11.9 
12.6 
29.1 
31.4 
9.3 
10.0 
Increase 10-15 years .. 
1.0 
0.7 
1.5 
1.7 
4.7 
5.8 
1.0 
1.7 
Average yearly in- 
crease 
0.20 
0.14 
0.30 
0,34 
0.94 
1.16 
0.20 
0.34 
The above figures are in inches. 
The above table shows the extent of change in certain 
bodily measurements due to growth during the age period 
5-15. The figures in column 1 are taken from Dr. H. P. 
Bowditch’s tables ; those in columns 2-6 are computed accord- 
ing to Eulenberg and Bach’s scale (see page 172), in which 
height of chair equals 3 body height; difference equals IT 
per cent, of body-height; height of desk equals sum of differ- ence and height of chair; depth of seat equals i, and height 
of back-rest (see Fig. 1) equals | of body-height. The figures 
in columns 7-10 I have compiled from anthropometric charts 
compiled and published by Dr. D. A. Sargent, of Harvard 
University. 
I have compiled and introduced this table for the sake of 
emphasizing the indubitable fact that it is quite as needful to 
have the desks and chairs of variously sized children fitted to 
their trunks and limbs as to fit their shoes to their feet or 
their collars to their necks. The table also suggests that 
desks and chairs, as well as collars and shoes, require to be 
made in girls’ sizes and boys’ sizes if an accurate and easy fit 
is to be secured, a suggestion which I shall take occasion to 
refer to further on. 
To my mind the table suggests considerations in favor of 
adjustable over fixed systems of school furniture, but it also 
suggests the difficulty of constructing an automatically ad- 
justable school-seat that shall precisely and surely fulfil all 
the requirements of children whose height of knee ranges 
between 11.25 and 10.98 inches, and whose length of thigh 
ranges between 8.25 and 12.46 inches. 
The purpose of the foregoing discussion is to bring out the 
main factors which enter into the seating problem ; to suggest 
their relation to each other ; and to call attention to the best 
considered and most successful of the attempts thus far 
made towards solving the problem. It nuiy be said with 
perfect fairness that the best European opinion is opposed to 
the use of school desks and chairs having no movable parts, 
which is tantamount to saying that the most competent 
authorities on school-seating have pronounced in favor of ad- 
justable school furniture. Before proceeding to a compara- 
tive study of European and American systems of adjustable 
school furniture, it will be well to summarize the leading 
principles of seating in relation to the individual and class 
REQUIREMENTS OF ADJUSTABLE FURNITURE. 34 
needs of children. The child’s height is a better criterion 
than his age in determining the dimensions of his seat and 
desk, which, to merit the designation “ hygienic,” must be so 
constructed as to obviate the strained and exhausting1 actions 
of the muscles of the eye, head, and trunk which are danger- 
ous, as they tend to produce impaired vision, rounded backs, 
and skewed backs. To this end the seat must be provided 
with loin and shoulder rests that shall afford appropriate sup- 
port to the child’s back when he is engaged in drawing, writ- 
ing, or ciphering, as well as in the intervals between those 
operations. 
The height of the seat must correspond to the height of the 
child’s knee; its depth to the length of his thigh ; the points 
of support offered by the seat-back must be proportioned to 
the height of pelvis, loins, and shoulders, and conform to the 
natural curves of the spine; the desk-height should equal the 
seat-height plus the difference between the height of the sitting 
bones and the height of the elbow; the desk-top must so 
slope, and at such a distance from the child’s eye, as to ob- 
viate any necessity of bending the head forward for the sake 
of securing distinct vision in reading or writing; and there 
must be a minus distance between seat and desk, lest the seat- 
back be rendered useless or harmful. 
The child requires such a seat and desk at every stage of 
his school-life. Theoretically this requirement may be met 
by providing each class-room with a large and varied assort- 
ment of fixed seats. Practically, owing to the constant 
growth of the individual child’s trunk and limbs, and owing 
to the wide range in the mean and extreme lengths of Ids 
body and its parts, a range that fluctuates from year to 
year, it is well-nigh impossible, except at the expense of an 
excessive outlay of time and money, to furnish a series of 
class-rooms with the right number of fixed seats of different 
sizes. At the best we can look for only approximate success 
in seating classes when fixed furniture is exclusively used, 
even when it is carefully graded as to sizes. 35 
The ideal end of school-seating is that every child shall be 
provided, during each stage of his growth, with a separate 
desk and chair whose several parts shall be so proportioned 
and put together as to meet the individual needs of the child. 
Strictly speaking, no school-seat is worthy to be called per- 
fect unless it affords automatic adjustability in respect to 
height of seat, difference, distance, depth, and length of seat, 
height of back-rest, and slope of desk, and in such wise that 
the movable parts can be worked easily, noiselessly, and safely 
by a primary pupil. For such a seat to be available for 
children throughout their period of growth, the range of 
motion in its adjustable parts must correspond to their range 
of variation in length of trunk, legs, and arms. It is possible, 
of course, that such a seat can be devised, but it is highly 
probable that ideal hygienic needs would be sacrificed in 
practice to pecuniary considerations, or to purely technical 
and pedagogical requirements. I am free to say that no 
single-sized seat that I have seen, or seen described, fulfils 
the requirements of an ideal seat. Economy .of floor-space, 
not to speak of other considerations that readily suggest 
themselves, would seem to necessitate the making of certainly 
two and perhaps three distinct sizes of seats and desks, be 
they never so perfectly adjustable. 
EUROPEAN ADJUSTABLE DESKS AND CHAIRS. 
Lorenz (op. cit., p. 30) and Janke (see “ Zeitschrift fiir 
Schulgesundheitspflege,” Yol. 111., 1890, p/461) describe a 
school desk and chair made by Pedersen, of Copenhagen, 
which more nearly fulfils the requirements of complete ad- 
justability than any I know of. It is automatically adjustable 
as regards distance, difference, seat-depth, and height of 
back-rest. However, it seems to be rather complicated for 
the use of young children. 
Dr. Schenk’s “ Simplex desk ” well deserves its name. It is 
as ingenious as it is simple in its contrivances for effecting 
automatic adjustment in respect to distance, difference, and 36 
desk-slope. But, though a movable foot-rest is provided, the 
seat is not adjustable either for height or depth, and the seat- 
back is immovable in all its parts. Its shortcomings as a 
compromise seat might be largely obviated, if it were made 
in three sizes instead of one. 
Holscher and Neudorfer, both Germans, and Kryloff, a 
Russian, have each devised completely adjustable seats for 
home use that suggest ingenious expedients for improving 
school furniture. Dr. Brandt, of the University of Charkow, 
and Dr. Sandberg, of Stockholm, have invented school-seats 
that are adjustable for difference, distance, and depth, while 
that of Dr. M. Roth, of London, is adjustable for difference 
and distance, but not for depth. 
The great majority of European inventors of adjustable 
furniture have directed their attention to contrivances for 
effecting a change from plus to minus distance and vice 
versa ; and a somewhat long list of desks and chairs might be 
drawn up to show that their efforts in this direction have 
been fairly successful. For instance, at the competitive 
exhibition of school-seats, held at the City Hall, in Vienna, 
in January, 1894, of the forty-nine placed on exhibition no 
less than thirty-nine were adjustable for distance. In five 
cases the seat was made movable ; and in thirty-four the desk 
or the desk-top was movable, —of which twenty were pro- 
vided with hinged flaps and nine with devices for swinging 
the desk or the desk-plate forward and backward, while four 
had sliding tops, and one a roller top. 
Of American adjustable school furniture as a whole it must 
be said that it does not adequately represent “ the present 
state of the art.” Our inventors and manufacturers have 
been slow or timid in profiting by foreign example and ex- 
periment. Inventive genius on this side of the Atlantic has 
been chiefly devoted to the one matter of devising mechanical 
contrivances for raising and lowering desks and chairs, i.e., for 
effecting adjustment for difference. None of our so-called 
adjustable furniture, so far as I know, is adjustable in respect to the very important points of distance, depth of seat, 
desk-slope, and height of back-supports, and most of it is not 
adjustable in respect to any one of the four points I have 
mentioned. It is but fair to say, however, that American 
inventors and manufacturers as a class have shown more 
enterprise and interest in the problem of school-seating than 
have either American educationists or scientists. The fact 
that our much lauded technical and manual training schools 
have done next to nothing hitherto towards the improvement 
of school furniture suggests an interesting and fruitful line 
of inquiry and criticism. 
EARLY EFFORTS IX SCHOOL-DESK REFORM IX XEW 
EXGLAXD. 
It is now nearly sixty-five years since school-seating began 
to be discussed in New England.* At the first meeting of the 
American Institute of Instruction, which was held in August, 
1880, in this city, Dr. John C. Warren, the foremost surgeon 
of Boston, gave a lecture on “ Physical Education.” The fol- 
lowing extracts from his lecture which stands as “ Lecture 
I.” in the annals of the institute are of interest: 
I feel warranted in the assertion that of the well-educated females 
■within my sphere of experience, about one-half are affected with some de- 
gree of distortion of the spine. . . The immediate cause of the lateral 
curve of the spine to the right is the elevation and action of the right 
arm in writing. . . . Young persons, however well disposed, cannot 
support a restriction to one place and posture. . . . The postures 
they assume while seated at their studies are not indifferent. They 
should be frequently warned against the practice of maintaining the 
head and neck long in a stooping position; and the disposition to it 
should be lessened by giving a proper elevation and slope to the desk; and 
the seat should have a support or back of a few inches at its edge. 
The last lecture before the American Institute of Instruc- 
tion in 1830 was on “ The Construction and Furnishing of 
*lt is more than fifty year’s since the first American adjustable desk and chair was 
introduced hy Amos Chase, of Xo. Weare, X.H., to an unappreciative public. 38 
School-Rooms,” by Mr. Wm. J. Adams, of New York, whom 
his remarks on seats and desks speaks with disapproval 
of 
That ancient form, in which the seat occupied by a row of pupils is 
attached to a desk of the same length immediately behind, which 
supports the back. The most modern construction, he goes on to 
say, appears to be that of detaching the seat occupied by each pupil 
from the desk behind, and from the other seats, —the desks themselves 
remaining continuous, as before. The seats are made without backs and 
behind them is a passage for walking. In this way each child is in- 
sulated. . . . The seat itself is either a piece of plank, nine inches by 
twelve, with the corners rounded off, nailed upon a firm pedestal; or 
it may be simply a box without a cover, made to stand upon one end, 
and fastened to the floor. 
To the plan just described there is still one objection; viz., the want 
of some support to the back. This want maybe supplied by the upward 
continuation of the board which forms the rear of the box, perpen- 
dicularly, so as not to encroach upon the passage behind, and so low as 
to reach only the hollow of the back of the child, without touching the 
shoulder-blade. A convenient rule for regulating the height of seats 
and desks is to suppose the former of such a height that the knee shall 
be bent at a right angle, the foot resting firmly on the floor. If, then, 
the pupil sit perfectly upright, the place of the elbow will indicate the 
true level for the edge of the desk. Each desk should have a slope, but 
so slight that books and slates may not slide off. 
In 1831 the American Institute of Instruction’s prize for 
an essay “On the Construction of School-houses” was 
awarded to Dr, William A. Alcott, of Hartford, Conn., after- 
wards of Boston. Appended to the essay is a plan of a 
school-room to accommodate fifty-six pupils (which is the reg- 
ulation number in our schools to-day), each pupil to he pro- 
vided with a desk 2 feet by If, and a seat “ in effect a square 
box closed on all sides,” support for the pupil’s back being- 
afforded by front of the desk behind him. 
The height of the desks and seats, says Dr. Alcott, is propor- 
tioned to the height of the pupils who occupy them [but no scale of 
heights is given].... The particular arrangement of each seat and 
■desk is such as almost to compel the person occupying it to sit in an erect 39 
position. The edge of the desk will be directly over the edge of the seat 
[i.e., distance equals zero']. In writing, the arms will hang naturally by 
the side, while the flexure at the elbow will be such that the lower position 
of the arm with the hand will form a right angle with the upper portion 
and rest lightly upon the desks. The desks will thus be much lower than 
is usual, but all parts of the body, as well as every limb, will be at the 
same time free and unconstrained. This is a point of vast importance. 
The most common position at the school desk is extremely unfavorable 
to the healthful action of the lungs, stomach, liver, etc., as well as liable 
to produce distortion of the spine, and consequent disease. 
Yet even to this day the majority of desks in the Boston 
schools are too high, so much so that in writing the forearm 
is forced to make a more or less acute angle with the upper 
arm, while the upper arm is unduly abducted from the body 
and the right shoulder is unduly raised. This is especially the 
case in the vicious but still too common writing position in 
which the pupil is required to sit with his side towards the 
desk, so that his back must be totally unsupported. 
Dr. Alcott may be said to have set the tone among educa- 
tional reformers in regard to school-seating, since we find his 
plans adopted and adapted and his recommendations approved 
and advocated in Horace Mann’s “ Report on the Subject of 
School-houses,” supplementary to his first annual report as 
Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, in 1838, 
and by George B. Emerson in “ the School and Schoolmaster,” 
published by Harper & Brothers, in 1842, at the expense of 
Mr. James Wadsworth, of Geneseo, N.Y. As 11,000 copies of 
“ The School and Schoolmaster ” were distributed gratuit- 
ously in the school districts of that State, and Mr. Martin 
Brimmer, of Boston, when mayor of Boston, “ caused to be 
printed, at his expense, such a number of copies as would 
supply one copy each to all school districts, and one copy each 
to all boards of school committee men in Massachusetts,” 
Dr. Alcott’s views became widely diffused. At the same time 
Dr. Alcott was ahead of his time in recommending separate 
desks and chairs, set at a zero1 distance for each pupil, for we 
1 As late as 1839 influential writers in England recommended a plus distance of three 
inches hetioeen desk and form. 40 
read in Superintendent Philbrick’s fortieth report, 18T4, 
that when the Quincy Grammar School was erected in 1848, 
being a radical innovation, “it contained a separate desk and 
chair for each pupil, this being probably the first grammar 
school-house here or elsewhere, so far as I know, into which 
this feature was introduced.” During the decade prior to 
1848, the most usual way of seating was to provide gram- 
mar and high school pupils with a separate seat, but to seat 
two pupils at a desk. Primary children in Boston had separate 
chairs as early as 1842, but it was not till 1856 or later that 
the Common Council could be induced to provide them 
with desks as well. 
