earlier date in the average Native than in the average European then it
simply means that the Native reaches maturity slightly earlier than the
average white man.

The loss of mental alertness which is said by some to be peculiar to the
Natives at the time of puberty is very often met with in the European
youth or girl at that period of life. Competent observers have of late
years come to the conclusion that this supposed falling off in
intelligence, in so far as it may differ in degree from what has so
often been noticed in European boys and girls at that point of
development, is due to psychological and not to physiological causes. It
is realised that this lapse in mental power of concentration in European
youth in the stage of early adolescence is prevented by the force of
example and fear of parental and general reprobation coupled with
unbroken school-discipline, all of which factors are as yet seldom
present in the surroundings of the average Bantu boy or girl.

The outward ethnic differentiæ of the Bantu are admittedly palpable and
patent to everyone, but in the opinion of competent observers there is
nothing in the anatomy of the black man to make him a lower beast than
the man with the white skin. It is now seen that there is no apparent
relation between complexion or skull shape and intelligence, but while
this is so there appears to be a correlation between the size of the
brain and the number of cells and fibres of which it is made up,
although this correlation is so weak as to be difficult of
demonstration.[6]

The capacity of the normal human cranium varies from 1,000 cubic
centimetres to 1,800 cubic centimetres, the mean capacity of female
crania being 10 per cent. less than the mean of male crania. On this