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DEFICIENT CHILDREN 
 
 Being an application of the binet 
 
 scale of intelligence to the 
 
 backward children in the bloom- 
 
 ington. indiana, public schools. 
 
 SUBMITTED AS PART REQUIREMENT FOR 
 
 DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN 
 
 THE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION. 
 
 INDIANA UNIVERSITY 
 
 19 14 
 
 BY 
 
 MAE C. TROVILLION 
 
 With Charts and Tables. 
 
 HERRIN, ILLINOIS 
 THE HERRIN NEWS 
 1914 
 
[• > 
 
 A^\ 
 
 < t 
 
 . . . 
 
 * • • • * 
 
TO 
 
 ELMER ELLSWORTH JONES. Ph. D. 
 
 UNDER WHOSE SCHOLARLY GUIDANCE 
 THIS WORK WAS PREPARED 
 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The work of testing the defective 
 children of the Bloomington graded 
 schools was begun in January 1914 
 and was completed in May of the 
 same year. Out of the total number 
 of 1778 school children 286 were 
 found to be defective, mentally. The 
 Binet-Simon scale was used in the 
 form in which it was revised by Dr. 
 Henry H. Goddard, of the Training 
 School of Vineland, New Jersey. 
 From the teacher of each room was 
 secured a list of the children whom 
 she found to be, or at least suspect- 
 ed them to be, subnormal and unable 
 to cope with the intelligence of the 
 average child. The cloak rooms of 
 the different buildings were turn- 
 ed into minature clinics, each of 
 which was fitted up with a table, 
 two chairs, and the different pieces 
 of apparatus used in making the 
 
tests. As soon as one child was test- 
 ed, he was asked to tell the next child 
 on the list to come down to the room. 
 The average time taken to test the 
 younger children was twenty minutes, 
 and usually from thirty to thirty- 
 five minutes was consumed in testing 
 the larger ones. 
 
 The directions for giving the tests 
 were followed as closely as deemed 
 necessary, but at the same time I 
 used my own judgment as to the exact 
 method of procedure with each indi- 
 vidual child. My first concern with 
 the pupil was to gain his or her con- 
 fidence. This kindly and friendly re- 
 lation once established, the child will 
 give you any amount of information 
 you wish, — that is, the majority will 
 re-act in this way. The average 
 child is anxious and glad to tell you 
 everything about himself, his father, 
 his mother, his brothers, sisters, dog, 
 or anything else, providing you first 
 gain his confidence and can make 
 him feel that it is he, more than any 
 one else in whom you are most in- 
 terested at that particularly moment. 
 
 II 
 
One correction should be made in 
 this introduction concerning the 
 children who were over fifteen years 
 of age. The records which were 
 taken of this group are of course in- 
 accurate. For, if a boy is sixteen 
 years old and is tested only through 
 the fifteenth year, he is bound to fall 
 behind his age one year, at least. This 
 method of grading is decidedly unfair 
 to the child and tor that reason none 
 of the Eighth A grade was tested, ex- 
 cept those of the colored school. 
 
 Another point which should oe ex- 
 plained with regard to my method of 
 grading in the tests is concerning the 
 gap in the scale between the twelfth 
 and fifteenth years. The question is, 
 how to grade the child who is four- 
 teen years old. There is no test for 
 children of this age and yet, it would 
 be unfair to give them the fifteen- 
 year-old test. So, I used my own 
 methods in these particular cases. 
 The rule is, after you have counted 
 up and decided on the mental age, 
 then advance him one year for every 
 five higher tests he has answered cor- 
 
 III 
 
rectly, and two years for every ten 
 tests. Since, Binet says, there is so 
 little difference in the child from the 
 age of twelve to fifteen years, no 
 tests have been made for the two 
 years thirteen and fourteen. So it 
 seems reasonable that if the four- 
 teen-year-old-child could answer three 
 of the twelve-year-old questions, then 
 he could probably answer three in the 
 thirteen, and three in the fourteen- 
 year-old, providing such tests were 
 made. This is all theory, 01 course, 
 and since we do not have these tests 
 to present to the child, we can not tell 
 by actual experiment whether this 
 is true or not. Throughout my rec- 
 ords, this method was employed in 
 scoring the tests. 
 
 It is best always to begin the 
 tests at least two years behind the 
 chronological age of the child. These 
 questions are easier for hirn and if he 
 starts out by answering fairly well, 
 it encourages him and helps him in 
 the later tests. Under no considera- 
 tion must defective children know 
 that they have failed in a test. They 
 IV 
 
are more easily discouraged than 
 normal children and are extremely 
 sensitive. On the other hand, they 
 are so susceptible to flattery that 
 the more praise is given to children 
 of this type the better the results. 
 Mae C. Trovillion. 
 University of Indiana, 1914. 
 
I. 
 
 LITERATURE. 
 
 Next to the exceedingly bad and in- 
 corrigible boy in the public school 
 perhaps the greatest menace to the 
 general school is the mentally-defect- 
 ive child. He is not able in any 
 way to cope with the standards of 
 the school, although he has been in 
 the same grade for several years. 
 
 A few of our feeble-minded chil- 
 dren might be passed, at a glance, 
 for normal children, but the greater 
 number presents unmistakable ano- 
 malies of bodily structure and func- 
 tion as well as having some mental 
 defect. Investigations concerning 
 these children usually show that they 
 were slow about learning to talk, and 
 the result is that they are unable 
 to articulate well yet; consequently 
 they are speech defectives. It will be 
 found often that dentition, standing, 
 and walking have also been abnorm- 
 
 6 
 
ally delayed. The co-ordination of 
 their muscles is poor; they are 
 clumsy in their movements, and are 
 not able to run, jump, and play as the 
 ordinary child plays. They are the 
 children with few perceptions; their 
 faculty of observation, attention, 
 and curiosity, are faulty, and the re- 
 sult is that the development of their 
 sensorium must be looked after with 
 special care. 
 
 Children of this type follow the 
 crowd. They all lack confidence in 
 themselves. They follow along the 
 line of least resistance, — always imi- 
 tating others, but never originating 
 anything for themselves. They lack 
 initiative, are afraid to venture out, 
 and as a consequence they remain 
 always in the same rut. 
 
 The Binet-Simon tests proved that 
 the percentage of feeble-minded 
 children was rather high, compared 
 with Goddard's conclusions. He states 
 ithat from one to two per cent, 
 of all school children belong in the 
 
 1 Boston, N. E. A., 1910, What can the pub- 
 lic school do for the subnormal?~Goddard. 
 
class of the feeble-minded. Out of 
 the 1778 graded school children five 
 and two-tenths per cent, were found 
 to be feeble-minded, according to 
 the standard which considers chil- 
 dren that are retarded three or more 
 years in this group. 
 