INTRODUCTION OF SEPARATE DESKS AND CHAIRS INTO 
THE LATIN SCHOOL. 
Rev. Edward Everett Hale has kindly furnished me with 
the following notes on the seats used in the Public Latin 
School when he was a boy: 
Until 1831 the desks at the Latin School were long fixed forms, with 
seats attached in front of the next row. Generally there were but two 
rows, I think in some cases three. Always there were three rows of seats ; 
the front row having no desk. For recitations the boys, until 1831, went 
out and sat on benches without backs. The height was uniform for the 
form seats, and of course for each bench. The desks of the forms 
were fixed, not on hinges. It was in 1831 that Mr. Dillaway introduced 
some separate desks, in some rooms. He had bought them or had them 
bought at some other school. They had been used before. The seat was 
attached solidly I never knew one broken and was like a small 
wooden chair-seat. All the seats were of the same height, for boys six 
feet high or for boys four feet high. Oddly enough Ido not remember 
ever complaining of this or thinking there was any hardship about it. 
These newer desks, which were not forms and were never called so. 
were in fact tables with desks on top. The desk opened with a 
hinge so that the boy supported the cover on his head when he looked 
for anything. These desks had had locks; but they had none in our 
day. They did have inkstands set in the top. They were painted green. 
They were much more popular than the forms, and Avhere the forms and 
desks were used together, little boys had the forms and big boys the 
desks. Mr. Dillaway also introduced the ordinary settees, just such as 41 
are now in general use, for recitations, in place of benches. lam 
quite clear that these desks (which could be moved and were not gen- 
erally screwed to the floor) were introduced in September, 1831. Ob- 
serve that the jorms had backs; namely, the wall or the form behind. 
The desks had the same, if a desk were behind you, or the wall were 
behind you. If not not. 
The fact noted by Dr. Hale with regard to lack of back 
support for boys seated in the rear rows is of interest in con- 
sidering the evolution of the Boston school chair, for it was 
evidently to make good this lack that the seats in the back row 
were the first to be provided with chair-backs, as were later all 
seats. The transition is shown by a cut in Mr. Mann’s report, 
cited above, which shows the arrangement of seats and desks 
in the Wells School, Boston, in 1888 : “ The seats in the back 
row are chairs. The others are without support to the back. 
The scholars are tempted to lean backward against the next 
tier of seats, which not only throws them into an unnatural 
and unhealthful posture, but is also a source of annoyance to 
others.” 
ACTION OP SCHOOL COMMITTEE REGARDING SCHOOL-SEATING. 
The records of the School Committee are not rich in 
respect to school-seating. The following extracts from re- 
ports and minutes may, however, serve to indicate the main 
course of events. 
Feb. 12, 1883, Mr. Samuel A. Eliot, as chairman of a 
special sub-committee, recommended certain needful changes 
in the interest of better ventilation, heating, and arrange- 
ment of seats. Mr. Eliot’s advocacy of his recommendations 
is couched in very vigorous terms. 
It may sound strangely, he says, to ear’s accustomed to hear the 
praise which is often bestowed upon our system of public schools, and 
to those who see what appears the great sum annually spent upon them, 
to hear it asserted that the childi’en have not room enough and that 
more care is taken of the health of the convicts in our penitentiary than 
than is bestowed upon the health of the children we send to our schools, 42 
or upon the rooms in which they are assembled. But it is nevertheless 
strictly true. 
It is the duty of parents and those who act for them to take care that 
the school-room shall be a place where the children may acquire the 
use of their intellectual faculties without having their physical organi- 
zation disturbed or their vital powers debilitated by a constrained posi- 
tion or an impure atmosphere. 
Aug. 8, 1837, when Mr. Eliot was mayor, in the report of 
a special committee appointed “to consider the expediency of 
applying to the City Council for a new school-house for the 
accommodation of the northern wards of the city,” the Eliot 
School-house was pronounced “ inconvenient in almost every 
respect. . . . The forms, besides being too narrow, are 
crowded too closely together; and the seats, which are 
merely oval stools without backs, are quite too contracted. ” 
Finally the Eliot School-house was rebuilt, and furnished in 
1888-39 with separate seats for each pupil, the seats being pro- 
vided with a back-support “ resembling the back of a chair.” 
In the Mayor’s address to the School Committee, Jan. 
8, 1839, Mr. Eliot notes the improvements with respect to 
ventilation and seating embodied in several school-houses re- 
cently built or remodelled, and recommends “ that a com- 
mittee be appointed to devise and recommend a plan of a 
school-house to this board, to be by them recommended to 
the other branches of the city government, embracing such a 
system of ventilation and such arrangement of the seats 
as shall appear best calculated to promote the health and rea- 
sonable comfort of the children.” Messrs. Eliot, Ezra Palmer, 
Jr., and S. G. Howe were appointed to serve as such a commit- 
tee. Mention of the committee’s report is made in the minutes 
of the Board, but the report is missing from the files of 1839. 
In response to a petition of S. G. Shipley and others deploring 
“ the increasing prevalence of diseases of the spine among 
young females educated in the public schools ” owing to 
backless seats, Mr. Eliot was empowered to “ provide such, 
seats as may be deemed suitable.” 43 
Either the seats were not furnished, or Mr. George S. 
Hilliard was hard to please, for as chairman of the Annual 
Committee on the Grammar Department we find him saying,, 
in 1841: 
The schools are too crowded and the seats are not properly con- 
structed. There is not a single school which has come under the obser- 
vation of your committee in which the seats are adapted, as they ought 
to be, to the young and growing frame. Especially do the girls suffer 
from this cause, from their greater delicacy of organization and less 
hardy habits of exei'cise. Such seats cannot be viewed without pain by 
any one acquainted with the principles of physiology. 
The policy of furnishing the pupils in the Grammar 
Schools with separate desks and chairs seem to have been 
steadily followed after its inauguration in the Quincy School 
in 1848. But difficulties were encountered in reforming the 
method of seating primary pupils, as appears from Superin- 
tendent Philbrick’s mention of the matter in his fortieth re- 
port. “In 1856 the primary pupils were seated in movable 
arm-chairs without any desks before them, and without any 
suitable place to keep their books and slates. Without desks 
the use of slates was out of the question. As the use of 
slates was deemed essential, an attempt was made to supply 
the primary schools with single desks and chairs. On the 
part of the City Council there was determined and persever- 
ing opposition to this requirement, and it was only after four 
or live years of persistent efforts that this desirable object 
was fully accomplished.” 
In 1892, at its meeting on January 26th, the School Com- 
mittee voted to constitute a Special Committee on the Seating 
of Pupils, and Messrs. Green, McDonald, and Mecuen, all 
physicians, were appointed to serve in that capacity. This 
committee was instrumental in securing the introduction of 
adjustable furniture into the new Charles C. Perkins Primary 
School, in the Prince District, in 1892, and in securing the 
publication of Dr. C. L. Scudder’s valuable “ Investigation into 
one of the Etiological Factors in the Production of Lateral 44 
Curvature of the Spine Reasons why the Seating of School- 
Children should receive very Careful Supervisionwhich con- 
stitutes School Document No. 9, 1892. 
The following extracts from the minutes of the School 
Committee relate to orders offered by the Committee on the 
Seating of Pupils: 
Oct. 25, 1892, Mr. Green, for the Special Committee on the Seating of 
Pupils, offered the following : 
Whereas, a carefully prepared report to the School Committee, by a 
competent expert, on the seating of pupils in the public schools (School 
Document No. 9, 1892), has deen printed and distributed to all teachers 
in charge of rooms, it is hereby 
Ordered, That the Supervisors and the Director of Physical Training 
be and hereby are directed to ascertain, in their visits to their respective 
schools, whether or not the said report has been received and studied by 
the teachers, and whether intelligent effort is made on the part of the 
teachers to seat their pupils in accordance with the teachings of the re- 
]sort, as far as the present provision of school furniture will allow. 
Ordered, That the Supervisors and the Director of Physical Training 
be directed to render to teachers any needed advice and assistance in the 
seating of pupils, and to include in their next reports to this Boai'd the 
general results of their observations, and any suggestions pertaining to 
the proper seating of pupils which they may think desirable to bring to 
the notice of the School Committee. 
Accepted, and the orders passed. 
Feb. 14, 1893, Mr. Green offered the following: 
Ordered, That the Superintendent of Public Buildings be directed to 
gradually rearrange the desks and seats in the older school buildings, 
providing new furniture where needed, so that there shall be three sizes 
of desks and seats in each room. Referred to the Committee on School 
Houses. 
March 14, 1898, Mr. Pettigrove, for the Committee on School Houses, 
to whom was referred, February 14, an order that the Superintendent of 
Public Buildings be directed to gradually rearrange the desks and seats 
in the older school buildings, so that there shall be three sizes of desks 
and seats in each room, reported that in the opinion of this committee 
the matter of providing suitable school furniture is one of great im- 
portance, and needs careful consideration, and may require certain ex- 
periments before any formal recommendation as that contained in the 
order can be wisely endorsed and carried out. It is the purpose of this 
committee to give the subject the attention it deserves, and by experi- merit and investigation to secure some wise and beneficial improvements 
in this particular. The committee therefore recommend that no further 
action of the Board in the matter is necessary at present. 
Accepted. 
RECENT REPORTS ON SCHOOL-SEATING IN BOSTON. 
Dr. Scudder’s investigations were confined to girls’ schools 
chiefly of the grammar grade. Out of 87 rooms examined, 
only 13 were found to be provided with as many as two sizes 
of desks and chairs. “In every instance,” says Dr. Scudder. 
“ where these two sizes are found there are only a few of the 
second, and the difference in sizes is often scarcely noticeable. 
With very few exceptions it is true that girls of the grammar 
schools in any one room sit in the same-sized seats, and at 
desks of uniform height.” 
His report contains tabulated statements showing the range 
of age and the range of height exhibited by the pupils of 6 
girls’ schools; the data concerning 34 rooms are complete. 
We may divide these rooms into two classes, viz.: (1) those 
with desks of one size only, and (2) those with two sizes of 
desks. Of the former there were 21, of the latter 13 rooms. 
In 21 rooms, in which the desks were of one size only, the 
average difference between the height of the tallest and 
shortest girls amounted to 31.3 centimeters, or 12.26 inches; 
and the average difference between the ages of the oldest 
and youngest girls was 5 years and 4 months. In 13 rooms, 
which contained desks of two sizes, the average difference in 
height between the tallest and shortest girls was 41.14 centi- 
meters, or 16.26 inches ; and the average difference in age 
between the oldest and youngest pupils was 6 years and 2 
months. 
The report contains twelve plates which serve “ to illustrate 
a few of the faulty positions taken because of the dispropor- 
tion between child, seat, and desk.” 
Dr. Scudder states his conclusions as follows : 46 
1. The present method of seating the school-houses of Boston is at 
fault, in that children are compelled to sit in desks unsuited to them. 
2. This method of seating tends to the production of permanent 
deformity of the spine. 
3. The poor seating in our schools has not been hitherto sufficiently 
emphasized by orthopaedic surgeons as a cause of spinal deformities. 
4. A larger number of different-sized desks and seats, or adjustable 
desks and seats, should be provided for each school-room. 
5. The teachers of the public schools should be impressed with the 
fact of the importance of maintaining erect positions, both in sitting and 
standing. 
6. Having greater variety in sizes of seats and desks, and recogniz- 
ing the danger of malpositions in sitting, great care should be used to 
seat each child before a desk and in a chair as nearly as possible her 
proper size. 
7. The desk should be low enough to just allow the bent elbow to 
touch it when the hand is raised to write without raising the shoulder or 
tilting the trunk. 
8. The chair should permit easy contact of the whole sole of the shoe 
with the floor when the child sits well back in the seat. 
9. The foot-rests should be used more than at present, not only to 
support the foot and leg, but to give a feeling of support to the whole 
trunk, and to prevent the slipping forward of the buttocks upon the 
chair, causing one of the commonest of bad postures. 
10. The present system of gymnastics in use in the public schools 
will help to overcome slight tendencies to deformity which might go 
unchecked and lead to disastrous results. 
Acting under the committee’s order of Oct. 25, 1892, I 
investigated the conditions of seating found in 100 class- 
rooms taken at random, in primary, grammar, and high 
schools; in old, middle-aged, and new buildings; in boys’ 
schools, in girls’ schools, and in mixed schools In my last 
report to the School Committee an account is given of the 
results of that investigation, together with an account of the 
measures taken in cooperation with Mr. Gibson, the master 
of the Agassiz School, to secure a suitable assortment and 
allotment of fixed desks and chairs in the new Agassiz 
building. Since the completion and occupancy of that build- 
ing the question of the introduction of adjustable furniture into new school-houses has become prominent, and thanks to 
the activity of rival manufacturers is still acute. It seems 
proper to introduce some extracts from my report, published 
in September, 1894, at this point. 
