But what help could their study render us in the question whether a particular child ought or ought not to be admitted into a class for defectives? There is an opinion which is very widespread, especially amongst teachers and ordinary people, a souvenir of the doctrines of Gall, that the physical stigmata are signs of the original character, and that the possessor of a certain shape of head is certainly defective. "I have taken my son," a worthy mother said to us, "to consult Dr. P., because he was learning nothing in his class. He was sent away from every school I sent him to, and he is unbearable at home. The doctor felt all over his head. He evidently saw that there was something particular wrong with the boy." We do not smile at this good mother. Plenty of other intelligent people hold her opinions, if they are not so naïve in their language. They expect that the moment defective children are brought before them, they will find something peculiar, something ugly, in their physiognomy. And there are plenty of doctors, let us say frankly, who are equally naïve, and, more serious still, allow themselves to be influenced by unconscious suggestions. If, like our worthy mother, we present to the doctor a child as defective, the doctor will, as a general rule, have no difficulty in demonstrating that he must be so. How many of us are there without stigmata? None of us is built upon the model of the ideal man. It is always possible to discover some anatomical detail which will give support to a preconceived opinion. But the same doctor who, on seeing a defective child with adherent ear lobes, will say that that was just what he expected, will abruptly change his opinion if he discovers a whorl of frontal hair on a child who is presented to him as normal, and will refuse to attach to the fact any importance whatever. As a matter of fact, these questions have not yet been studied as they ought to be, by a comparison without _parti pris_ between normal and abnormal children of the same age and in the same environment, and we do not yet know how stigmata should be interpreted. We can only suggest some provisional conclusions. The first of these conclusions is that the presence or absence of a definite stigma has no exact significance for the individual who bears it; for on the one hand one meets with all kinds of malformations in average normal children, and on the other hand, some who are definitely abnormal are quite normal in their conformation. The stigma, therefore, has not the value of a definitely pathognomonic sign like the crepitating râle of pneumonia, or the transient unconsciousness of epilepsy; but if we compare a group of normal children with a group of abnormal, the total number of the stigmata will be much greater in the second group; and, moreover, the multiplicity of stigmata in a single individual constitutes a strong probability that that individual is abnormal. Here are some facts which support these two propositions: