"There is absolutely no relation between intelligence and stature."

While it’s true that taller people aren’t necessarily smarter than shorter people, that would seem to be the only correct scientific fact presented by Dr. Charles E. Woodruff in this January 6, 1901 article from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. An excerpt:

“From investigations among soldiers and from the literature on the subject, there is no doubt in my own mind that if a man’s development is so unstable that he has physical stigmata, he is invariably of bad physical development also. As far as I know, there are few, if any, cases of abnormal minds in average bodies devoid of stigmata. It is a fair inference, then, that if a man’s body is nearly an average in all respects–height, weight, proportions, etc.–there must also be an average brain, and, therefore, a normal mind–excluding. of course, normal men who have acquired insanity. Beyond this we dare not go, for there is absolutely no relation between intelligence and stature. Men of genius may be big, like Bismarck, or little, like Napoleon or Da Costa, and the same may be said of the feeble-minded as well as those of average intelligence. George Washington’s physical measurements are said to have been identical with those of Jeffries, the giant pugilist. Other illustrations might be given indefinitely.

It is true that the human brain weight depends upon the body weight, for the muscles require many brain cells. In like manner the sparrow needs but a few grains of brain, while the whale and the elephant must have more than man. Yet the indescribable and immeasurable variable called intelligence depends upon other things in addition to weight of brain, and the increased stature consists of tissue which may not and probably does not, have any bearing on intelligence.

A big physique, with immense reserve power and endurance, is a decided element in forcing men to the front in the struggle of life. This is in accordance with recent investigations among Chicago school children, which are said to show that the best scholars in any class are apparently bigger than the rest. Hence, other things being equal, the big men, having an advantage, should have a larger percentage of their number successful than the little men. Yet, statistics show the very opposite, for Lambroso mentions (“Man of Genius,” page 6) but twenty-six great men of tall stature, while he names fifty-nine who are short, some of them being even dwarfish or less than five feet in height. As the anomalies of height are equally distributed to each side of the mean, there must be some tremendously active cause to make the little men more than twice as brilliant as the big. The two classes, being equally removed from the average, should be equally abnormal mentally.”