In studying the conditions found in 100 sample class-rooms, 
no effort was made either to avoid or seek the rooms investi- 
gated by Dr. Scudder. In general, I found a relatively larger 
number of rooms provided with more than one size of desks 
and chairs than did Dr. Scudder. But it should be noted that 
the mere provision of three sizes of desks is no guarantee 
against misfitting, as I found misfits in rooms containing three 
sizes of desks. In one such room, in a grammar school, I 
found that more than one-half of all the pupils were misfitted. 
It was a room which had been assigned to third-class boys 
for very many years, though it was fitted with desks and 
chairs intended for fourth-class boys. 
The following figures relate to two kinds of misfit only, 
which for convenience are characterized as “ minus-misfits ” ; 
i.e., when the pupil is unable to assume an erect sitting posi- 
tion, with both feet flat on the floor, owing to contact be- 
tween his knees and the under surface of his desk, and 
“ plus-misfits,” i.e., when the pupil, in the erect sitting posi- 
tion, is unable to put both feet flat on the floor the seat 
being too high. 
Of the 100 rooms alluded to above, there were only 18 in 
which no case of misfitting was found, while 738 cases of 
misfitting were found in the remaining 82 rooms, which con- 
tained upwards of 8,600 pupils in actual attendance. In 
other words, misfits were found in 82 per cent, of the classes 
examined, and 20.27 per cent, of the pupils in those rooms 
were misfitted; 8.76 per cent, of the pupils presented 
“ minus-misfits,” and 11.51 per cent, of them presented 
“ plus-misfits.” Of the whole number of misfits noted, 317 
or 43.24 per cent, were minus-misfits, and 416 or 56.76 per cent, 
were plus-misfits, which goes to show that the number of 
children forced to sit in chairs that are too high is considera- 
bly greater than the number of those obliged to use chairs 
and desks that are too low. In one of the high schools for 
boys, about one-third of the members of the first class were 
found occupying desks which cramped their knees, though 
the desks in question were of the largest size. 
In 16 night-school classes, with 627 pupils in attendance, 
misfits were found in all but 2 rooms ; 144 minus-misfits, but 48 
no plus-misfits, being found in 14 rooms containing 654 
pupils. In other words, 23 per cent, of all the pupils exam- 
ined were placed at desks which were too small for them. 
The ill effects of misfitted desks and chairs upon night-school 
pupils are trifling in comparison with such effects upon the 
rapidly growing children who make up the population of the 
day schools. 
While it would be unjustifiable to assume from the data 
given above in regard to 100 rooms that 20 per cent, of the 
pupils in 82 per cent, of all the school-rooms belonging to the 
city are misfitted in respect to their desks and chairs, it does 
seem to be tolerably clear that there is an undue amount of 
such misfitting, and that Dr. Scudder was right in saying, 
“ A larger number of different-sized desks and seats, or ad- 
justable desks and seats, should be provided.” 
The general conclusions which I have reached in this mat- 
ter may be stated as follows : 
1. Little if any improvement has been made in the 
methods of seating pupils in the Boston schools since Super- 
intendent Philbrick’s efforts, some twenty-five years ago, to 
secure desks and chairs of improved construction. 
2. The method of seating which now prevails is so arbi- 
trary, antiquated, and inadequate that it needs amendment. 
3. The desks and chairs which are customarily furnished, 
although they are durable and well made when considered 
simply as articles of manufacture, do not conform as regards 
their design and construction to the recognized principles of 
modern school-hygiene. 
4. The present condition of things appears to be due to 
the fact that the designing, selection, and distribution of the 
school-furniture now in use have been left too largely in the 
hands of interested and inexpert persons, who were practi- 
cally outside the jurisdiction of the School Committee. 
Our methods of seating, therefore, have not kept pace with 
the progress made in those parts of the world in which 
expert knowledge has been turned to pratical account in 
the attempt to solve the problems involved. 
5. Certain manufacturers of school-furniture have re- 
cently shown an active disposition to improve the quality of 
their wares, especially in the direction of devising adjustable 
desks and chairs. This is a hopeful ■ sign of the times. 
Still the present state of their art is so rude and unde- 
veloped, and is so likely to undergo further change and 
improvement within the next few years, that the wisdom 49 
and expediency of adopting any of the newer and so-called 
improved American systems of seating, except in a tentative 
and experimental way, may be doubted seriously. 
6. The problem of providing our school-population with 
desks and seats which shall adequately meet the require- 
ments of growing children is one of vital importance. It is 
also an intricate and difficult problem, since it involves 
questions of a medical nature, in addition to questions which 
pertain to mechanical engineering and to the practical man- 
agement of schools. The best interests of pupils, teachers, 
school-managers, and of manufacturers as well, all demand 
the adoption of more comprehensive and active measures 
than have been taken as yet in this country. To enlighten 
the public mind with regard to the essential principles in- 
volved in the construction and use of school-furniture, it is 
eminently desirable, to say the least, that the whole problem 
of seating should be authoritatively pronounced upon by a 
commission of disinterested men, who are competent and 
willing to avail themselves of the best that has been at- 
tempted or accomplished by similar commissions in Europe 
during the past ten years. The conclusions and recom- 
mendations of such a commission, if it were appointed and 
supported by a representative organization such as the 
Massachusetts State Board of Health, the Massachusetts 
Medical Society, or the State Board of Education, or by the 
conjoint action of all three, could hardly fail to prove widely 
influential in promoting the public welfare. By hastening 
the settlement of vexed questions, and by obviating the 
necessity of costly and partial experiments, with all manner 
of “ improved chairs and desks ” on the part of the school 
boards of the Commonwealth, such a commission would 
save the cost of its investigations and publications many 
times over to the taxpayers of the State. 
The Committee on School Houses not being favorably im- 
pressed with any of the adjustable desks and chairs then in 
the market, wisely determined on providing the new Agassiz 
Grammar School-house with fixed furniture of the Whitcomb 
pattern, so called, such as is found in the majority of all the 
newer school buildings. The problem was to secure a suffi- 
ciently varied assortment of desks and chairs in each class- 
METHOD OF SEATING IH THE ]STEW AGASSIZ SCHOOL. 50 
room. It is but fair to say that the seating of the pupils in 
the old building was less objectionable than in many other 
districts, as it had an unusual number of rooms containing 
two or even three sizes of desks, and exceptional care had 
been taken by Mr. Gibson to make the best distribution of 
the seats furnished. Still 6.2 per cent, of the pupils in the 
grammar school were found to be misfitted (using the term 
as in the sense defined above) in January, 1893. In Febru- 
ary, 1894, I found the proportion of misfits in the new build- 
ing reduced to 1.2 per cent. 
Mr. Gibson kindly undertook to determine tire height of 
the pupils in his district, 668 in all, in January, 1893, and 
twice repeated his measurement of all grammar-school pupils 
(boys), between that date and February, 1894; and placed 
all his measurements at my disposal. The age of each pupil 
was noted in addition to his height. These series of meas- 
urements were used in determining how many of each size 
of Whitcomb desks and chairs should be placed in the new 
school-rooms. Eight sizes are included in the Whitcomb 
scale, which purports to “ embrace all the heights and sizes 
for pupils of the age of 5 years to 18 and upwards.” The 
Whitcomb scale is set forth in the following tabular view: 
Scale-number. 
VII. 
VI. 
V. 
IV. 
III. 
II. 
I. 
I. 
Extra 
Corresponding age, year 
5-6 
6-7 
7-8 
8-10 
10-12 
12-14 
14-16 
16-18 
Height of chair, inches ... 
10.5 
11.25 
12.25 
13.5 
14.5 
15.50 
16.75 
16.75 
Height of desk, inches 
20.5 
21.50 
23.0 
24.5 
25.5 
27.0 
28.5 
29.0 
Difference,” inches 
10. 
10.25 
10.75 
11.0 
11.0 
11.50 
11.75 
12.25 
It will be noticed that the gradation of sizes is based on 
the age of the pupil for whom the furniture is intended. 
Experience and reason show that height is a more accurate 
and serviceable criterion than age in this field, and that 
height of knee is a better criterion than total height. But 
as we do not know the knee-heights of Boston children at 
each year of school age, I availed myself of the average TABLE IY., SHOWING PER CENT. OF DESKS AND CHAIRS OF EACH SIZE (No. I. EXTRA-No. VI.) CALLED 
FOR (1) BY AGE-SCALE, (2) HEIGHT-SCALE, AND (3) THE PER CENT. OF EACH SIZE ACTUALLY 
FURNISHED: A. IN OLD AGASSIZ GRAMMAR SCHOOL; B. IN NEW AGASSIZ SCHOOL-HOUSE. 
Whitcomb-scalb Number. 
No. I. Extra. 
No. I. 
No. 11. 
No. III. 
No. IV. 
No. V. 
No. VI. 
Misfits. 
No. of 
sizes 
fur- 
nished. 
Per cent, of each size. 
A. 
B. 
A. 
B. 
A. B. 
A. 
B. 
A. 
B. 
A. 
B. A. 
B. 
A. 
B. 
A. 
B. 
Class I 
Called for by age-scale 
Called for by beigbt-scale ... 
Actually furnished. 
14.6 
41.5 
0.0 
2.6 
28.9 
13.1 
73.1 
39.0 
n 
7.6 
39.4 
AV Q 
12.1 21.0 
19.5 31.5 
50.0 39,4 
1.8 
3.7 
13.7 
9.7 
0.0 
2 
3 
Class II.... 
Called for by age-scale 
Called for by height-scale ... 
Actually furnished 
7.4 
16.7 
0.0 
7.6 
17.3 
5.7 
51.8 
33.3 
41.3 
51.9 
30.7 
38.4 
26.7 
32.1 
25.0 
38.8 
46.3 
44.8 
40.3 
44.2 
50.0 
1.8 
3.7 
13.7 
0.0 
7.6 
5.7 
7.4 
0.0 
3 
3 
Class III. .. 
Called for by age-scale 
Called for by height-scale ... 
Actually furnished 
0.0 
3.6 
0.0 
8.9 
7.1 
0.0 
27.2 
29.1 
40.6 
63.6 
54.6 
30.5 
57.1 
48.2 
50.0 
9.0 
10.9 
28.8 
7.1 
12.5 
25.0 
0.0 
1.8 
0.0 
1.8 
1.7 
3 
3 
Class IV. .. 
Called for by aae-soale 
Called for by height-scale ... 
Actually furnished 
0.0 
4.9 
0.0 
6.3 
12.5 
0.0 
19.7 
16.4 
1.6 
19.6 
19.6 
12.5 
44.3 
44.3 
51.3 
51.7 
50.0 
39.2 
36.0 
34.4 
40,9 
23.2 
16.0 
37.5 
0.00 
1.7 
10.7 
6.5 
7 
2 
4 
Class IV.2.. 
Called for by age-scale 
Called for by height-scale ... 
Actually furnished 
1.6 
3.3 
0.0 
7.1 
3.5 
0.0 
25.0 
16.7 
1.5 
8.9 
19.6 
14.2 
35.0 
40.0 
17.6 
50.0 
51.7 
46.4 
36.7 
35.0 
52.3 
32.1 
25.0 
28.5 
1.6 
5.0 
28.0 
1.7 
0.0 
10.7 
6.6 
0.0 
4 
4 
Class IV.3.. 
Called for by age-scale ... 
Called for by height-scale ... 
Actually furnished 
0.0 
1.7 
0.0 
19.6 
12.5 
0.0 
48.2 
53.3 
44.6 
32.1 
32.1 
42.8 
0.0 
0.0 
12.5 
5.3 
3 
Class V. ... 
Called for by age-scale 
Called for by height-scale ... 
Actually furnished 
0.0 
1.6 
0.0 
14.7 
8.2 
0.0 
1.7 
3.5 
0.0 
37.7 
49.2 
20.6 
23.2 
33.9 
26.7 
44.3 
32.8 
38.0 
60.7 
39.2 
46.4 
3.3 
6.6 
41.2 
14.2 
19.6 
19.6 
0.0 
1.6 
0.0 
0.0 
3.5 
7.1 
3.2 
1.7 
3 
4 
4 
Class VI. .. 
Called for by aae-scale 
Called for by height- scale ... 
Actually furnished 
5.4 
1.8 
25.4 
3.5 
1.7 
1.7 
10.7 
28.6 
27.1 
8.9 
21.4 
14.2 
71.4 
55.3 
16.9 
60.7 
39.2 
26.7 
12.5 
14.3 
30.5 
26.7 
33.9 
50.0 
0.0 
3.5 
7.1 
14.2 
0.0 
5 
Class VIA. 
Called for by age-scale 
Called for by height, scale ... 
Actually furnished 
1.3 
0.0 
1.2 
0.0 
0.0 
0.0 
10.8 
21.6 
13.7 
5.4 
27.2 
18.1 
55.4 
37.8 
35.0 
69.0 
40.0 
32.7 
32.4 
57.8 
50 
25.4 
30.9 
41.8 
0.0 
1.4 
0.0 
0.0 
1.8 
7.2 
0.0 
1.4 
0.0 
2.7 
0.0 
4 
5 
. * Per oent;B, in the columns marked A refer to analysis of investigation made in January, 1893; those in columns marked B, to the investiga- 
tion made in Februaiy, 1894. Ihe seats “ actually furnished” in the first case purported to correspond to Whitcomb’s age-scale. The distribution of the 
seats occupied in Bebruary, 1894, was based on measurement of the height of the occupants of the seats, and observation of their sitting-height besides. 51 
heights of Boston school-children as determined by Dr. H. P. 
Bovvditch, in 1875, in changing the Whitcomb age-scale to a 
height-scale, which is given below: 
Scale-number. 
VII. 
VI. 
V. 
IV. 
III. 
11. 
I. 
I. 
Extra. 
Range of height in inches 
41-43 
44-45 
46-47 
48-51 
52-54 
55-59 
60- 
64 
65+ 
Corresponding age, in years 
5-6 
6-7 
7-8 
8-10 
10-12 
12-14 
14- 
16 
16-18 
It was strikingly brought out by the three series of meas- 
urements made by Mr. Gibson on his pupils, that the average 
height in the same class varies considerably from year to year, 
and even from one six months to another. This variation 
which is inevitable, greatly enhances the difficulty of provid- 
ing a sufficient number of accurately assorted seats and desks, 
unless they are adjustable. 
The appended tables serve to show how the demands for 
assorted sizes may vary at short intervals in the same class- 
room, owing to the changing stature of the pupils. 
Table IV. is constructed to show the per cent, of seats 
of each size called for, in each class, by the age and 
height-scales already cited, at periods a year apart. It also 
affords a comparison between the distribution of seats actu- 
ally furnished the pupils of the Agassiz Grammar School, 
and between the percentage of misfits in the old building 
and the new building. The figures in the column marked 
“A” relate to conditions found in January, 1898, while 
those in the column marked “ B ” relate to conditions found 
in February, 1894, after the new building had come into 
use. The seats actually furnished in fitting up the new 
building were assorted in accordance with the results of the 
measurements made in January and September, 1893. 
Still the scale based on total height was found to be ap- 
proximative only, and when the assignment of seats came to 
be made it was found necessary to adopt the sitting-height 
as the criterion in many instances. This suggests that 
absolute accuracy in the seating of growing children cannot be secured, unless their individual peculiarities in regard to 
stature, length of trunk, length of leg, etc., are taken into 
account periodically. Even where adjustable furniture is 
used, it is doubtful if average heights can be implicitly relied 
upon as criteria. 
TABLE Y. 
SHOWING DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FER CENT. OF DESKS CALLED FOR 
BY" WHITCOMB AGE-SCALE, THE SAME EXPRESSED IN TERMS OF 
HEIGHT, AND THE PER CENT. OF EACH SIZE OF DESKS FUR- 
NISHED TO AGASSIZ GRAMMAR SCHOOL, JANUARY", 1893, AND 
FEBRUARY", 189-1. 
Beale Number of 
Desk-size. 
Scale. 
Per Cent, of 
Desks. 
Per Cent, of 
Desks. 
At first measurement, 
January, 1893. 
At third raensurement, 
February, 1894. 
Called for 
by scale. 
Furnished. 
Difference. 
Called for 
by scale. 
1 
Furnished. 
Difference. 
No. I. Kxtra . . 
Scale ol age 
2.3 
0.0 
-0.3 
3.5 
0.0 
-3.5 
Scale of height .... 
7.3 
0.0 
-7.3 
7.0 
17.7 
-7.0 
No. I 
Scale of age 
24.4 
17.7 
-6.7 
20.9 
17.7 
-3.2 
Scale of height .... 
16.4 
17.7 
+ 1.3 
16.8 
17.7 
+ 0.9 
No. II 
Scale of age 
31.6 
31.1 
-0.5 
34.3 
31.1 
-3.2 
Scale of height .... 
38.0 
31.1 
-8.9 
40.5 
31.1 
-9.4 
No. Ill 
Scale of age 
34.1 
29.8 
-4.3 
33.0 
29.8 
-3.2 
Scale of height .... 
27.9 
29.8 
+ 1.9 
34.5 
29.8 
-4.7 
No. IV 
Scale of age 
7.3 
21.0 
+ 13.7 
8.1 
21.0 
+ 12.9 
Scale of height .... 
9.5 
21.0 
+ 11.5 
9.9 
21.0 
+ 11.1 
No. V 
Scale of age 
0,0 
0.0 
0.0 
0.0 
0.0 
0.0 
Scale of height .... 
0.4 
0.0 
-0.4 
1.0 
0.0 
-1.0 
No. VI 
Scale of age 
0.0 
0.0 
0.0 
0.0 
0.0 
0.0 
Scale of height .... 
0.2 
0.0 
-0.2 
0.0 
0.0 
0.0 
N.B. —ln January, 1893, there were 29 misfits among 462 boys, or 6.2 per cent. 
In February, 1894, there were 6 misfits among 481 boys, or 1.2 per cent. 53 
The above table shows that the requirements as regards 
the number of seats of a given size will vary in a given 
school according as the pupils vary in height from time to 
time; and favors the contention that when fixed desks and 
chairs (graded according to an average-age or an average- 
height standard) are used, the necessity for re-sorting and 
rearranging them is likely to recur frequently. 
While tliis table suggests the superiority on general prin- 
ciples of adjustable over fixed desks and chairs, very much 
remains to be done before American adjustable furniture will 
be equal to the task of abolishing all or even most of the 
patent evils of the traditional and haphazard methods of 
school-seating now in vogue, I doubt the expediency of 
adopting adjustable furniture in a wholesale way so long as 
the inventors and makers of such furniture change their ad- 
justment-devices from year to year, and fail to turn out desks 
and chairs that are hygienic in all respects, instead of in one 
or two only. 
It is extremely desirable, in my opinion, that the present 
needless misfitting in the Boston schools should be reduced 
without further delay. The most feasible way to reduce it 
at the present time, as is shown by our experience in fitting 
up the class-rooms of the new Agassiz Grammar School, is to 
redistribute the desks and chairs now in use, so that each 
room shall have at least three sizes of desks and chairs. In 
several of the Agassiz School-rooms odd-sized desks were 
placed in the front row, in order to meet the needs of deaf 
and short-sighted children. Had one or two rows of adjust- 
able desks been placed in each of the Agassiz School-rooms, 
I believe that misfitting, in the sense in winch that term is 
used in these pages, would have been reduced to nothing, or 
at least to a fraction of one per cent. 
The teachers can do something towards mitigating the ill 
effects of the present unsystematic fashion of assorting and 
OBSTACLES TO REFORM setting up school-seats, by exercising more care than is com- 
mon in assigning seats to the children under their charge; 
and by ceasing to assign the seats of their pupils according 
to their proficiency in their lessons but without regard to the 
length of their legs and arms. There is too much of this 
unhygienic course of procedure at present. But in many of 
onr schools the teachers, with the best will in the world, are 
prevented from seating their pupils according to the plain 
teachings of hygiene and of common sense, by the haphazard 
and ill regulated way of fitting up the school-room. 
The most striking example of our present lack of method 
was brought to my notice by the master of the Dudley School. 
At his request I investigated the seating in a third primary 
class in the Vernon-street School, Roxbnry. I found that 
o9 old seats and desks, of the Ross pattern mostly, had been 
placed in the room during the long vacation of 1894. Of these, 
18 were “ No. Fours ” and 21 were “ No. Fives.” If the seats 
had been selected with malice aforethought, instead of 
thoughtlessly as was probably the case, the result could have 
hardly been worse than it was. According to the Whitcomb 
scale, changed to a height-scale (see p. 205), there should 
have been 29 “ No. Sevens,” 8 “ No. Sixes,” 1 “No. Five,” 
and 1 “No. Four;” the result was, that of the 33 children 
present (ranging in age from 4 to 8 years, and in height be- 
tween 37 and 49 inches) 29, or 87.9 per cent, of the whole, 
were misfitted, being placed in seats too high for them. Of 
these 13, or 39 per cent., could barely reach the floor with 
their toes, and 16, or 48 per cent., had their feet in the air. 
I 'lis is % 1,0 means the only case that has been brought to 
my notice in which the principal has been obliged to put up 
with antique furniture so ill-assorted as to insure misfitting-. 
& * 
THE SEATING OF THE CUD WORTH PRIMARY SCHOOL. 
Tins school in the Lyman District has a new building, oc- 
cupied for the first time in December last. The Division 
Committee having secured the adoption of Perry’s adjustable TABLE VI., SHOWING DISTRIBUTION BY HEIGHT AND CLASS OF 465 PUPILS IN THE CUDWORTH PRIMARY SCHOOL, EAST BOSTON. THE NUMBERS IN COLUMNS A, B, AND C 
RESPECTIVELY INDICATE (1) THE NUMBER OF PUPILS AT EACH INCH OF HEIGHT, (2) THE NUMBER OF MISFITS AT EACH HEIGHT, AND (3) NUMBER OF SEATS 
REQUIRED ACCORDING TO THE BOBRICK SCALE. 
1. 
2 
3 
4. 
5. 
6. 
7. 
8. 
9. 
1 
10. 
11. 
Bobrick 
12. 
Per cent. 
| 13. 
No. Seats 
14. 
Per ceut.of 
Height in 
inches. 
Class I. 
Class I.2 
Class II. 
Class II.2 
Class II.3 
Class III. 
Class III.2 
Class III,3 
Class III.* 
Totals. 
Scale 
Number. 
of each 
Size needed 
required in 
New House 
Misfits at 
Each Height. 
Height 
in 
1 
inches. 
A. 
B. 
. C. 
A. 
B. 
C. 
A. 
B. 
C. 
A. 
B. 
c. 
A. 
B. 
C. 
A. 
B. 
c. 
A. 
B. 
C. 
A. 
B. 
c. 
A. 
' B. 
C. 
A. 
B. 
C. 
1 
1 
1 X. 
1 
J 
0 
0 
( 
IX. 
9. IX. 
0 
0 
VIII. 
55 
54 
53 
2 VIII. 
mu. 
2 
1 
1 
1.29 
60.0 
18.1 
57.1 
41.6 
29.0 
34.3 
22.2 
1 
11 
VII. 
8 VII. 
6 VII. 
1 
1VII. 
2 
2 
2 VII. 
1 VII. 
i 
is) 
24 | 
31) 
23 1 
36 ) 
18 
4.73 
21 
52 
6 
2 
2 
5 
2 
24 
31 
23 
36 
10 
VI. 
51 
14 VI. 
8 
3 
3 
13 VI. 
1 
1 
13 VI. 
3 
3 
5 VI. 
3 
1 
8 VI. 
1 
1 VI. 
.... 
1 VI. 
55 
12.68 
59 
50 
6 
2 
6 
5 
3 
1 
1 
V. 
49 
48 
49 
11 V. 
15 V. 
11 
3 
14 V. 
2 
2 V. 
2 V. 
1 
IV. 
59 
60 
4S 
0 
6 
6 
1 
2 
9 
4 
7 
6 
1 
2 
13 
1 
10 
1 
4 
1 
2 
1 
54 
58 
11 
21 
54 j 
58 ) 
IV. 
20.3 
36.8 
47 
46 
4 * 
46 
12IV. 
4 
13IV. 
131V. 
8 
1 
21 IV. 
11 
4 
21IV. 
4 
3 
5 IV. 
3 
7 IV. 
10 
2 
12 IV. 
6 
3 
8 IV. 
112 
24.94 
116 
5 
2 
9 
2 
9 
4 
8 
3 
8 
4 
1 
9 
7 
6 
54 
45 
16 
23 
54 | 
45 ) 
III. 
29.6 
51.7 
45 
44 
2 
1 
mi. 
9 
1 
18 III. 
7 
4 
9 III. 
3 
2 
12 III. 
6 
6 
14 III. 
3 
11 III. 
8 
4 
12 III. 
5 
16 III. 
99 
23.01 
107 
1 
1 
o 
1 
4 
1 
6 
4 
4 
2 
6 
4 
4 
4 
28 
35 
16 
28 J 
35 ) 
II. 
57.1 
76.4 
43 
42 
III. 
3 
2 
5 II. 
1 
5 II. 
2 
2 
3II. 
9 
6 
15 II. 
3 
2 
7 II. 
7 
4 
1311. 
10 
10 
14 II. 
26 
63 
15.05 
70 
6 
5 
10 
9 
2 
1 
1 
6 
6 
3 
24 
21 
H 
2il 
11 \ 
I. 
87.5 
41 
1 
1 
7 I. 
6 
6 
161. 
1 
3 
3 
3 O. 
2 
2 
3 
3 
1 
1 
9 
100.0 
100.0 
100.0 
39 
1 
1 
1 
0. 
2 
2 
4 0. 
4 0. 
2 
4 0. 
4J 
1 
465 
15 
1 
465 
4.30 
20 
1 
i 
465 
Total pupils ... 
47 
47 
47 
47 
59 
59 
59 
59 
58 
58 
46 
46 
47 
47 
49 
49 
53 
504 
13 
19 
15 
22 
18 
32 
24 
42 
208 
Total misfits... 
Per cent, misfits 
40.4 
31.0 
69.5 
51.0 
27.6 
r — 
— 
■ 
— 
— 55 
desk and chair, which is made in three sixes, I was requested 
by the principal, Mr. Kelley, to furnish plans for the seat- 
ing of the nine rooms to be occupied. Being furnished by 
Mr. Kelley with schedules and diagrams showing the height, 
age, and seating of 465 children who made up the nine classes 
in question, I noted the misfits among the children when 
seated in the fixed furniture in the old buildings; and haying 
determined the required number of seats for each class ob- 
served, according to the Bobrick height-scale (which I adopted 
for convenience and in order to test its value), 1 was 
enabled to calculate the number of seats and chairs of each 
size required to seat nine new rooms with 56 seats in each 
room, and to furnish diagrams showing the calculated height 
of desk and chair for each individual pupil, in each and every 
room. These diagrams were used by the contractor in set- 
ting up the seats. After the seats were occupied they served 
effectively as a guide to rectifying chance errors. By these 
means the misfitting, which amounted to 44.7 per cent, in the 
old rooms, was reduced to zero in the new. 