 The majority of the backward 
 children in the Bloomington schools 
 came in the class retarded one and 
 two years. Ten and two-tenths per 
 cent, of the entire grades were class- 
 ed in this group. This class consists 
 01 children who are mentally super- 
 ior to the feeble-minded. They are 
 the ones who are in that great group 
 of people who are exceedingly slow 
 of comprehension. It usually takes 
 them twice as long to do their work 
 as it does a normal person, and we 
 find them dropping behind, becom- 
 ing discouraged, and finally, giving 
 up entirely. 
 
 The Binet-Simon Scale. 
 
 There has been, perhaps, no scale 
 
 of tests for the measurement of 
 
 of intelligence that has received as 
 
 world-wide praise and fame as have 
 
 8 
 
the tests worked out by Binet and 
 Simon, the two Frenchmen. 
 
 In the L'Annee Psychologique for 
 1903, Prof. Binet published a scale 
 consisting of thirty tests, which were 
 arranged in order of difficulty. In 
 the 1908 Psychologique there appear- 
 ed a revised scale by Binet and 
 Simon. It was in this scale that 
 educators throughout the world be- 
 came interested. It was tried by 
 them on both normal and defective 
 children over the country, and was 
 found to be extremely valuable to 
 teachers, physicians, and psycholo- 
 gists, in aiding them to judge the 
 mental age of a child. The two men 
 revised the scale again in 1911, and 
 in the same year Dr. Henry H. God- 
 dard, of the Training School of Vine- 
 land, New Jersey, also revised this 
 scale, giving but five questions 
 to each year, excepting those 
 of the fourth and fifteenth years, and 
 changing some of the tests to a high- 
 er or lower grade, as he saw fit. In 
 1909, Dr. Edward B. Huey tested the 
 defective children of Lincoln, Illi- 
 9 
 
nois, in the state institution, also at 
 the Johns Hopkins Dispensary. 
 
 Louis M. Terman, of Stanford Uni- 
 versity, in California, tested about 
 four hundred non-selected children 
 by the Binet scale. His conclusions, 
 after the examinations, was that a 
 measuring scale of this general type 
 was feasible, and that "when cor- 
 rected, extended, and multiplied, 
 they will prove of great practical and 
 theoretical value." i 
 
 In 1911, Isabel Lawrence of uie 
 State Normal School at St. Cloud, 
 Minnesota, experimented with the 
 definition tests of the Binet-Simon 
 scale, by testing seven hundred and 
 forty-eight children, in the elemen- 
 tary schools in St. Cloud; and aft- 
 erward, by comparing her results 
 with the teachers' estimation of the 
 pupils' ability in class. The defini- 
 tions were those superior to use, — 
 were such as required maturity of in- 
 tellect. Since there were no defi- 
 nitions for the ages of seven, ten, 
 twelve, fourteen, and older, the 
 
 1. Psychological Clinic, Dec. 15, 1911. 
 
 10 
 
eleven-year-old child was marked re- 
 eled only one year, if he failed in 
 the eleven-year-old tests, but passed 
 the nine-year-old test. He probably 
 would have passed on the ten-year- 
 old, if there had been any definitions 
 in the tests for that year. 
 
 The results from the Binet tests 
 corresponded favorably with the 
 teachers' estimate of the pupils. In 
 other words, the child who was mark- 
 ed "very poor" by the teacher also 
 measured "very poor" in the tests, 
 which meant that he was retarded 
 two or three years. And those pu- 
 pils who were marked "very good" 
 or "excellent" by the instructor, 
 measured exactly up to their age, 
 or a year or so in advance of their 
 biological age in the scale. 
 
 Miss Lawrence States i that this is 
 only a crude way of deciding the 
 psychological age of the child, but 
 it does show, concerning the ex 
 ceptional children, that but few of 
 this class are to be found in ex- 
 
 1. Psychological Clinic. Dec. 1911: Study of 
 the Binet Definition Tests, by Isabel Lawrence. 
 
 11 
 
ceptional grades for their age, ana 
 she suggests as a reason for this that 
 the teachers are unwilling to put a 
 child either back or in advance of 
 the usual grade for his age. 
 
 Kuhlman, the psychologist, high- 
 ly praises the tests and he found them 
 to be of great benefit and use to 
 him at the Minnesota State Institu- 
 tion for the feeble minded. 
 
 Decroly and Degand used the 1908 
 Binet-Simon scale in testing forty- 
 three normal ooys and girls in a pri- 
 vate school in Brussels. All of the 
 children were of the upper-class in 
 the city. It was found from the re- 
 sults obtained that the Belgium chil- 
 dren ranked higher than did those of 
 Paris, which Binet says shows the dif- 
 ference in the intelligence-level and in 
 language between children of the poor 
 and of the rich. 
 
 The scale which was used in the 
 testing pf the 286 children in the 
 Bloomington graded schools, was 
 that revised by Dr. Goddard in 1911. 
 It seems to be more suited to the 
 American child than the one which 
 12 
 
Binet first made. Goddard and his 
 corps of workers in the Vineland 
 schools have tested four hundred 
 feeble minded children and nearly 
 two thousand normal children. So 
 the strong and weak points in 
 his revision should be pretty clearly 
 seen by this time. 
 
 The three main results which are 
 obtained by the use of the scale are 
 as follows i "(1) The child's intel- 
 lectual level is measured. (2) Cer- 
 tain important practical data are ob- 
 tained concerning the child's ability 
 to read, write, draw, use language, 
 use numbers, use money, do errands, 
 imitate, etc. (3) The tests open up 
 the case for varied observation, giv- 
 ing the examiner opportunity to 
 make supplementary notes of the 
 child's attitude, his emotional con- 
 dition, his speech, his movements, 
 and various other characteristics of 
 his responses and conduct." 
 
 The simplicity of the method ap- 
 peals to those who are not well train- 
 
 1. Backward and Feeble Minded Children.— 
 Huey. 
 
 13 
 
ed in psychological methods. But 
 the fact that it is so simple does 
 not make possible successful tests by 
 everyone who tries it. 
 
