St. Landry democrat., 1893-06-24
AMERICAN TYPES.
Male and Female Forms Modelled in
Clay for the Worlds fair.

Male and Female FORMS Modelled in
Clay for the Worlds fair,
Under the dexterous hands of Sculptor
Harry kitson and of Boston's favorite
girl st,iirtt't, Miss Theo Ruggles, two
figures arc growing "p in clay in a
Boylston street studio, says 81 Boston
correspondent. They are remarkable
coGpls IF figures, for they represent the
typical American ft.alc and female forms
of the present day. This g the first at
tempt made to represent in sculpttrs the
typical form of a whole people and it is
the result Of long labor on the part Of DR..
D. A. Sargent nf Harvard, Director of
the Hemingway Gymnasium. The gene
ses Ct this modern Adam and Eve which
Mr.. Kitson and Miss Hugglcs arc shaping
out of the original CLAY Sc as follows:
They are the result of measurements
carefully taken by the most approved
archaeological methods of no less than
ten thouSand different persons, nearly all
of them in the blooh Of youth, that is
between eighteen and twenty FIVE years
Of age, and the great majority of them
college students, five thousand Harvard
graduates alohe having been measured
for the male statue. A number Of meas
.lrements of students Of other colleges
and 4 fsw Of professional athletes have
been used. There Gre little less than
five thousand measurements Of ladies,
and they are from Harvard AnneSs
Smith, Nassar, Wellesley and other
female institutions of learning.
ESot cipoo tESn tboco ,,oocurau,o re of
Hazard men have been piIing up in the
Archives Of the gymnasium and the
work represented BY the order which
Director Sargent submitted to Mr. Kitson
has been simply stupendous. Sixtyshve
different measurements have to be taken
of every individual! before he is con-
sidered to have been measured at all,
and these siXty-tive measurements have
been taken of every one of the 10000
people represented by the two figures.
The measurements include the girth of
head; neck, trunk, arms and legs, each
in a number of different places, the
length of the body and limbs, both
standing and sitting, and part OF other
dimensions too numerous to mention.
Then the sxty-f measurements of the
10000 people are classified and the mean
obtained of each one of the sixty-fve. A
mean, be it noted, is not at all the
same as an average. The mean is
instead, the instance that is found
most frequently, for instance, if more
Of the 5000 men are just GS inches tall
than there are of any other height, sixty
eight inches, the mean, is taken. BY
this method of calculation the extremes
do not count, and the true normal type
is unaffected by the freaks and eccen-
tricities in which even mother nature at
times INDUCES. Scarcely an individual
has filled the measurements of the type
In more particulars aud great multi
tude, of course, have not q single one
of the measurements Of the typical
figures.
The faces are taken from composite
photographs. Some 800 faces of young
men will be represented in the face of
the male figure, and about as large
number in that of the female The fe-
male face is that of a composite repre-
senting number of separate composites
from the different female colleges al
ready enumerated The face of the
male figure, which is bcardless, is a COM
posite of Harvard men, REINFORCED by
composites from Amherst, Bowdoin and
other colleges. The figures are for the
Worlds Fair. They will be completed
early next month. Replicas in various
materials will be furnished to all muse
ums and other institutions that may wish
to possess them.