Table VI. was constructed to serve as the basis of the 
schedules and diagrams just alluded to. The A, B, and C 
columns respectively (cols. 1-9) show: (1) the number of 
pupils at each inch of height, (2) the number of misfits at 
each height, and (3) the number of desks and chairs called 
for in each class to correspond with the calculated heights 
of the Bobrick scale, the totals being given in column 10. The 
percentage of seats of each size for the 465 observed pupils 
in the old rooms is found in column 12; and the number 
of seats of each “ scale number ” required for 504 pupils in 
the new rooms is shown by the figures in column 13. To 
determine the proper proportion of differently sized seats re- 
quired in each room, it is first necessary to compute the ratio, 
in terms of percentage, between the several numbers found in 
the C column and the total number of seats found in the 
room or required to be placed there. 
Given a room with adjustable furniture of accurately 56 
assorted sizes, still the children must be remeasured at inter- 
vals or they are liable to out-grow the adjustments which 
have been prescribed. It is generally agreed, I believe, that 
adjustable furniture should be readjusted at least twice a year. 
The readjustment must be based on remeasurement and can- 
not safely or advantageously be relegated to the janitor or 
the average class teacher, unless an extremely clear and 
simple set of directions be provided and enforced by the 
School Committee. I venture to express the hope that the 
Committee on Rules and Regulations will be impelled or 
induced to frame a set of rules which shall serve as the basis 
for a responsible and intelligent control of the seating of 
Boston school children, whether they occupy fixed or adjust- 
able seats. Such blunders as that perpetrated on the first 
year primarians of the Vernon Street School might thereby 
be rendered impossible. 
THREE KINDS OF ADJUSTABLE DESKS IN CHOATE 
BURNHAM SCHOOL. 
The present phase of the school-seating question is 
exemplified by the tripartite division of the new Choate 
Burnham Primary School, where three kinds of adjustable 
desks and chairs have been put on trial. In the new Eustis- 
street Primary School, the trial is to be continued between 
but two of the three styles found in the South Boston school, 
I believe. As each of the three companies which is repre- 
sented in the seating of the Choate Burnham School has its 
own system of grading its furniture in respect to size of 
castings, range of adjustability, etc.; its own rules for pre- 
scribing the height of chair and desk; and its own patent 
mechanical device for effecting adjustment, the conditions 
are favorable for making a comparative study, in the Lincoln 
District, of the leading styles of American adjustable school 
furniture. The seats and chairs, in this case, were assorted, 
set up, and adjusted to their occupants without any sugges- 
tion or intervention on my part. Since then I have meas- ured all the children, and have noted the heights of their 
desks and chairs, and the amount and character of such mis- 
fitting as was found. A certain though not very considerable 
number of misfitted children were found in each of the three 
kinds of seats. In most cases it appeared to be due to care- 
lessness ; but in some cases 1 should attribute it to faulty 
construction of the desks, whose bottoms being placed lower 
than is necessary for primary school purposes pressed more 
or less heavily against the knees of their occupants. Unless 
the height or thickness of the desk box is carefully worked 
out, the knees may be cramped even when the difference 
betiveen seat and desk-surface is theoretically correct. I 
have brought this matter to the attention of the manufactur- 
ers concerned, and, the remedy being obvious and simple, it 
is likely that the desks for primary pupils will henceforth be 
better proportioned. 
In the Agassiz Primary School the shortest child found 
was -11 inches in height. Both in East and South Boston 
a considerable number of children ranging between 37 and 
40 inches in height were found. The pupils of the Choate 
Burnham School were not measured prior to the occupancy 
of the new building. But it is a significant fact that all the 
children under 41 inches in height examined in the Lyman 
District, before the Cudworth building was occupied, were 
found in chairs so much too high for them that they could 
not place their feet fiat on the floor. This fact led Mr. Perry 
to construct a chair and desk with lower supports than it had 
been customary to make in the case of fixed furniture. In 
fact it led to the reintroduction of a No. VIII. size which had 
been dropped from the Whitcomb scale. Both the Bobrick 
and Chandler companies have found it necessary to take 
somewhat similar steps. While it is possible that the average 
height of our youngest primarians is less than formerly, it 
is perfectly clear to me that our primary pupils have legs 
that are relatively as well as absolutely shorter than those of 
their older brothers and sisters. This fact should be taken 58 
into account in attempting to determine the proper dimen- 
sions of desks and chairs for the use of our younger children. 
Since the designers and makers of adjustable furniture 
propose to furnish “ hygienic desks and chairs,” they will do 
well to develop better methods than those yet adopted for 
rendering the new furniture an improvement on the old, in 
respect to such matters as seat-area, slope of desk, adjusta- 
bility for distance, slope, and height of chair-back. All of 
the adjustable furniture which is on trial in our schools pre- 
sents so many features that are novel to the teachers, chil- 
dren, and, janitors, that a considerable, period of time must 
elapse before thoroughly decisive and correct conclusions can 
be reached touching tire distinctive merits as regards ease 
and accuracy of practical working of the several sorts. 
CONCERNING SOME TESTS MADE IN THE CHOATE BUENHAM 
SCHOOL. 
With the approval of Mr. Eaton, chairman of the Commit- 
tee on School Houses and chairman of the Sixth Division 
Committee, certain tests were made under my direction to 
determine the ease and accuracy with which (1) an expert 
and (2) a janitor can adjust a given number of the three differ- 
ent kinds of desks and chairs used in the school above men- 
tioned. Several members of the School Committee witnessed 
the first test. The second test was conducted by Mr. White, 
principal of the Lincoln District, and myself, at a later date. 
The results of the tests are set forth below in Tables VII. 
and VIII. TABLE VII., SHOWING RELATIVE ACCURACY OE ADJUSTMENT OE ADJUSTABLE EURNITURE, STYLED A, Br 
AND C, IN USE IN CHOATE BURNHAM PRIMARY SCHOOL, SOUTH BOSTON. 
1. 
Number of 
Pupil 
using Seat. 
2, 
Total 
Height in 
Inches. 
3. 
Observed 
Height of 
Desk. 
4. 
Calculated 
Height 
of Desk. 
6. 
Difference 
between 
3 and 4. 
6. 
Observed 
Height 
of Chair. 
7. 
Calculated 
Height 
of Chair. 
8. 
Difference 
between 
6 and 7. 
9. 
Distance. 
10. 
Remarks. 
No. 1 
53.50 
24.50 
23.31 
+ 1.29 
12.87 
15.06 
-2.19 
Minus. 
“ 2 
48.00 
21.75 
21.11 
+ 0.64 
12.37 
13.64 
-1.27 
Zero. 
Desk touched knees. 
“ 3 
46.00 
20.37 
20.23 
+ 0.14 
11.12 
13.07 
-1.95 
Plus. 
“ 
“ 4 
42.50 
20.12 
18.47 
+ 1.65 
11.12 
11.93 
-0.81 
Zero. 
“ 5 
51.87 
24.25 
22.43 
+ 1.82 
13.50 
14.49 
-0.93 
Plus. 
Style A 
“ 6 
43.37 
20.00 
18.91 
+ 1.09 
11.00 
12.22 
-1.22 
“ 
“ 7 
50.50 
23.12 
21.99 
+ 1.13 
12.37 
14.21 
-1.84 
“ 
“ 8 
50.25 
22.50 
21.99 
+ 0.51 
11.25 
14.21 
-2.96 
“ 
Desk touched knees. 
“ 9 
47.25 
21.87 
20.67 
+ 1.20 
11.37 
13.35 
-1,98 
Zero. 
“ “ “ 
“ 10 
47.62 
21.50 
20.67 
+ 0.83 
11.75 
13.35 
-1.60 
Minus. 
Av. +1.03 
Av.-1.78 
No. 1 
41.00 
19.25 
18.03 
+ 1.22 
10.50 
11.65 
-1.15 
Plus. 
“ 2 
41.62 
19.37 
18.03 
+ 1.34 
9.62 
11.65 
-2.03 
Minus. 
“ 3 
41.00 
19^50 
18.03 
+ 1.47 
10.00 
11.65 
-1.65 
Plus. 
“ 4 
40.37 
19.50 
17.59 
+ 1.91 
10.00 
11.36 
-1.36 
Zero. 
“ 5 
41.75 
19.37 
18.03 
+ 1.34 
10.25 
11.65 
-1.40 
Minus. 
Style B 
“ 6 
40.00 
19.50 
17.59 
+ 1.91 
10.37 
11.36 
-0.99 
Zero. 
“ 7 
42.87 
19.50 
18.47 
+ 1.03 
10.87 
11.93 
-1.06 
Minus. 
“ 8 
43.62 
20.87 
18.91 
+ 1.96 
11.75 
12.22 
-0.47 
Zero. 
“ 9 
42.62 
22.75 
18.47 
+ 4.28 
12.25 
11.93 
+ 0.32 
Minus. 
Desk uneven. 
“ 10 
45.37 
22.75 
19.79 
+ 2.96 
11.00 
12.78 
-1.78 
Plus. 
“ “ chair loose. 
Av. + 1.94 
Av.-1.15 
No. 1 
41.12 
19.25 
18.03 
+ 1.22 
11.00 
11.65 
-0.65 
Minus. 
“ 2 
41.37 
19.25 
18.03 
+ 1.22 
11.00 
11.65 
-0.65 
(( 
“ 3 
41.50 
19.25 
18.03 
+ 1.22 
11.00 
11.65 
-0.65 
« 
“ 4 
41.37 
19.25 
18.03 
+ 1.22 
11.00 
11.65 
-0.65 
(( 
“ 5 
42.00 
20.06 
18.47 
+ 1.59 
11.54 
11.93 
-0.39 
it 
Style 0 
“ 6 
41.25 
19.25 
18.03 
+ 1.22 
11.00 
11.65 
-0.65 
(i 
“ 7 
40.75 
19.25 
17.59 
+ 1.66 
11.00 
11.36 
-0,36 
(( 
“ 8 
41.00 
19.25 
18.03 
+ 1.22 
11.00 
11.65 
-0.65 
(( 
“ 9 
42.12 
20.87 
18.47 
+ 2.40 
12.12 
11.93 
+ 0.19 
it 
“ 10 
45.25 
21.66 
19.79 
+ 1.97 
12.66 
12.78 
-0.12 
it 
Av. +1.49 
1 
Av. —0.45 59 
TABLE VIII., SHOWING- TIME TAKEN (1) BY EXPERT (2) BY JANITOR IN ADJUSTING STYLES A, B, AND 0 OF SCHOOL 
FURNITURE IN USE IN CHOATE BURNHAM SCHOOL, SOUTH BOSTON. 
Style. 
Time Taken. 
(1) BY EXPERT. 
(2) BY JANITOR. 
To adjust Ten 
Desks and Chairs 
for Ten 
Designated Children. 
To adjust Ten 
Desks and Chairs 
at 
Prescribed Heights. 
Total Time. 
(Minutes.) 
Average 
Time. 
(Minutes.) 
To adjust Ten 
Desks and Chairs 
for Ten 
Designated Children. 
Average 
Time. 
(Minutes.) 
Time required 
for One Hundred 
Desks and Chaiis. 
A 
17 minutes. 
10.5 minutes. 
27.5 
2.75 
32.5 minutes. 
3.25 
5-hours 25 minutes. 
B 
13.5 minutes. 
12.75 minutes. 
36.25 
3.62 
33.5 minutes. 
3.35 
5 hours 35 minutes. 
C 
T2.5 minutes. 
114.5 minutes. 
27.0 
2.70 
23.0 minutes. 
2.30 
3 hours 50 minutes. 
1 The same expert took 9.5 minutes to adjust ten desks and chairs according to prescription in “ scale numbers ” instead of specified heights. CHARACTERISTICS OF ADJUSTABLE FURNITURE NOW IN 
USE. 
The salient characteristics of the four kinds of adjustable 
desks and chairs now in use, viz., Chandler or “ Ronlstone,” 
“ Globe,” “ Peerless ” or Bobrick, and Perry styles are set 
forth below with the aid of cuts which were politely furnished 
Figure 4. 
by Messrs. Hill, Hockaday, Bobrick, and Perry, for use in 
this report. 
Fig. 4 represents the Chandler seat and the method of 
using the measuring-rod to determine the height at which 
chair and desk should be set. By bringing the sliding arm of 61 
the rod against the under surface of the thigh in the hollow 
of the sitter’s knee, the knee-height which equals chair- 
height, is found and read off. The chair-height being deter- 
mined, it is only necessary to turn the rod to read off from the 
condensed scale of elbow-heights, which is inscribed on another 
side of the rod, the corresponding height of desk. The 
directions for adjusting are thus given in the Chandler Com- 
pany’s catalogue: “ Adjust the chair first; then the desk. 
Figurk 5. 
With wrench which we supply loosen the nut on the bolt, 
place chair or desk at desired height, then turn nut tight.” 
The rod and scale alluded to above have been adopted 
by the Chandler Company since their catalogue was pub- 
lished. The use of any scale is scouted in the catalogue. 
Aside from the sliding frame attached to bottom of chair 
and desk, which is fastened by an adjustment bolt, the only 
novelties requiring mention in this style of seat are the flat 62 
shoulder support, and the curve of the middle piece of the 
chair-back, which is intended to support the pupil’s back in 
the lumbar region. 
Fig. 5 represents the 44 Globe ” chair and seat. Its 
single-pillared pedestal which supports the desk seems to me 
objectionable, as the pedestal is in the way of the pupil’s feet, 
so that his position is not a natural one if he is careful to put 
them flat upon the floor. Experience in the Perkins Primary 
School shows that to secure a minus distance it is necessary 
to bring the flanges of the chair and desk supports so near to 
one another as to prevent the children from placing their feet 
flat upon the floor. It will be noticed that the chair-backs 
shown in Fig. 5 and in Fig. 6 differ from the usual type 
of chair-back in being continuous instead of open, as in 
Fig. 3. In my opinion the continuous back is superior to the 
open back, with vertical lumbar-rest and transverse shoulder- 
rest, since it affords a broader surface to fit the hollow of 
the back. As between continuous chair-backs, such as are 
represented in Figs. 5 and 6, and the open style of chair- back shown in Fig. l,with transverse props at S and J, I pre- 
fer the latter, since it affords a free space between the rear 
edge of the seat and the lower edge of the loins-support. 