 Binet saysi concerning this 
 point: "It is not, in spite of ap- 
 pearances, an automatic method, 
 comparable to a scale which, when 
 one stands upon it, throws out a 
 ticket on which one's weight is 
 printed. It is not a mechanical 
 method, and we predict for the busy 
 physician who wishes to apply it in 
 hospitals, that he will meet with dis- 
 appointments. The results of our ex- 
 aminations are of no value if they 
 are separated from all commentary. 
 An interpretation is necessary. We 
 are aware that in stating this neces- 
 sity, we apparently open the door to 
 the arbitrary and deprive our method 
 of all precision, but this is only ap- 
 parent. Our scale will always be su- 
 perior to the ordinary school ex 
 amination because it has several ad- 
 vantages over them, it is evolved ac- 
 
 1. Bulletin de la Societe Libre pour 1' Etude 
 Psychologique de 1' Enfant, April, 1911. 
 
 14 
 
cording to an invariable plan, it 
 takes the age into express account, 
 and it notes the answers and com- 
 pares them with a norm which is a 
 true mean. If, in spite 01 all this pre- 
 cision, we recognize that it is neces- 
 sary to use the scale with intelligence, 
 we do not consider its value dimin- 
 ished by this reservation. The mi- 
 croscope and the graphic method are 
 admirable methods of precision, but 
 what intelligence, circumspection, 
 erudition, and art, are essential to 
 the practice of these methods! Inl- 
 ine the value of observations made 
 with the microscope by an ignor- 
 amus who is scarcely better than an 
 imbecile. We have seen examples 
 which caused a shudder." He goes 
 on to say that the examination must 
 be done by an intelligent hand, and 
 that the methods cannot be made pre- 
 cise enough to be trusted to every 
 one. He says that if the method is 
 to have any scientific value, the ex- 
 aminer must have had an apprentice- 
 ship in a laboratory of pedagogy or 
 
 15 
 
must possess a practical knowledge 
 of psychological experimentation. 
 
 The scale is by no means yet com- 
 plete. It is still in the experimental 
 stage. From the fact that the experi- 
 menters who have used the scale in 
 Belgium, France, Germany, Eng- 
 land, and in the United States, are 
 disagreeing as to their conclusions, 
 it seems that the tests will necessarily 
 have to be different for each coun- 
 try. It remains for an educator and 
 experimenter of each country to es- 
 tablish forms for his particular coun- 
 try. "It is questionable whether we 
 can calibrate and improve the scale 
 by confining the testing to a very 
 limited range of years. The fur- 
 ther improvement of the scale, we 
 may add, requires the transposition 
 of certain tests, the elimination of 
 certain others which seem valueless, 
 the equalization of the number of 
 each age, or the proper differential 
 adjustment of the system of accredit- 
 ing points and the increase rather 
 than the decrease of the number of 
 tests for each age. * * * * We need to 
 16 
 
probe for a considerable number of 
 traits and capacities * * * * if we 
 would arrive at a true clinical pic- 
 ture of the child or a correct classi- 
 fication. We cannot hope to diag- 
 
 c or to grade accurately if we 
 test only a few capacities, or if we 
 base our judgment on only a few 
 symptoms. The element in variation 
 in human traits is too large. What is 
 well-balanced, comprehen- 
 y of the fundamental hu- 
 man capacities"* 
 
 a seems to be a general criti- 
 
 m of the Binet-Simon scale. The 
 tests do not tell one enough about 
 the child. We are able to tell how 
 old the chiid is mentally but the scale 
 does not state just what is the trou- 
 ble with turn. It should be so ex- 
 tended that the examiner could have 
 a chance to see wherein the subject 
 is lacking. In the use of the present 
 meager scale one has no way of tell- 
 ing very much about the physical 
 condition oi the subject. There are 
 
 1. Experimental Studies of Mental Defectives. 
 Pages 55-56. J. E. W. Wallin. 
 
 17 
 
no tests to show the co-ordination of 
 his muscles, or his actual ability to 
 construct things with his hands. Nor 
 is there any chance to get a line on 
 his senses. 
 
 However the method has many 
 good points which should not be 
 overlooked. For instance the ap- 
 paratus that is required is very sim- 
 ple and very handy to carry around 
 with one. It is also very inexpensive, 
 as it can be prepared by anyone who 
 understands the tests and has a man- 
 ual to follow. It now remains for the 
 psychological and educational stu 
 dents to revise and standardize the 
 scale so as to make it a practical 
 measuring rod for the classification 
 of all children. 
 
 The following are the tests as they 
 have been revised by Dr. Goddard: 
 Children of Three Years. 
 
 1. Where is your nose, your 
 eyes, your mouth? 
 
 2. Repetition of sentences of six 
 syllables. It rains. I am hungry. 
 
 3. Repetition of figures. "6-4." 
 
 4. Describing pictures. 
 
 18 
 
5. Name of the family. 
 Children of Four Years. 
 
 1. Sex of child. Are you a little 
 girl or little boy? 
 
 2. Naming familiar objects; as 
 key, knife, and a penny. 
 
 3. Repetition of three figures, as, 
 7, 2, 9. 
 
 4. Comparison of two lines. 
 "Which is the Longer Line?"' 
 
 Children of Five Years. 
 
 1. Comparison of two weights. 
 "Which is the Heavier?" 
 
 2. Copying a square. 
 
 3. Repeats a sentence of 10 syl- 
 lables. "His name is John. He is 
 a very good boy." 
 
 4. Counting four pennies. 
 
 5. Game of patience with two 
 pieces. 
 
 Children of Six Years. 
 
 1. Distinction between morning 
 and afternoon. "Is this morning or is 
 it afternoon?" 
 
 2. Definition of known objects. 
 "What is a fork, a table, a chair, a 
 horse, a mama?" 
 
 3. Execution of three simulta- 
 
 19 
 
neous commissions. "Do you see this 
 key? Put it on that chair. Then shut 
 the door. After that bring me the 
 box that is on the chair. Remember, 
 first put the key on the chair, then 
 close the door, then bring the box. Do 
 you understand? Well, then, go 
 ahead." 
 
 4. Right hand. Left ear. 
 
 5. Aesthetic comparison. "Which 
 is the prettier?" 
 
 Children of Seven Years. 
 
 1. Counting thirteen pennies. 
 
 2. Description of pictures. 
 
 3. Unfinished pictures. "What is 
 lacking in that picture?'* 
 
 4. Copying a diamond. 
 
 5. Name four colors. 
 Children of Eight Years. 
 
 1. Compare two things from 
 memory. "What is the difference 
 between a butterfly and a fly/' 
 "wood and glass," "paper and 
 cloth?" 
 
 2. Count backwards from 20 to 
 1. 
 
 3. Days of the week. 
 
 4. Count three one-cent and three 
 
 20 
 
two-cent stamps. "How much are 
 they worth?" 
 
 5. Repetition of five figures. "4, 
 7, 3, 9, 5." 
 
 Children of Nine Years. 
 
 1. Make change. 9 cents out of 
 25. 
 
 2. Definitions better than by 
 "use." 
 
 3. Name the day of the week, the 
 month, the day of the month, and the 
 year. 
 
 4. The months of the year. 
 
 5. Arrangement of weights. 
 Children of Ten Years. 
 
 1. Naming nine pieces of money. 
 One may use cent, nickel, dime, quar- 
 ter, half dollar, dollar, five dollars, 
 and ten dollars. 
 
 2. Draw design from memory. 
 
 3. Repeats six figures. 
 
 4. Questions of comprehension. 
 
 5. Using three words in a sen- 
 tence, Philadelphia, money, river. 
 
 Children of Eleven Years. 
 
