In the development of the system it was soon found that diversity of method was very prejudicial to progress, which led to attempts at regulation of the methods and instruments by schools, by national, and finally by international agreements. Unfortunately, the earlier agreements conflicted, in consequence of which a great deal of work was lost. Up to the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, the system of Broca or the French school was almost universal; after the war, however, the rapidly growing tendency in Germany for individualism did not spare anthropometry. In 1874 the first proposals in this direction were made by Prof. Ihering to the Congress of the German anthropological societies. In 1877 a Craniometric Conference was held on this subject at Munich, and still another took place in 1880 in Berlin. The outcome of the deliberations at these conferences was a scheme drawn up by Professors Kollman, Ranke, and Virchow, which was submitted for consideration to the 13th General Congress of the German Anthropological Society, held at Frankfort-on-Main in 1882. The scheme was adopted and designated as the "Frankfort Agreement." It introduced new nomenclature and other modifications, with unfortunate results. Henceforth there were the "French School" and the "German School" of anthropometry. But the new system did not prevail and the need of an international unification of methods began to be felt.
One of the first attempts at an international unification of anthropometric measurements was made in the early 90's in Paris, by Dr. R. Collignon.2 The effort was made in connection with certain anthropometric studies planned by him at that time, and consisted in his sending to various anthropologists of prominence in as well as outside of France certain propositions, with a request for their critique and opinion. The effort, while favored in France, remained that of an individual, and led to nothing definite.
A much more promising, yet in the end quite as fruitless effort for unification of anthropometric methods was made at the occasion of the Twelfth International Congress of Prehistoric Anthropology and Archeology, held in August of 1892, at Moscow. Two commissions were appointed for the purpose (see p. 6), but they accomplished nothing substantial. The interest in the subject was however well aroused by this time, and the anthropologists meeting in 1906 with the XHIth International Congress of Prehistoric Anthropology and Archeology in Monaco, undertook seriously and in a large measure successfully the formation of an International Agreement on Anthropometry. The work thus auspiciously begun was continued by the anthropologists meeting with the XlVth Congress, in 1912, at Geneva. The task thus undertaken is not yet finished; but what has been done furnishes a sound and large nucleus for further developments. At the occasion of the XVIIIth International Congress of Americanists, at London, in 1912, foundations were laid for the formation of an international association of anthropologists, and one of the essential features of such an association must be a permanent International Anthropometric Board, which will deal with all questions relating to the harmonization of anthropometric methods, instruments, and procedures.
The results in anthropometric unification thus far attained are embodied in two reports, published originally in French in 1906, and in the French, English and German in 1912. As these agreements are of fundamental importance to every worker in physical anthropology, and as they are not as readily available as desirable, they will be here republished. In translating the French report of 1906 there were found a number of points which needed a few words of explanation and this report, therefore, is annotated.