This is certainly a convenience when we consider the more 
voluminous clothing worn by school-girls. The Globe Com- 
pany has adopted no particular scale, so far as I know. 
The Bobrick or u Peerless ” desk and chair are shown 
in Fig. 6. Attention has just been called to the general 
character of its chair-back, but it may be noted further that 
the lower third of the back-support is perpendicular, while 
the upper part (two-thirds) is inclined 10 degrees. 
Aside from the mechanical devices for securing desk and 
chair-supports at the requisite heights, the most characteristic 
feature of the “ Peerless ” is found in the notched and 
bevelled desk- and chair supports. The position of these 
notches is determined on the basis of the scale of heights 
adopted by Mr. Bobrick. The notches in the two supports 
bear a fixed relation, viz., that of “ the difference ” to each 
other, and are indicated by corresponding numbers, which 
correspond also to the scale numbers on the measuring rod 
represented in Fig. 7. The directions for adjusting these 
desks and chairs are given as follows: 
1. Assign the pupils to their desks and measure their 
heights with the scale furnished by us for that purpose. 
2. Record the heights of the pupils on slips of paper, and 
place on each desk a slip with the number indicating the 
height of the pupil that will occupy the desk. 
3. Loosen the set-screws of all the desks and seats. 
4. Adjust all the desks and seats to the corresponding 
numbers, as indicated on the slips. 
5. Refasten all the set-screws. 
For measuring the heights of the pupils, we furnish a 
scale. (See Fig. 7.) It gives the heights of the pupils in 
numbers. Bohrick’s newest seals is also graded for knee- 
heights. 
The heights of the desks and seats are indicated by cor- responding numbers cast on both sides of the desk- and chair- 
supports. 
Each number of the desk-support, when set so as to be seen 
Figure 7. 
above the head of the desk-bracket, indicates a certain height 
of the desk on line A-B, and each number of the chair-sup- 
port, when set so as to be seen above the head of the chair- 
pedestal, indicates a certain height of the seat on line C-B. For instance, a pupil between 40-42 incbes in height is a 
No. 1, requiring a No. 1 desk and seat, a pupil between 42 
and 44 inches in height is a No. 2, requiring a No. 2 desk 
and seat, etc. 
Figure 8. 
The Perry adjustable desk and chair are shown in Fig. 8. 
The numbers cast in the desk- and chair-supports correspond 
to the sizes of the graduated Whitcomb scale. No particular 
form of measuring-rod or height-scale is used in determining 
the heights of desk and chair for the adjustment of this 
style of furniture. But I am informed that Mr. Perry in- 
tends to adopt such a scale, and to change his adjustment 
devices in certain important respects. The curved lumbar 
back-rests is an improvement upon the old Whitcomb chair- 
back. It is noteworthy that all of the desks figured here 
have tops that are insufficiently sloped. 
The fixed furniture customarily furnished in fitting up new 
schools in Boston, prior to the recent advent of adjustable 
SCALE FOR GRADING SEAT-SIZES. furniture, is made in various sizes according to the so-called 
Whitcomb scale, which is as follows: 
Beale number 
; VII. 
VI. 
V. 
IV. 
III. 
II. 
I. 
II. extra. 
I.extra. 
Age of pupil 
5-6 
6-7 
7-8 
8-10 
10-12 
12-14 
14-18 
14-16 
16-18 
Height of chair.... 
10.50 
11.25 
12.25 
13.50 
14.50 
15.50 
16.75 
15.50 
16.75 
Height of desk .... 
20.50 
21.50 
23.00 
24.50 
25.50 
27.00 
28.50 
27.50 
29.00 
Difference 
10.00 
10.25 
10.75 
11.00 
11.00 
11.50 
11.75 
12.00 
12.25 
Numbers YII.-Y.,inclusive, are for primary schools; num- 
bers IY.-L, for grammar schools, and Numbers 11.—1., extra, 
for high schools, academies, etc. On its face this is an age- 
scale and nothing else. 
Dr. Scudder has called attention (op. cit.) to the tradi- 
tional nature of this scale and to the manner in which it is 
used. His remarks on these points are as follows: 
The method of providing seats and desks for the various school-houses 
of Boston is somewhat as follows ; 
A school-house is built and ready for seats. The Commissioner of 
Publie Buildings, or his assistant, having ascertained the grade of the 
school and the number of pupils to be accommodated in each room, 
sends an order to the manufacturer of school furniture who is fortunate 
enough to hold the contract for the current year, to seat and desk the 
building. The manufacturer, knowing approximately the ages of the 
children who will attend a school of the given grade, provides desks 
and seats as lie sees fit, furnishing one, two, or three sizes to a single 
room, as he is inclined, or as may have been suggested by the head- 
master of the school. 
How does the manufacturer determine the sizes that shall be sent to 
meet the requirements of certain ages ? After corresponding and talk- 
ing with those who have supplied for many years large cities and 
Boston with school furniture, I find it impossible to learn how the 
standard of the height of desk and chair has been determined. The 
standard for the gradation of the modern school-desks has evidently 
been handed down, from one generation to the next, until it can no 
longer be traced to its originator. 
As I have shown below (see Table X.), the Whitcomb scale 
is probably derived from a height-scale originated by Dr. 
Henry Barnard, in 1838. TABLE IX., SHOWING DISTRIBUTION OF HEIGHT IN INCHES, BY AGE AND SEX, OF 1,528 BOSTON PRIMARY 
SCHOOL CHILDREN. 
Inches 
14 
years 
13 
years 
13 
years. 
II 
years 
1 
io 
years 
1 
9 
years. 
8 
years. 
7 
years 
« 
years. 
1 
5 
years. 
4 
years. 
3 
years. 
Boys. 
Girls. 
Total. 
559 .... 
1 
0 
2 
2 
58 .... 
1 
i 
1 
1 
2 
T_1 
I 
1 
57 .... 
.1 
1 
i 
1 
1 
0 
50 
1 
1 
i 
2 
4 
i 
x 
2 
55 .... 
. 2 
2 
3 
1 
1 
1 
.1 
4 
12 
2 
8 
1 
54 .... 
.1 4 
7 3 
i 
5 
20 
. 
2 
.( ! 
i 
1 
I 
15 
53 
2 
, 7 
6 
2 
7 
i 
4 
I 2 
2 
1 
. 
23 
37 
i 
3 
14 
53 
3 
9 
3 
9 
4 
11 
2 
12 
44 
j 3 
32 
51 
5 
1 
7 
8 
29 
9 
16 
5 
28 
85 
1 
4 
57 
50 
i 
l 
1 
3 
4 
5 
23 
17 
25 
15 
7 
7 
i 
63 
47 
no 
i 
... 
49 
1 
10 
9 
29 
14 
16 
6 
i 
57 
j' 31 
88 
j 
2 
48 
l 
1 
10 
3 
47 
20 
24 
16 
6 
2 
90 
41 
131 
1 
47 
7 
5 
30 
25 
45 
23 
15 
9 
5 
102 
62 
164 
l 
1 
5 
4 
25 
20 
40 
33 
23 
18 
2 
1 
96 
77 : 
173 
46 
45 
1 
1 
2 
3 
7 
9 
22 
25 
40 
28 
18 
8 
90 
73 ! 
163 
1 
j 
44 
l 
6 
6 
19 
17 
24 
18 
11 
16 
61 
57 1 
118 
1 
5 
11 
28 
30 
26 
10 
60 
5! 
111 
45 
- 
43 
9 
5 
24 
24 
26 
22 
60 
55 
115 
72 
4 
41 
l 
1 
1 
13 
9 
20 
22 
37 
8 
6 
13 
12 
22 
21 
43 
40 
1 
6 
8 
7 
14 
21 
30 
1 
0 
7 
7 
38 
2 
1 
2 
3 
5 
37 
i 
Boys ... 
2 
3 
3 
18 
40 
103 
200 
190 
183 
130 
6 
0 
878 
650 
Girls ... 
1 
3 
4 
13 
29 
64 
121 
152 
145 
106 
11 
1 
650 • 
1,528 
Total... 
3 j 
6 
1 
7 
31 J 69 
167 
321 j 
342 
328 
236 
17 
1 
1,528 . 
1,528 I have compiled the Table IX. to show the distribution 
by sex, age, and height, of 1,528 primary school children 
in certain districts of the city, whose seating I have had par- 
ticular occasion to investigate. Inspection of the table shows 
that the range of height in children of the same age is so 
great that no dependence whatever can be put upon a mere 
age-scale as a guide in grading the sizes of school-seats and 
desks. For instance, according to the Whitcomb age-scale, 
254 No. YII. chairs and desks would suffice to seat the 254 
children five years old or under whose heights are found in 
the last three age-columns of Table IX. If, however, we 
make use of the Whitcomb scale, after changing it to a 
height-scale (see p. 205), we find that 191 No. YII., 53 No. 
VI., 8 No. V., and 2 No. IV. chairs would be needed to seat 
the children in question. According to the Bobrick height- 
scale (see Table XL) the number of each size of chair and 
desk would be: 28 No. 0., 74 No. 1., 89 No. 11., 53 No. 
111., 8 No. IV., and 2 No. 2. 
I have prepared a table, given on p. 68, which affords a com- 
parison between height of chairs, height of desk, and differ- 
ence corresponding to the scale numbers of several systems of 
school-seating formerly used in Boston and elsewhere in New 
England. The figures given, excepting those of the Whit- 
comb scale which is the most modern, are taken from 
Barnard’s “ School Architecture,” New York, 1854. As the 
first edition of that work was published in 1848, it is prob- 
able that most of the scales in question were in use before 
1848. The Barnard scale, as I shall shotv later on, was based 
on measurements of children made as early as 1838. 68 
TABLE X., SHOWING HEIGHT OF DESK, HEIGHT OF CHAIR, AND DIF- 
FERENCE, ACCORDING TO CERTAIN SYSTEMS OF GRADING FIXED 
FURNITURE. 
System. 
Whit- 
comb. 
Ross. 
Wales. 
Mott. 
Barnard. 
Fahrner. 
1. 
3. 
3. 
4. 
5, 
O. 
Scale number 
VII. 
VII. 
I. 
I. 
I. 
I. 
Height of desk 
20.50 
20.50 
20.00 
17.00 
19.50-20 
18.30 
“ “ chair........ 
10.50 
10.00 
10.00 
10.00 
9.50-10 
11.22 
Difference .. 
10.00 
10.50 
10.00 
7.00 
10.00 
7.08 
Scale number 
VI. 
VI. ’ 
II. 
II. 
II. 
II. 
Height of desk 
21.50 
' 21.25 
21.00 
19.00 
20.50-21 
20.07 
“ “ chair 
11.25 
11.00 
11.00 
12.00 
10.50-11 
12.40 
Difference 
10.25 
10.25 
10.00 
7.00 
10.00 
7.67 
Scale number 
V. 
V. 
III. 
III. 
III. 
III. 
Height of desk 
23.00 
22.00 
22.00 
22.00 
22.00 
21.85 
“ “ chair 
12.25 
12.00 
12.00 
14.00 
12.00 
13.58 
Difference 
10.75 
10.00 
10.00 
8.00 
10.00 
8.27 
Scale number 
IV. 
IV. 
IV. 
IV. 
IV. 
IV. 
Height of desk 
24.50 
23.00 
23.00 
24.00 
23.00 
23.62 
“ “ chair 
13.50 
13.00 
13.00 
16.00 
1300 
14.76 
Difference 
11.00 
10.00 
10.00 
8.00 
10.00 
8.86 
III. 
25.50 
14.50 
11.00 
III. 
24.50 
14 no 
V. 
V. 
V. 
Height of desk 
24.00 
14.00 
24.00 
14.00 
10.00 
25.39 
15.94 
9.45 
Difference 
10.50 
10.00 
II. 
27.00 
15.50 
11.50 
II. 
26.00 
15.00 
11.00 
VI. 
25.50 
15.00 
10.50 
VI. 
VI. 
Height of desk 
“ “ chair 
Difference 
25.00 
15.00 
10.00 
27.16 
17.12 
10.04 
I. 
I. 
VII. 
VII. 
VII. 
Height of desk 
“ “ chair 
Difference 
28.50 
16.75 
11.75 
27.50 
16.00 
11.50 
27.00 
16.00 
11.00 
26-50 
16.50 
10.00 
27.75 
17.12 
10.63 69 
System. 
Whit- 
comb. 
Ross. 
Wales. 
Mott. 
Barnard. 
Fahrner. 
Scale number 
Height of desk 
“ “ chair 
1. 
II. extra. 
27.50 
15.50 
12.00 
3. 
». 
VIII. 
28.50 
17.00 
11.50 
4. 
5. 
VIII. 
27.50-28.00 
17.00-17.50 
10.50 
6. 
Scale number 
Height of desk 
“ “ chair 
Difference 
I. extra. 
29.00 
16.75 
12.25 
I. extra. 
29.00 
17.00 
12.00 
. 
TABLE X.— Concluded. 
EARLIEST AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN SCALES. 
The Barnard scale appears to be the first original American 
scale for school-seating, and it is probably fair to say that the 
other American scales given in Table X. were more or less 
directly derived from it. In column 6, I have placed the 
earliest European scale known to me, viz. : that of Dr. 