 1. Criticism of sentences. 
 
 2. Three words in a sentence. 
 (Given under age ten.) 
 
 21 
 
3. Sixty words in three minutes. 
 "Say as many words as you can 
 think of in three minutes" 
 
 4. Rhymes. (With day, spring, 
 and mill.) 
 
 5. Words to put in order. "Make 
 a sentence out of these words." 
 Started, the, for, an, early hour, we, 
 country, at. 
 
 Asked, paper, the, to, I, teacher, 
 correct, my. 
 
 A, defends, dog, good, his, master, 
 bravely. 
 
 Children of Twelve Years. 
 
 1. Repetition of seven figures. 2, 
 9, 4, 6, 3, 7, 5. 1, 6, 9, 5, 8, 4, 7. 
 9, 2, 8, 5, 1, 6, 4. 
 
 2. Abstract definitions. "What is 
 charity, justice, goodness?" 
 
 3. Repetition of a sentence of 26 
 syllables. "I saw in the street a pret- 
 ty little dog. He had curly brown 
 hair, short legs, and a long tail." 
 
 4. Resists suggestion. 
 
 5. Problem of various facts. 
 (What is it?) 
 
 (1) "A person who was walking 
 in the forest suddenly stopped much 
 22 
 
frightened and hastened to the near- 
 est police and reported that he had 
 seen hanging from a limb of a tree 
 
 a ." (After a pause.) "What?" 
 
 (2) "My neighbor has been hav- 
 ing strange visitors. He has receiv- 
 ed one after the other, a physician, a 
 lawyer, and a clergyman. What has 
 happened at the house of my 
 neighbor?" 
 
 Children of Fifteen Years. 
 
 1. Interprets picture. 
 
 2. Change hands of the clock. 
 
 3. Code. 
 
 4. Opposition. 
 
II. 
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF BACK- 
 WARD CHILDREN. 
 
 There have been a great many 
 classifications made by different 
 authors and experimenters of back- 
 ward and deficient children, but I 
 intend in this chapter to make a 
 classification based upon my own ob- 
 servations in the testing of these 286 
 children. They seem to fall into 
 three groups, — those with (1) de- 
 fective vision and those who are 
 defective in (2) reasoning, and (3) 
 in memory. These are not wholly 
 separate and distinct groups. De- 
 fective senses may be and often are 
 direct causes of the retardation of 
 the child in many lines. The fact 
 that mental deficiency is really a 
 pathological condition which is pro- 
 duced by diseases, is well established 
 and noted by all observers and edu- 
 cators all along this special line. 
 24 
 
Defective vision was very notice- 
 able in the retarded children that 
 were tested. Tredgold saysi that 
 ill teen per cent, of the feeble-mind- 
 ed children have defective vision. In 
 Elmira, N. Y., out of the 449 chil- 
 dren examined, twenty-two per cent, 
 had defective eyes. Concerning this, 
 D. C. Bliss in his articles on "Re- 
 lation of Physical Defects to Retard- 
 ation in Elmira, N. Y.," says: "It 
 has been found in Elmira that with 
 these children there is a definite in- 
 crease of percentage of those with 
 eye-trouble as the number of years 
 required to complete the grade in- 
 creases." His table shows that of 345 
 pupils who were retarded two years 
 twenty-one per cent, had defective 
 eye sight. Twenty-four per cent, of 
 the 86 children retarded three years, 
 and twenty-six per cent, of the 15 
 who were retarded four years were 
 found to have defective vision. 
 
 About ten per cent, of the Bloom- 
 ington defective children, as far as 
 
 1. Mental Deficiency: Chapter on "Feeble 
 Mindedness in Children." Page, 131. Tredgold. 
 
 2. Psychological Clinic. May 1, 1911. 
 
 25 
 
could be gathered from observations 
 and from questioning, had bad eyes. 
 The greater number of children who 
 were tested were of an inferior class 
 of people. They came, mostly, from 
 homes, where the child's physical de- 
 fects had received no attention and 
 the parents were ignorant as to the 
 bad results that might tiome fron\ 
 such physical abnormalities, and in 
 many cases were unable financially 
 to consult a physician. So, chil- 
 dren came to oe tested whose eyes 
 were apparently in good condition, 
 but upon close observation their de- 
 fective vision could be detected by 
 the manner in which they bent down 
 over the paper and strained their 
 eyes, when taking those tests which 
 required drawing of designs, 
 squares, diamonds, etc. 
 
 Reasoning. — A child who is retard- 
 ed mentally has not the ability to rea- 
 son as does the healthy normal child. 
 He does not seem to be able to ap- 
 ply his very limited knowledge to 
 any new circumstances ,and conse- 
 quently, goes on from day to day in 
 26 
 
the same rut. When any new cir- 
 cumstance is presented, he is with- 
 out resources and is incapable of 
 reasoning out and solving a solution 
 to the problem. 
 
 There are four tests in the Binet 
 scale which require reasoning on the 
 part of the child. The first one is 
 question number four in year eight. 
 The child is asked to tell how much 
 three one-cent stamps and three two- 
 cent stamps will cost. Of the thir- 
 teen eight year-old pupils to whom 
 Ehia test was given, only four were 
 able to reason out the problem, and 
 nine gave it up as hopeless. Test one, 
 in year nine, requires some reason- 
 ing, as for example, that of chang- 
 ing money, twenty-five cents and 
 nine cents. The examiner plays 
 store with the subject, buying some- 
 thing from him that costs nine 
 cents, but gives him a quarter. The 
 subject must then give back the right 
 change. For the deficient child, this 
 bit of reasoning involves activities of 
 a somewhat higher order than any of 
 which he has yet come in contact. 
 27 
 
Quite frequently, the children count- 
 ed out and gave me twenty-five cents 
 in change instead of sixteen cents. 
 Twenty-one of the twenty-six nine- 
 year-olds failed in this as did also 
 twenty-five of the forty-one ten-year- 
 olds. The fifth test in year twelve 
 reads, "A person who was walking 
 in a forest suddenly stopped, much 
 frightened, and hastened to the near- 
 est police and reported that he had 
 seen hanging from the limb of a tree 
 
 a ." (After a pause) "What?" 
 
 The child all this time is quite ex- 
 cited, but he is not quite capable 
 of filling out the blank. He reasons 
 merely from his own standpoint. 
 What sort of a thing hanging from 
 the limb of a tree would he be afraid 
 of? The answer usually was a snake 
 or a big bear. Few think it is a dead 
 man hanging there. Likewise in the 
 next one, "My neighbor has been 
 having strange visitors. He has re- 
 ceived one after the other a physic- 
 ian, a lawyer, and a clergyman. What 
 has happened at the house of my 
 
 28 
 
neighbor?" They know why the 
 physician comes, but they ponder as 
 to why the lawyer and minister were 
 there. The reason for so many fail- 
 ing on these two problems may not 
 be due solely to a lack of reasoning 
 power, but it may depend more on a 
 lack of the general worldly knowl- 
 edge. He may be ignorant as to just 
 what a will is or what connection 
 there is between a lawyer and a will. 
 But a normal twelve-year-old child 
 should have some conception of these 
 points. However, not one twelve- 
 year-old was able to answer both 
 of the questions correctly. Nineteen 
 out of the twenty-three thirteen- 
 year-old children missed them, as did 
 the fourteen of the seventeen who 
 were fourteen years old. 
 
