The physical effects of such underfeeding cannot be easily
overestimated. No fact has been more thoroughly established than the
physical superiority of the children of the well-to-do classes over
their less fortunate fellows. In Moscow, N.V. Zark, a famous Russian
authority, found that at all ages the boys attending the Real schools
and the Classical Gymnasium are superior in height and weight to peasant
boys.[54] In Leipzic, children paying 18 marks school fees are superior
in height and weight to those paying only 9, and gymnasium boys are
superior to those of the lower Real and Burger schools.[55] Studies in
Stockholm and Turin show the same general results, the poorer children
being invariably shorter, lighter, and smaller of chest. The British
Anthropometric Committee found that English boys at ten in the
Industrial Schools were 3.31 inches shorter and 10.64 pounds lighter
than children of the well-to-do classes, while at fourteen years the
differences in height and weight were 6.65 inches and 21.85 pounds,
respectively.[56] Dr. Charles W. Roberts gives some striking results of
the examination of 19,846 English boys and men.[57] Of these, 5915
belong to the non-laboring classes of the English population, namely,
public school boys, naval and military cadets, medical and university
students. The remaining 13,931 belong to the artisan class. The
difference in height, weight, and chest girth, from thirteen to sixteen
years of age, is as follows:—