Fahrner, of Zurich, which is based on his measurements in 
respect to height of 1,789 Zurich school-children, it was 
published at least as early as 1865, possibly in 1863. Like 
most European scales it was intended to be a guide in seating 
children between 6 and 14 years of age. Most American 
scales relate to a wider range of age, e.g., the Whitcomb 
scale for pupils of 5-18, the Barnard scale 4-20. 
I quote from a recent letter received by me from Dr. Henry 
Barnard, of Hartford, Conn., the author of “ School Archi- 
tecture,” and of the scale given in column 5, of the above 
table : “ Yes, the scale of dimensions and respective heights of 
desk and seat for at least eight groups from the ‘ tots ’ up to 
young men and young women, printed on page 343 of my 
‘School Architecture,’ Cincinnati, 1854, [I think identically 
the same as that printed in New York in 1854,] is the final 
results of hundreds of measurements of groups of two to eight 70 
children of about the same age, begun as early as 1838, on a 
challenge that I could not make a scale which would meet 
the varying heights of pupils from four years of age up to 
twenty. The most successful effort was in seating the school- 
rooms described on pages 113,115 [in Windsor and Bloomfield, 
Conn,, respectively]. It was said at the time, 1841-42, that 
every pupil in the school in Windsor when seated for study 
or writing was perfectly comfortable, feet resting on floor, 
and no conscious strain on muscles below or above the 
knee, or in arms or shoulders.” So much cannot be said of 
the majority of Boston school-children to-day. 
Barnard, like Alcott and Horace Mann, approved of a zero 
distance. According to Barnard the desk-slope should be 
one inch in a foot and the back of the seat “ should rise above 
the shoulder-blades, and should in all cases incline back as it 
rises, one inch in every foot.” As to height of seat for little 
children, he notes a point which seems to have been too much 
neglected by his successors. “In a primary school,” he says, 
“ composed of children from four and even three years of age 
to eight or ten, the height [of seats] should vary from 8-12 
inches, and the width (depth)/rom 6-10 inches, and for a school 
for pupils ranging from ten to sixteen years of age, the height 
of the seats should vary from 10-17 inches, and the width 
(depth) from 8-13 inches.” Though Fahrner does not quote 
Barnard, it is clear from citations made by Cohn, Lorenz, and 
others, that Barnard is recognized in Europe as a pioneer in 
school-seating. 
COMPARISON OF AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN SCALES. 
This table is reprinted from my last report. It shows the 
number of pupils at each inch of height, from 41 to 71 inches, 
in the Agassiz District, January, 1893,"and affords a compara- 
tive view of the number of seats of each size required, accord- 
ing to the Whitcomb scale, reduced to terms of height, and the 
standards adopted at Frankfort-on-the-Main, in 1885; bv the 
Prague Commission in Bohemia, in 1892-93; by the Vienna TABLE XL, SHOWING NUMBER OF EACH SIZE OF CHAIRS AND DESKS REQUIRED TO SEAT THE 668 PUPILS RANGING IN HEIGHT FROM 41-71 INCHES IN AGASSIZ DISTRICT, 
1893, ACCORDING TO VARIOUS SCALES BASED ON BODILY HEIGHT. 
Number of pupils at each height 
0 
7 
11 
17 
14 
17 
17 
21 
23 
24 
36 
37 
48 
44 
61 
44 
40 
38 
34 
24 
22 
23 
16 
9 
7 
18 
8 
2 
0 
4 
1 
1 
Height- 
Scale. 
Inches 
40 
41 
42 
43 
44 
45 
46 
47 
48 
49 
50 
51 
52 
53 
54 
55 
56 
57 
58 
59 
60 
61 
62 
63 
64 
65 
66 
67 
68 
69 
70 
71 
Centimeters 
101.6 
104.1 
106.6 
109.2 
111.7 
114.3 
116,8 
119.3 
121.9 
124.4 
127.0 
129.5 
132.0 
134.6 
137.1 
139.7 
142.2 
144.7 
147.3 
149.8 
152.4 
154.9 
157.4 
160.2 
162.5 
165.1 
167.6 
170.1 
172.7 
175.2 
177.8 
180.3 
Whitcomb, Boston, Scale Nos 
No. needed of each size 
No. VII. 
35 
No. VI. 
31 
No. V. 
38 
No. IV. 
120 
No. III. 
153 
No. II. 
180 
No. I. 
77 
No. I., extra large. 
34 
668 
Frankfort Scale Nos. 1885 
No. needed of each size 
No. 0. 
35 
No. I. 
69 
No. II. No. III. 
120 197 
No. IV. 
136 
No. V. 
61 
No. VI. 
34 
No. VII. 
15 
No. VIII. 
1 
668 
Prague Commission’s Scale Nos. 1892-93 . . 
No. needed of each size 
No. I. 
0 
No. II. 
35 
No. III. 
31 
No. IV. 
38 
No. V. 
47 
No. VI. 
121 
No. VII. 
105 
No. VIII. 
84 
No. IX. 
96 
No. X. 
45 
No. XI. 
32 
No. XII. 
34 
668 
Vienna Commission of Expert’s Scale. 1892 . 
No. needed of each size 
No. I. 
66 
No. II. 
85 
No. III. 
121 
No. IV. 
189 
No. V. 
118 
No. VI. 
55 
No. VII. 
28 
No. VIII. 
6 
668 
Bobrick’s Scale. Adjustable seats. 1892 . . . 
No. at each position 
No. I. 
7 
No. 11. 
i 28 
No. III. 
31 
No. IV. 
38 
No. V. 
47 
No. VI. 
73 
No. VII. 
92 
No. VIII. 
105 
No. IX. 
78 
No. X. 
58 
No. XI. 
45 
No. XII. 
25 
, No. XIII. 
25 
No. XIV. 
10 
No. XV. 
4 
No. ? 
2 
668 
Seats actually furnished, Whitcomb’s sizes, in- 
cluding 34 unoccupied 
Difference 
No. VII. 
28 
— 7 
No. VI. 
81 
+ 50 
No. V. 
60 
+ 22 
No. IV. 
156 
+ 36 
No. III. 
141 
— 12 
No. II. 
148 
— 32 
No. I. 
88 
+ 11 
No. I., extra large. 
0 
-34 
702 71 
Commission of Experts ; and by G. A. Bobrick, C.E., of Boston, 
the inventor of a system of adjustable desks and chairs. All 
of the scales, but the last mentioned, relate to furniture fixed 
as to difference, and all of them are based on average bodily 
height as a modulus. The scale-numbers of the Bobrick scale 
stand for positions in which his three sizes of desks and seats 
may be adjusted. It is evident from inspection that adjust- 
able furniture is capable of being much more accurately 
adapted to pupils differing in height. The Frankfort, Prague, 
and Vienna scales are based on careful measurements of large 
numbers of school-children for whose use the variously sized 
desks were intended. 
The height of children of different races and social classes 
varies so widely that the adoption for American children of 
any European height-scale for the purpose of grading school 
seats would almost certainly prove illusory and disap- 
pointing. 
TABLE XII., SHOWING DESK HEIGHT, A; SEAT HEIGHT, B; AND DIF- 
FERENCE, C, CALCULA.TED FOR EACH INCH OF HEIGHT (70-36 INCHES) 
ACCORDING TO (1) EULENBBRG AND BACH, (2) “ COMPOSITE,” AND 
(3) BOBRICK SCALES OF HEIGHT. 
it 
In Inches. 
A. 
Height of Desk 
in Inches. 
It. 
Height of Chair 
in Inches. 
C. 
Difference 
in Inches. 
Height 
in Inches. 
bp 
*o 
w 
1 
2 
3 
1 
2 
3 
I 
2 
3 
70 
30.990 
30.797 
30.800 
19.090 
19.894 
20.020 
11.900 
10.902 
10.780 
.. 70 
09 
30.547 
30.357 
30.360 
18.817 
19.610 
19.734 
11.730 
10.746 
10.626 
.. 69 
68 
30.104 
30.917 
29.920 
18.544 
19.326 
19.448 
11.560 
10.590 
10.472 
.. 68 
67 
29.662 
29.477 
29.480 
18.272 
19.042 
19.162 
11.390 
10.434 
10.318 
.. 67 
66 
29.219 
29.037 
29.040 
17.999 
18.757 
18.876 
11.220 
10.278 
10.164 
.. 66 
65 
28.776 
28.597 
28.600 
17.726 
18.473 
18.590 
11.050 
10.122 
10.010 
. 66 
64 
28.334 
28.157 
28.160 
17.454 
18.189 
18.304 
10.880 
9.966 
9.856 
.. 64 
63 
27.891 
27.717 
27.720 
17.181 
17.905 
18.018 
10.710 
9.810 
9.702 
.. 63 
62 
27.448 
27.277 
27.280 
16.908 
17.621 
17.732 
10.540 
9.654 
9.548 
.. 62 
61 
27.005 
26.837 
26.840 
16.636 
17.336 
17.446 
10.370 
9.498 
9.394 
.. 61 
60 
26.563 
26.397 
26.400 
16.363 
17.052 
17.160 
10.200 
9.342 
9.240 
.. 60 72 
TABLE XII. Concluded. 
it 
in Inches. 
A. 
Height of Desk 
in Inches. 
It. 
Height of Chair 
in Inches. 
C. 
Difference 
in Inches. 
It 
in Inches. 
bp 
S 
w 
1 
a 
it 
1 
a 
3 
1 
a 
3 
"o 
W 
59 •••• 
26.120 
26.957 
25.960 
16.090 
16,768 
16.874 
10.030 
9.186 
9.086 
.. 6J 
68 
25.677 
25.517 
25.520 
15.817 
16.483 
16.588 
9.860 
9.030 
8.932 
.. 55 
67 
25.235 
25.077 
25.080 
15.545 
16.199 
16.302 
9.690 
8.874 
8.778 
.. 6 
56 
24.792 
24.637 
24.640 
15.272 
15.915 
16.016 
9.520 
8.718 
8.624 
.. 5( 
56 
24.349 
24.197 
24.200 
14.999 
15.631 
15.730 
9.350 
8.562 
8.470 
.. 6, 
54 
23.906 
23.757 
23.760 
14.726 
15.347 
15.444 
9.180 
8.406 
8.316 
.. 54 
63 
23.464 
23.317 
23.320 
14.454 
15.063 
15.158 
9.010 
8.250 
8.162 
.. s; 
52 
23.021 
22.877 
22.880 
14.181 
14.778 
14.872 
8.840 
8.094 
8.008 
.. 6; 
61 
22.578 
22.437 
22.440 
13.908 
14.494 
14.586 
8.670 
7.838 
7.854 
.. 5 
50 
22.136 
21.998 
22.000 
13.636 
14.210 
14.300 
8.500 
7.782 
7.700 
.. 6( 
49 
21.693 
21.558 
21.560 
13.363 
13.926 
14.014 
8.330 
7.626 
7.546 
.. a 
48 
21.250 
21.118 
21.120 
13.090 
13.641 
13.728 
8.160 
7.470 
7.392 
.. 4S 
47 
20.807 
20.678 
20.680 
12.817 
13.357 
13.442 
7.990 
7.314 
7.238 
.. V 
46 ..... 
20.365 
20.238 
20.240 
12.545 
13.073 
13.156 
7.820 
7.158 
7.084 
.. 4( 
45 
19.922 
19.798 
19.800 
12.272 
12.789 
12.870 
7.650 
7.002 
6.930 
.. 41 
44 
19.479 
19.358 
19.360 
11.999 
12.505 
12.584 
7.480 
6.846 
6.776 
.. 4 
43 
19.036 
18.918 
18.920 
11.726 
12.220 
12.298 
7.310 
6.690 
6.622 
.. 4f 
42 
18.594 
18.478 
18.480 
11.454 
11.936 
12.012 
7.140 
6.534 
6.468 
.. 45 
41 ...... 
18.151 
18.038 
18.040 
11.181 
11.652 
11.726 
6.970 
6.378 
6.314 
.. 41 
40 
17.708 
17.598 
17.600 
10.908 
11.368 
11.440 
6.800 
6.222 
6.160 
.. 4( 
39 
17.266 
17.158 
17.160 
10.636 
11.084 
11.154 
6.630 
6.066 
6.006 
.. 3! 
38 
16.823 
16.718 
16.720 
10.363 
10.799 
10.868 
6.460 
5.910 
5.852 
.. 3* 
37 
16.380 
16.278 
16.280 
10.090 
10.515 
10.682 
6.290 
5.754 
5.698 
.. 3" 
36 . ... 
15.937 
15.838 
15.840 
9.817 
10.231 
10.296 
6.120 
5.598 
5.544 
.. 3( 
The above table is constructed to show the variation in 
height of desk, height of chair, and difference presented by 
three different modern scales based on total height of the 
body. I have calculated the heights and differences set forth 
in this table, according to three distinct hut similar formulae, 
viz., (1) that of Eulenberg and Bach (see p. 172); (2) that 
which I have termed “ Composite,” which is compounded from the rules set clown by several careful writers; and (3) the 
formula adopted by Bobrick. The figures in this table pur- 
porting to correspond to the Bobrick scale are not identical 
with those found in his published scale, in which he has made 
use of a coefficient of correction, thereby following certain 
European scales, e.g., Erismann’s, Fahrners, and Uffelmann’s. 
The figures set down in the columns marked 1, 2, and 8 
were obtained by using the formula; above designated as (1) 
(2) and (3) respectively. Those formulae may be expressed 
as follows: 
(1) Height of desk = 44.272 per cent, of total height. 