 Very few children were able to 
 answer satisfactorily tne second ser- 
 ies of questions of test four in the 
 tenth year. The child must reason 
 and use his judgment in certain situ- 
 
 ons winch the examiner reads to 
 him. For instance, the child is asked 
 the following questions: (1) "Just 
 29 
 
what is the thing to do if you were 
 late at school some day?" (2) "What 
 should you do before taking part in 
 an important affair?" (3) "Why 
 should you excuse a wrong act com- 
 mitted in anger more easily than a 
 wrong act committed without 
 anger?" (4) "What should you do 
 when asked your opinion about some 
 one whom you know only a little?" 
 (5) "Why ought you to judge a man 
 more by his acts than by his words?" 
 The child is given credit if he ans- 
 wers three out of the five questions, 
 but very few were able to answer 
 even three. None of the nine-year- 
 old children were able to answer as 
 many as three of these and twenty- 
 four out of the forty-five ten year- 
 old people failed on the test alto- 
 gether. 
 
 Memory. — The inability to recall 
 and to remember the little incidents 
 in their daily life, is a very serious 
 and yet a common defect that is very 
 often met with in a deficient child. 
 The chief trouble lies in the fact that 
 a child does not concentrate his at- 
 
 30 
 
tention and mind on any one thing, 
 and then does not make the right as- 
 sociation later when he wishes to 
 recall some fact. 
 
 In speaking of children in the spe- 
 cial school, that is children who are 
 mentally behind their age three and 
 four years, Tredgold says: i"The 
 most trifling thing serves to distract 
 these children from their occupation, 
 so even where the attention is read- 
 ily gained, it is with difficulty held. 
 ny of them become capable of pur- 
 suing a congenial task with a certain 
 amount of patience, but the majority 
 have neither power of concentration 
 nor will sufficient to be capable of 
 substantial mental effort against in- 
 clination or interposed obstacles." 
 
 The table at the end of chapter 7, 
 shows that the third test in year six 
 was missed quite often by children 
 as far up as nine years. Three 
 commands are given to the child: 
 "Put the key on the chair." "Shut 
 the door." "Bring me the box." The 
 
 1. Mental Deficiency: "Feeble Mindedness in 
 Children." Page, 132. 
 
 31 
 
accuracy with which he performs 
 these tasks will depend upon the 
 comprehension of these instructions 
 and his ability to remember all of 
 them in their consecutive order. Two 
 in the seventh year missed it. Two 
 of the eight-year-olds and two of the 
 nine-year-olds were also unable to 
 carry out the orders. 
 
 Auditory memory of these children 
 is generally poor, according to my 
 table, as shown in the tests of repeat- 
 ing five, six and seven numerals in 
 the eighth, tenth, and twelfth years, 
 respectively; also the repeating of 
 sentences with ten and twenty-six 
 syllables in years five and twelve, are 
 tests for auditory memory. These 
 seemed very difficult for the chil- 
 dren. For instance, in the repeating 
 of twenty-six syllables, no child in 
 all the 286 was able to repeat these 
 correctly. The difficulty of this test, 
 however, will be discussed in another 
 chapter. 
 
 We are able to get a line on the 
 visual memory of the child in the 
 second test of year ten, m which the 
 
 32 
 
child is asked to draw two designs 
 from memory after the designs have 
 been previously exposed for ten sec- 
 onds. 
 
 So, the basis on which I should 
 classify backward children is, (1) de- 
 fective vision, (2) defective reason- 
 ing power, and (3) defective mem- 
 ory power. 
 
III. 
 
 A COMPARISON OF THE BOYS 
 AND GIRLS. 
 The boys were found to be very 
 much more enthusiastic and willing 
 to take the test than the girls. The 
 majority of the girls seemed slightly 
 dubious about the affair and were 
 shy until we got on intimate terms by 
 means of conversation which was 
 not concerning the tests. With the 
 larger girls it was necessary to use 
 great care and precaution lest they 
 suspect why they were sent in for 
 the test when so many of their other 
 schoolmates did not have to take it. 
 The object was to deceive the child 
 (especially if he seemed over sen- 
 sitive) into thinking that the tests 
 were meant for every pupil in the 
 school, but since the time was lim- 
 ited, they could be given to only 
 about half of the school. This brief 
 explanation to the thirteen or four- 
 34 
 
teen-year-old girl made more differ- 
 ence than one would imagine. Her 
 face would lighten up and after that 
 she took more interest and tried to 
 answer every question to the best 
 of her ability. This misrepresenta- 
 tion seems to me no't only legitimate, 
 but in many cases almost absolutely 
 necessary. The examiner wishes to 
 obtain the best results possible from 
 the tests. How is he to get these re- 
 sults if the child is intimidated or 
 allowed to feel that he or she has been 
 picked out from among his classmates 
 as a child not as bright as his fellow 
 school mates? The girl is naturally 
 more sensitive than the boy, so, I 
 maintain that one will always be re- 
 warded with better results if pains 
 are taken to keep the real purpose 
 from the defective girl. Enough care 
 should be taken with the boy, but the 
 boy is a different proposition. You 
 have not the shy, subdued, sensitive 
 nature to deal with as when handling 
 girls. Just as the healthy normal boy 
 feels himself more important and is 
 more confident than his equally 
 35 
 
normal sister, so the deficient boy has 
 more confidence than the backward 
 girl. The boy does not then need 
 nearly so much encouragement as 
 does the girl. With each sex, how- 
 ever, the more praise given them the 
 better the results obtained. Praise 
 the girl on one question and she will 
 try all the harder on the succeeding 
 ones. The same applies in like man- 
 ner to the boy. By the close of the 
 test they have a somewhat exalted 
 opinion of themselves, because, since 
 they have been praised for their ans- 
 wers, they imagine that they have 
 passed a fine examination. But do 
 not disturb this impression. Aid 
 them in every conceivable way possi- 
 ble to gain confidence, a thing which 
 children of their type lack. Let them 
 at least strive to be on a level with 
 their fellow schoolmates, even if they 
 are sadly lacking in strong mental 
 traits. 
 
 The backward boys outnumber the 
 girls. Fifty-seven per cent, of the 
 286 backward children were boys and 
 only forty-three per cent, were girls. 
 
