In the not very remote past, public health and medical care programs have been dominated by the concept of mortality, a concept not enlightening with reference to child health since mortality is lowest in childhood. The findings of this study seem instead to reinforce the views that disease in adulthood is often brought about by the cumulative effects over a long period of time of many pathologic conditions, many incidents, some of which take place and are even perceived in early infancy. Consequently, the more information that is available, in concrete and well-defined terms, of the individual''s past and present health, the more surely can his future physical status be estimated. It is imperative for our national concern to guard to the utmost the health of children On 7 paper and in theory this is a view which all have accepted for some time. Actually, in many respects, lack of forethought, lack of planning, or even mistaken notions of execution of plans have apparently prevented the full realization of such a concept. Now it becomes even more essential to pass from theory to practice, to arrive at a definite formulation of what school medical examinations should consist of, what their objectives ought to be, and, more important, to what end the findings are to be used. School medical examinations have in general been characterized by cursoriness and superficiality, but they have produced a usable fund of information, even though the results are limited in scope and often less than precise. If it be true, as few will deny, that the need for competent, healthy, physically fit young men is now and will be, for some years, at an alltime high, then this need must be explicity recognized and satisfied. Satisfaction of this need involves acquiring information on all significant early (and especially remediable) defects, employing accurate measures of functional status, recording the pertinent information in objective and permanent form so as to serve as both a medical history and a basis for the evaluation of therapeutics, and finally, it involves the necessary corrective work. In these ways it would seem possible to attain not only effective prevention of damage from disease but also effective upbuilding of national physical status.