(2) “ “ = 43.996 “ “ “ 
(3) “ “ =44.000 “ “ “ 
(1) “ of seat = 27.272 “ “ “ 
(2) “ “ = 28.421 “ “ “ 
(3) “ “ =28.600 “ “ . “ 
(1) Difference =17.000 “ “ “ 
(2) “ =15.575 “ “ “ 
(3) “ = 15.400 
The table serves, to my mind, to show the difficulty of using 
average heights as an accurate criterion in determining the 
dimensions of desk and chair for either fixed or semi-adjusta- 
ble furniture. With fixed furniture, however, we must be con- 
tent with scales of this nature in grading the sizes of desks 
and chairs; but, as I have already remarked, only approxi- 
mately accurate seating can be obtained with fixed furniture. 
The ratio of height of knee and the ratio of height of elbow 
(in the sitting posture) to total height varies markedly in the 
two sexes, and at different ages in the same sex. So much 
do these ratios vary that I am convinced that scientific accu- 
racy of seating (which is what the designers of adjustable 
and semi-adjustable furniture profess to offer us) is not at- 
tainable unless the height of knee, elbow, etc., are taken, as 
well as the total height, in each individual case as the data 
for prescribing the height of seat and desk. 74 
SCALE ADOPTED BY THE PRAGUE COMMISSION. 
The table of normal dimensions of desks and seats for 
pupils ranging between 95-165 centimeters in height and 6- 
14 years in age adopted by the Prague commission of experts 
m 1892-98, is introduced below as it is the latest, and in 
some respects the fullest and most suggestive that has come 
under my notice. TABLE XIII., SHOWING NORMAL DIMENSIONS i OF DESKS AND SEATS 1.-XIL, GRADED ACCORDING TO RECOMMENDATIONS 
OF PRAGUE EXPERT COMMISSION ON SCHOOL-SEATING, 1892-93. 
Desk Numbbb. 
1. 
II. 
III. 
IV. 
V. 
VI. 
VII. 
VIII. 
IX. 
X. 
XI. 
XII. 
1. 
Age of pupil 
G. 
7. 
7. 
8. 
8. 
9. 
9. 
11. 
11. 
13. 
13. 
14. 
2. 
Height of pupil 
95-104 
105-110 
111-116 
117-122 
123-128 
129-134 
135-140 
141-146 
147-152 
153-158 
159-164 
165+ 
3. 
Height of desk, corresponding to M D plus C 
in Fig. 1 
52 
53 
56 
59 
61 
63 
66 
68 
70 
72 
75 
78 
4. 
Height of seat, corresponding to 0 in Fig. 1.... 
29 
30 
32 
34 
35 
36 
38 
40 
41 
42 
44 
46 
5. 
Negative distance 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
6. 
Positive distance, corresponding to space D 
in Fig. 1 
8 
8 
8 
8 
8 
8 
8 
8 
8 
8 
8 
8 
7. 
Difference between desk and book-shelf, cor- 
responding to Z in Fig. 1 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
12 
12 
12 
12 
12 
13 
13 
8. 
Difference, corresponding to M D in Fig. 1.... 
23 
23 
24 
25 
26 
27 
28 
29 
29 
30 
31 
32 
9. 
Inclination of desk, M to L in Fig. 1 
18» 
180 
180 
180 
180 
180 
180 
18° 
180 
180 
180 
180 
10. 
Inclination of back of seat, J P in Fig. 1 
10“ 
100 
100 
100 
100 
100 
100 
100 
100 
100 
100 
10° 
11. 
Inclination of seat, E in Fig. 1 
8» 
80 
8° 
80 
80 
80 
80 
80 
80 
80 
8° 
80 
12. 
Depth of seat, E in Fig. 1 
23 
23 
24 
24 
25 
25 
26 
27 
28 
29 
30 
31 
13. 
Width of open space between seat and lower 
edge of back support 
12 
12 
13 
13 
14 
14 
14 
14 
15 
15 
15 
16 
1 The 
dimensions given in this table are given in centimeters. 76 
SEXUAL DIFE'ERENCES IN RESPECT TO HEIGHT. 
Fahrner recommended a “ difference ” of one-eighth of the 
total height for boys, and one-seventh for girls, on account of 
the “ bunchiness ”of the girls’ clothing. But I feel convinced 
from my own observations and from my study of heights and 
lengths of various parts of the bony framework of the body 
as set forth by other observers (Dr. D. A. Sargent’s anthro- 
pometrical charts have been of especial service to me in this 
connection) that there is a deeper reason for thinking that 
different height-scales should be used in seating boys and 
girls respectively. 
Females have relatively longer trunks and shorter lower 
limbs than males; hence girls can sit in lower chairs and write 
comfortably at somewhat higher desks than can boys of the 
same total height. Furthermore both the arms and forearms 
of females are relatively as well as absolutely shorter than 
those of males; hence a seat placed at a plus, zero, or insuf- 
ficient minus distance from its desk is calculated to pro- 
duce weariness, distortion, and deformity more readily in the 
case of girls than of boys. In the inevitable and unequal con- 
test between the force of gravity and muscular exertion which 
results from unhygienic seating (when average height with- 
out discrimination as to sex is used as the modulus) the ill- 
seated girl is placed at a greater disadvantage than the 
ill-seated boy of the same height. Hence I am led to think 
that one reason for the occurrence of a larger percentage of 
cases of curvature of the spine among schoolgirls than 
among (and scoliosis is now generally recognized 
as a school-disease) is to be found in the fact that the legs and 
arms of girls are shorter than those of boys of corresponding 
height. So far as I can learn no writer has called attention 
to this fact, hitherto, as a reason for the greater liability of 
girls to scoliosis, but the fact, if it shall be established by 
wider investigations, is none the less worthy of consideration 
on that account, I should say. 77 
INDIVIDUAL MEASUREMENTS VERSUS AVERAGE HEIGHT- 
SCALES. 
Furthermore, in determining the difference between desk- 
height and seat-height for children of different heights and 
ages, it must not be forgotten that the legs, ue., knee-heights 
of young children of both sexes, are relatively less in propor- 
tion to their total height than is the case in adolescents or 
adults. This fact also seems to me to militate against the 
value of scales based simply on average heights, as is the 
usual custom when scales are employed. Therefore I have 
given some thought to devising a measuring-chair by means 
of which we can secure the data requisite for prescribing ac- 
curately the height of desk, height of seat, and depth of seat 
for every child to whom an adjustable desk and chair are as- 
signed. Such a chair, which I propose to call the Boston 
School Measuring-chair, is now in course of construction at 
our Mechanic Arts High School. If this chair shall prove a 
convenient means of securing a more accurate adjustment of 
our adjustable desks and chairs to their occupants it will be 
placed at the disposal of the public; but first of all at the 
disposal of the Boston School Committee for use in our own 
schools. In any event I desire to express my obligation to 
Dr. H. P. Bowditch, Professor of Physiology in the Harvard 
Medical School; to Mr. Charles W. Parmenter, head-master ; 
and Mr. Benjamin F. Eddy, instructor in the Mechanic 
Arts High School, for valuable aid and suggestions in per- 
fecting the design and construction of the chair, which is 
figured and described below. I may add that, though I have 
found mention of chairs used for a similar purpose in Frank- 
fort-on-the-Marn, and in Prague, I have not been able to 
find any serviceable description of them. It is quite possible 
that by means of the Boston School Measuring-chair, should 
its use become general, we shall be enabled to secure suffi- 
cient data for constructing a more satisfactory system of scales 
than any which are in use at present, in connection with 
either fixed or adjustable .furniture. 78 
BOSTON SCHOOL MEASURING-CHAIR. 
Figure 9 is a reproduction of the working drawing used 
in the construction of the Boston School Measuring-chair. 
The framework of the chair is not adjustable. The seat B, 
the foot-board A, the 
arm-rest C, and the 
cap-pieces D and F 
are adjustable. The 
seat B is placed 80 
inches above the floor 
to enable the observer 
to read the metric 
scales (not shown in 
the figure), without 
his having to crouch. 
The steps G are for 
the use of the sitter in 
mounting the chair, 
A being a foot-rest 
and not a step. The 
seat B is made to slide 
forwards and back- 
wards, so that its front 
edge can be brought 
into contact with the 
posterior surface of 
the leg, in the hollow 
of the knee, where 
the leg makes a right 
Fisube 9. 
angle with the thigh in the knee-joint. The feet are to be 
placed flat upon the foot-board A, which can be raised and 
lowered by a rotary motion. The arm-rest C can also be 
raised and lowered to provide a firm support to the under 
surface of the forearm, when the latter makes a right angle in 
the elbow-joint with the arm of the sitter. The vertically 79 
sliding cap-pieces D and F are used in determining sitting 
and standing height respectively. 
When the occupant of the chair sits erect, having his back 
against the back of the chair, his feet resting flat upon A, 
the posterior surface of his leg (which is flexed at a right 
angle to the thigh) being in contact with the front edge of the 
seat B, his forearm (which is bent upon the arm at a right 
angle in the elbow-joint) being supported by C, and the cap 
D resting lightly upon his head, the observer has but to note 
the following distances to secure the data requisite for pre- 
scribing the dimensions of the seat best adapted to meet the 
individual needs of the sitter. Those distances are: (1) 
the distance of the under surface of D to the upper 
surface of B, which equals sitting height; (2) the distance 
between the upper surfaces of A and B, which equals height of 
knee; (3) the distance between the front edge of B and the 
back of the chair, which equals depth of seat; and (4) the 
distance between the upper surfaces of B and C, which 
equals the difference, which being added to A B, height of 
seat, gives the height of desk. The height of desk may be di- 
rectly deduced from the height of C above the foot-rest. The 
height of lumbar back-rest is easily determined by noting (on 
a metric scale placed on the middle pillar of the chair-back) 
the height of the lower ribs and of the upper border of the 
pelvis. 
The measurements of each child observed being recorded by 
the master, or other competent observer, on a specially printed 
card, which bears the name, class, and number of the child, 
that card will serve for the accurate guidance of the janitor 
in adjusting the seat and desk assigned to the child, until the 
growth of the child necessitates remeasurement and a new card. 
For adjusting the semi-adjustable furniture now in use in our 
schools, it is necessary to know only the distances A B and B C 
in each case. If we shall ever have completely adjustable chairs, 
the measuring-chair will enable us to secure all the data requi- 
site for prescribing their proper use. It is conceiveable that 80 
the janitors, through training and practice, may become com- 
petent to measure the children as well as to adjust their seats 
and desks. 
Whatever course is pursued, whether we cling to the scales 
now in use, or determine the height of knee, and difference in 
the case of each individual; it will be found necessary, I be- 
lieve, for the School Committee, through the appropriate sub- 
committees, to ordain certain rules and directions for the 
guidance of teachers and janitors in the seating of pupils. 
NEED OF EXPERT COMMISSION. 
American adjustable furniture is not automatically adjust- 
able like the most highly developed forms of European school- 
desks, since the pupil has no control over their adjustment 
devices which relate almost entirely to adjustment for differ- 
ence ; and since adjustable furniture strictly speaking should 
be adjustable in other points no less important, our adjust- 
able desks and chairs should be termed “semi-adjustable,” it 
seems to me. The failure of American manufacturers of 
school furniture, hitherto, to keep pace with their European 
confreres seems to be largely due to the fact that they have 
received but little aid and stimulus from the studies and 
recommendations of American surgeons, oculists, mechanical 
engineers, and school officials, all of whom have devoted 
comparatively little attention to the problem of school-seat- 
ing. So far as I know we have never had a Committee of 
Experts on School Desks and Chairs in America. Our 
adjustable furniture is still in the stage of transition and 
tentative experiment. All of our leading inventors and 
manufacturers in this line have put forth and discarded 
some style or device within the last three years, and I am 
led to believe that all of them have valuable improvements 
under consideration or nearly ready for adoption. 
This condition of things makes it seem not unlikely that 
an adjustable desk and seat which shall deserve the appellation 
of “ hygienic ” may be evolved in the United States within 81 
the next ten years, especially if scientific experts can be in- 
duced to lend their aid in determining the dimensions and 
proportions of such furniture. But there is abundant evi- 
dence, it seems to me, that the time has not yet arrived for 
the general adoption of adjustable school-desks by the city of 
Boston or the cities of Massachusetts. Meanwhile let school 
authorities, medical and mechanical experts, and manufact- 
urers take concerted action, in order that that time may be 
hastened ! 
No thoroughly accurate and adequate scale for determining 
the proper range of height in grading seats for Massachusetts 
children can be made until large numbers of city and country 
children in different parts of the State have been measured 
and remeasured in respect to total-'and knee-height. The 
preparation and promulgation of such a scale might well be 
undertaken by a Massachusetts School Desk Commission, 
should such a commission be organized. It is hardly likely 
that the manufacturers and vendors of school-furniture will 
ever engage in an undertaking so purely scientific. 
Meanwhile I believe that a thorough-going investigation 
into the present state of the seating of the pupils in all our 
schools is called for, so that the fixed furniture now in use 
may be used to the best advantage under the circumstances. 
To facilitate and guide the redistribution of fixed seats, and 
to serve as a basis for drawing up a clear and concise code of 
recommendations and regulations for the guidance of teachers 
and janitors in the assortment and adjustment of the adjustable 
furniture now in use, and likely to be purchased in the near 
future, I hold that such measurements as were made by Dr. 
H. P. Bowditch twenty years ago, in 18T5, should be repeated 
on a larger scale. 
On the main question of school-seating the School Com- 
mittee if it does not feel inclined to appoint a sub committee 
to decide so intricate a question, would find ample justifica- 
tion in the example of the cities of Frankfort, Prague, 
Vienna, and Zurich should it secure the cooperation of the 82 
necessary experts by the appointment of a school-desk com- 
mission. There never has been such a commission in the 
United States, but there is need of one here and now. The 
city or State which moves first in the matter will deserve 
the thanks of school managers, school-children, and the tax- 
payers throughout the country. 
Edward Mussey Hartwell, 
Director of Physical Training.