 36 
 
The table shows that, with two ex- 
 ceptions, the boys outnumber the 
 girls in the greatest number of years 
 retarded. This is indicative of the 
 fact that the boys who were tested 
 are actually more defective or that 
 they did not take the tests seriously 
 and did not put forth the best pos- 
 sible effort. The boys, to be sure, did 
 not appear to be as conscientious dur- 
 ing the tests as the girls, and, as was 
 stated above, this may have been the 
 and probably was the 
 can he boys measuring lower 
 
 in the scale than the girls. 
 
 Retardation by Years. 
 
 Number of Years 
 
 Retarded Boys Girls Total 
 
 1 year retarded 42 44 86 
 
 2 years retarded 60 37 97 
 
 3 years retarded 34 28 62 
 
 4 years retarded 12 8 20 
 
 5 years retarded 12 8 20 
 
 6 years retarded 4 2 6 
 
 7 years retarded 4 4 
 
 8 years retarded 10 1 
 10 years retarded 10 1 
 
 37 
 
In general I observe that the boys 
 have more general knowledge than 
 the girls, but otherwise in the tests, 
 I could see no very marked differ- 
 ence. In testing the smaller children 
 up to the fourth grade, they seemed 
 about the same as to their manner, 
 behavior, and in their responses in 
 the examination. It was in the high- 
 er grades that the differences be- 
 tween the sexes appeared. 
 
IV. 
 
 A COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 
 
 COLORED AND WHITE 
 
 CHILDREN. 
 
 The colored children were not as 
 free, and were a great deal more shy 
 than the white children. This, I con- 
 cluded, was partly due to the fact 
 I was so utterly strange to them, and 
 not being of their race, they felt 
 somewhat constrained. They were 
 ever so much more sensitive than 
 the white children. They imagined 
 1 was ready to make fun of them and 
 laugh at their little mistakes. In 
 spite of the fact that I made a su- 
 preme effort to put myself as much 
 as possible on the same level with 
 them, they, nevertheless, seemed to 
 have the feeling that I was their su- 
 perior. It was almost an impossi- 
 bility to enter into any sort of friend- 
 ly conversation with them, and for 
 this reason, I got but very little in- 
 39 
 
sight into their home life. The white 
 child, on the other hand, needs only 
 one question to get him started, and 
 without further inquiry he will tell 
 you all about the family, the neigh- 
 bors, the household pets, etc. But 
 not so with our little negro child. If 
 possible, he will answer wholly in 
 monosyllables and if the question re- 
 quires more he frames his answer in 
 the fewest words possible. With a 
 few exceptions, the white children 
 entered into the spirit of the test as 
 if it were some game, and they were 
 enthusiastic and eager for the next 
 question. But the colored children 
 rather felt, it seemed to me, that J 
 might be trying to catch them up on 
 some question. However, in ev 
 case they answered to the best of 
 their ability and were not silent at 
 times on account of stubbornness. 
 Owing to the small number in the 
 colored school, compared to the large 
 number of other children in our 
 schools it is not exactly fair nor is 
 it possible to draw any true con- 
 
 40 
 
elusions as to the likenesses and dif- 
 ferences. 
 
 There is one thing, however, for 
 which 1 can commend the colored 
 children, and that is their behavior 
 during the time of the tests. Al- 
 though some of them were even sul- 
 len, and not exactly prone to talk, 
 yet they were always ready to help 
 me in any way they could. If my 
 papers blew off the table, the little 
 colored child was right after them, 
 replacing them on the table and 
 closing the window without my tell- 
 ing him to do so. The white child, 
 on the other hand, had to be told to 
 close the window, or if I suddenly 
 lost some of my material for the 
 test, to help in the search for thp 
 lost article never occurred to him. 1 
 have come to the conclusion that, in 
 the matter of doing things for him- 
 self instead of depending on some 
 one else to do it for him, the colored 
 child is the more independent of the 
 two. Although this lack of independ- 
 ence is one of the characteristics of 
 a deficient or backward child, yet it 
 
 41 
 
is not so true of the colored defective 
 — so far as I could discover. The 
 white child is more likely to be spoil- 
 ed and petted by his family at home, 
 especially if he is weaker generally 
 than his brothers and sisters; while 
 the little colored boy "just naturally 
 grows up." 
 
 In general, the drawings made by 
 the colored children were much 
 larger arid more crude than in the 
 other schools. I find also that they 
 do not seem quite as careful and 
 painstaking as the white children. 
 
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There is a large percentage of de- 
 fective colored children than white 
 children. Figures show that only 
 16.6 per cent, of the 1,778 white chil- 
 ren are in the backward class, while 
 there is 43 per cent, of the 90 pupils 
 in the colored school. Another dif- 
 ference shown by the table is that a 
 greater percentage of the colored 
 children come in the class of the 
 feeble-minded, there being 42.5 per 
 cent, and only 37.8 per cent, of the 
 white children. Some allowance 
 should be made, however, concerning 
 the fact mentioned in the introduc- 
 tion relative to the testing of the 
 eighth-grade children. Two from 
 this grade in the colored school were 
 tested and only a few of the eighth- 
 B-grade and none of the eighth-A- 
 grade were tested in the other schools. 
 However, it seems to me that we are 
 safe in saying that the colored child 
 measures lower than the white child. 
 
V. 
 
 A STUDY OF FAMILIES. 
 It was not possible, on account of 
 the limited time to go into many of 
 the homes to see for myself the gen- 
 eral conditions of the home, the en- 
 vironment, and the status of the 
 family itself. But in general I found 
 that some of these children, a very 
 small number, however, come from 
 homes in which the influence and 
 environment are excellent. One 
 could but wonder just why these 
 children whose parents are educated 
 and whose home conditions are good, 
 were sent in to be tested as subnor- 
 mal children. Upon further inves- 
 tigation we find that this child 
 whose mother and father are intel- 
 lectual and who help and encourage 
 her at home, had a severe attack of 
 illness, measles, or some of these 
 other "harmless" diseases, as some 
 ignorant people consider them, and 
 45 
 
that since the time of her illness, 
 her brain seemed to have grown and 
 developed more slowly than her body. 
 What is there to do in a case of this 
 kind? Nothing but what these sen- 
 sible parents are doing, that is, they 
 are helping her at home and drilling 
 her on the lessons which she could 
 not seem to get in the required length 
 of time at school. In short, she is 
 having to spend twice as much time 
 on her problems as the ordinary 
 child spends. 
 
