While the effect of weather has been
generally recognized by superintendents and teachers and directors of
prisons and asylums, and even by banks, which in London do not permit
clerks to do the more important bookkeeping during very foggy days,
the statistical estimates of its effect in general need larger numbers
for more valuable determinations. Temperature is known to have a very
distinct effect upon crime, especially suicide and truancy. Workmen do
less in bad weather, blood pressure is modified, etc.[8]
In his study of truancy, Kline[9] starts with the assumption that the
maximum metabolism is always consciously or unconsciously sought, and
that migrations are generally away from the extremes of hot and cold
toward an optimum temperature. The curve of truancies and runaways
increases in a marked ratio at puberty, which probably represents the
age of natural majority among primitive people. Dislike of school, the
passion for out-of-door life, and more universal interests in man and
nature now arise, so that runaways may be interpreted as an
instinctive rebellion against limitations of freedom and unnatural
methods of education as well as against poor homes. Hunger is one of
its most potent, although often unconscious causes.
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