For the purposes of this study my co-workers and I selected a public school in the city of New York, having 1,000 pupils in excellent health and social surroundings. The children, the school and the equipment are the best we have ever seen. The neighborhood is comparatively quiet. In several other schools in which the children have been examined during the past two years, the percentages of deafness have been greater than, and in some cases double, those found in this school.
What is the best method for examining the hearing of school children? To determine this, Drs. Douglas McFarland of Philadelphia, Horace Newhart of Minneapolis, F. W. Bock of Rochester and I have coöperated with Harvey Fletcher of the Bell Telephone Laboratories, New York. After repeated tests in various rooms and under various acoustic conditions, the whispered voice changing in loudness or with distance from was pupils