 Among the 286 children who were 
 tested, there were thirty-two fami- 
 lies having two or more children in 
 the school who were considered and 
 actually measured below the average 
 normal child. Twenty-six of these 
 thirty-two families had two defect- 
 ive children and six of the families 
 had three defective children. 
 
 i found that the majority of the 
 children from families having two 
 or more of their children in the sub- 
 normal class, were in this condition 
 partly on account of neglect. I have 
 in mind a family, the home of which 
 46 
 
I visted often two years ago while 
 
 I had M , the oldest girl, in my 
 
 special class at Central school. Of 
 course conditions could have been 
 worse, but they were anything but 
 pleasant there in the home. These 
 three children, who were nine, 
 twelve, and fourteen years of age, 
 were found to be very defective. The 
 oldest girl was six years behind her 
 biological age. The twelve year-old- 
 boy measured three years back, and 
 the little nine-year-old girl meas- 
 ured two years behind her bio- 
 logical age. But this fact is not at 
 all astonishing when one takes a 
 peep at the home influence and en- 
 vironment of these unfortunate chil- 
 dren, — the mother dead, an ig- 
 norant, hard-hearted step-mother, 
 with two of her own babies to care 
 for, and a drunkard for a father. 
 They received absolutely no care, 
 such as every child needs, but were 
 simply allowed to exist and to get 
 along the best way they could. They 
 feared their father as they would a 
 monster, and their very manner of 
 47 
 
fearing and cowering plainly show- 
 ed the kind of life that they lived at 
 home. Such children have no indi- 
 vidualism for the very simple reason 
 that they are allowed no freedom at 
 home. The individual is thrust into 
 the background and is not allowed to 
 manifest itself. Is there then any 
 wonder that these children lack con- 
 fidence and initiative? For no reason 
 at all they are kept from school by 
 the step-mother, and the result is that 
 they advance in school only every 
 two or three years. If these children 
 could be taken into an entirely dif- 
 ferent environment, with a pleasant, 
 helpful, and sympathetic family, 
 were cared for in the proper way, 
 and were allowed as much freedom 
 as necessary, they could be, 1 be- 
 lieve, put on the level, intellectually, 
 with that of their average school- 
 mates. At least the two younger 
 ones could be made more nearly nor- 
 mal, but there might be some doubt 
 as to the possibility of helping the 
 oldest one as she seems to be a type 
 of the really defective child. 
 48 
 
I might cite any number of such 
 cases. One need only to look into the 
 faces of these poor little neglected 
 children to be able to read the sorry 
 story of their lives. Their bad, un- 
 sanitary environment is reflected in 
 their little pale, pinched faces. And 
 a few questions as to their parents, 
 brothers and sisters would usually 
 verify my suppositions. Another 
 means I often used to get a line on 
 their home conditions, besides mere- 
 ly asking questions, was the use of 
 test three, in year eleven. The ex- 
 aminer asks the child to say as many 
 words as he can think of in three 
 minutes. As a suggestion, I told 
 them to name some of the common 
 objects in their home or around the 
 neighborhood in which they lived, 
 and after he has named several such 
 ol/jects as, wash-tub, wash-board, 
 clothes-pin, tin can, pipe, beer bot- 
 tle, etc., one is safe in guessing about 
 what sort of a family he comes from, 
 the mother's occupation, and the en- 
 vironment in general. It is easy then 
 
 49 
 
to account for the physical and men- 
 tal condition of our subject. 
 
 On the other hand, we meet with 
 children whose parents are on the 
 other extreme, — parents who watch 
 their children too closely, who give 
 them too much care and attention, 
 and who make their little ailments 
 seem big to them. Gradually we come 
 to see, in a way, that over indul- 
 gence and too much care and coddl- 
 ing may produce the same sort of 
 child as we find in the degenerated 
 environment. He does not take the 
 initiative because "mamma" has 
 always done it for him at home. He 
 does not study hard at school, for 
 he thinks what is the use, "mamma" 
 will help him to get it at home. He 
 is kept out of school every other day 
 because his head hurts a little bit, 
 and his mother does not want him to 
 over-work. In talking with the 
 teachers I have mentioned such and 
 such a boy, and very often their re- 
 ply would be, "That boy would have 
 been all right if his mother had not 
 been so indulgent with him." 
 50 
 
In my work this year, I had a case 
 of this kind. The child is actually 
 feeble-minded and her present bad 
 condition has been augmented by 
 the over-indulgent mother. She never 
 
 gave R a chance to show what 
 
 she could and might do alone. With 
 their home in sight of the school she 
 would not even trust her ten-year- 
 old child to go alone a distance of 
 about two ana one-half blocks. In- 
 stead of teaching and helping her 
 by assigning her little tasks to do 
 around the house, the mother waits 
 upon her herself, never giving the 
 child a chance to learn by experience. 
 The child showed clearly the influ- 
 ence of this too-careful mother. I 
 made it a point in the school to se- 
 lect R to do many errands, and it 
 
 was truly pathetic to see her stumb- 
 ling awkwardly about trying to per- 
 form the mission, but usually failing 
 sadly in the satisfactory performance 
 of the task. 
 
 For my own satisfaction I ex- 
 perimented with her to see if, by 
 diligently working with her daily, 
 51 
 
she could be taught to perform well 
 a certain task and how long it would 
 take before I could see an improve- 
 ment. The first few weeks of school 
 
 last fall, I asked R each morning 
 
 to raise the window, and each morn- 
 ing it was always the same reply, "I 
 can't." I showed her how it was done, 
 and after getting a chair at my sug- 
 gestion and standing on it, she could 
 raise the window very easily, and she 
 was usually delighted and very proud 
 of her feat, being actually surprised 
 that she could really do something. 
 But as is typical of her class, she 
 was not able to apply her previous 
 knowledge to the next day's task, 
 and for a month she always replied, 
 "I can't," upon being asked to raise 
 the window. However, after a long 
 time, she came to realize that it was 
 possible for her to raise that window, 
 and I finally trained her to perform 
 the task as well as any one could have 
 clone it. But kindly observe the time 
 that it took her to get these simple 
 facts ground into her nervous system 
 sufficiently to apply the experience 
 52 
 
of yesterday to the task of to-day. A 
 normal child needs to be told 
 only once, but this defective girl 
 had to be told exactly twenty-three 
 times before she could actually per- 
 form that simple little task. 
 
 If parents could only realize what 
 injury they are doing to their child 
 by over indulgence ! But most of them 
 are too narrow, weak, and ignorant 
 to see that their apparent kindness 
 to their child is really the worst sort 
 of unkindness. There should be, by 
 all means, a school for parents where 
 they could be taught how to bring 
 up children. 
 
 The defective children coming 
 from the immoral families deserve t& 
 be mentioned in this general survey 
 of families. I tested two subjects of 
 the Runyan tribe. This family prob- 
 ably contains the greatest number of 
 imbeciles and feeble-minded members 
 
 of any family in the city. E 
 
 aged fourteen, measured nine years 
 mentally. He always gave one the 
 impression that he had been guilty 
 of some terrible act, for he always 
 53 
 
looked some other direction when 
 talking to any one. He seemed unable 
 to look one squarely in the eye. He 
 did not lack very much of being a 
 moral imbecile of the very worst 
 type, and 1 suppose when he arrives 
 at the age when he can stop school 
 that he will join the rest of his class 
 of paupers and criminals. 
 
 Another child who comes from one 
 of the most immoral homes in the city 
 
 is G , aged twelve, but whose 
 
 mental age is seven. She was one 
 the pupils in the special class two 
 years ago. At that time she was ten 
 years old and still in the l B grade, 
 and was exceedingly deficient. She 
 had every indication of being a moral 
 imbecile, if not at that time, she 
 gave promise of developing into one 
 at a later age. It is almost impos- 
 sible to imagine a worse home life 
 than hers. The family is both pov- 
 erty stricken and immoral, and 
 
 G is following in the foot-steps 
 
 of her immoral mother and sisters. 
 
 Her face and hands are never clean, 
 
 her clothes ragged and dirty. Her 
 
 54 
 
stature is far below the average child 
 of twelve. She has a little head with 
 small, slating eyes, and a large 
 mouth. Her expression is blank and 
 stupid, and exceedingly silly, partly 
 due to the fact that she grins almost 
 constantly or laughs at nothing. She 
 is nervous and flighty and never 
 
 ms to be able to concentrate her 
 thought on any one subject for any 
 length of time. There is no doubt 
 
 that G has directly inherited her 
 
 feeble-mi ndedness from a long line 
 of ancestors. Tredgold, in his chap- 
 ter on "Intrinsic and Hereditary In- 
 fluences," saysi "I think, therefore, 
 that it cannot be questioned that the 
 germinal plasm shares in those alter- 
 ations 01 the bodily protoplasm which 
 result from disease and environment. 
 According as this is favorable or un- 
 
 orable, the modification will be 
 progressive or retrogressive; conse- 
 quently, each individual is a potent 
 influence for good or ill in the de- 
 velopment of the race. The environ- 
 
 1. Tredgold: Mental Deficiency, Intrinsic and 
 Hereditary Influences, pages 36-37. 
 
 55 
 
ment of to-day will become the hered- 
 ity of tomorrow, and the statement 
 that the sins of the father are visit- 
 ed upon the children unto the third 
 and fourth generations is an undoubt- 
 ed and important physiological 
 truth." I am unable to state the ex- 
 act per cent, of the children that were 
 tested, who came from immoral 
 homes, but as far as i could find 
 out, there is a comparatively small 
 per cent. 
 
VI. 
 BACKWARDNESS IN GRADES. 
 
 According to the small scale on 
 page 60, the grade containing the 
 greatest number of backward chil- 
 dren is the fourth, which has 58, and 
 the fifth grade following close with 
 51. 
 
 After carefully considering the 
 problem why the fourth and fifth 
 grades should contain more backward 
 children than any of the other grades, 
 I was unable to come to any definite 
 conclusion. The age may have some- 
 thing to do with the matter, how- 
 ever. The average ages for these chil- 
 dren in the two grades are between 
 eleven and twelve for the fourth 
 grade and between twelve and thir- 
 teen for the fifth grade. A child at 
 the age of eleven, twelve or thirteen 
 is at that awkward stage in his de- 
 velopment. In short the child has 
 reached that adolescent age when the 
 57 
 
physical nature and the body are un- 
 dergoing a great change. As adoles- 
 cence appears later in boys than in 
 girls, this applies more to the girls 
 under consideration. The body is 
 making new and great demands on 
 the blood supply, to help in its great 
 development. The result is that the 
 brain must suffer. It is at a stand- 
 still, so to speak, while the body is 
 growing. Another significant fact 
 shown by the table is the small num- 
 ber of defectives in the sixth grade 
 compared to that of the previous 
 grades. That is probably accounted 
 for by the present rule concerning 
 that class which dislikes school and 
 is unable to cope with the standards 
 of the school. The rule is that no 
 child is allowed to stop school unless 
 he has completed the fifth grade. 
 But the authorities will permit him 
 to leave sooner if he has reached the 
 fifteenth year of his age. So the 
 small number possibly is due to the 
 fact that a great many deficient chil- 
 dren have taken advantage of the 
 
 58 
 
chance to leave school after complet- 
 ing the fifth year, thereby decreas- 
 ing the number in the sixth grade. 
 
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The table shows the fourth grade 
 to contain the highest number of de- 
 fectives who are one year behind their 
 physiological age. The seventh grade 
 contains the largest number which 
 are two years retarded. The fourth 
 and seventh rank equally in the num- 
 ber retarded three years. The fifth 
 has the greatest number retarded 
 four years, but has the same number 
 as the first, second and third grades 
 of those who are five years behind, 
 and contains the highest number six 
 and seven years retarded. The third 
 grade holds the record for having 
 the only two children who are retard- 
 ed eight and ten years respectively. 
 (The records of those retarded eight 
 and ten years are not accurate, since 
 those children should have been giv- 
 en the adult test, but it has not prov- 
 ed as efficient as the other tests 
 and is therefore not standardized as 
 are the others.) 
 
 Here again, according to the table, 
 we find the fourth and fifth grades 
 containing not only the largest num- 
 ber of defectives in general, but also 
 61 
 
the largest numbers which are re- 
 tarded one, three, four, five, six and 
 seven years. 
 
 It is interesting to note at what 
 age there is the greatest number of 
 this slow class in the schools. The 
 following table shows that we find 58 
 ten-year-old children, 46 eleven-year- 
 old, and 39 thirteen-year-old. 
 
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VII. 
 SUMMARY. 
 
 In the 1908 L'Annee Psychology 
 que in M. Binet's article on his esti- 
 mate and interpretation of his scale 
 he says, "The result of the tests de- 
 pend upon (1) intelligence, pure and 
 simple; (2) school knowledge which 
 may be acquired earlier than the 
 usual age, (3) school knowledge that 
 cannot be acquired before the usual 
 age, (4) knowledge involving lan- 
 guage and vocabulary, belonging un- 
 der both two and three and depending 
 partly upon the school and partly up- 
 on the general surroundings." So 
 according to these interpretations, we 
 find by carefully examining and 
 working over the scale that the 
 knowledge of different parts of the 
 body, knowing sex, arrangement of 
 weights, definitions superior to use, 
 definitions of the three abstract 
 terms, giving sixty words in three 
 
minutes, interpretation of pictures, 
 and changing the hands of the clock, 
 all come under one. The intelligence, 
 pure and simple, under the classifi- 
 cation two, are those questions which 
 test the child's knowledge of colors, 
 of common objects, and ability to 
 name the days of the week and the 
 months of the year. The ability to 
 count backward from 20 to 0, to 
 change money, to count stamps, to 
 make original sentences containing 
 three given words, to put dissected 
 sentences together, to give three 
 rhymes with each of the three given 
 words, and to answer the series of 
 questions which involve reasoning, 
 all would depend upon results three 
 and four. 
 
 In the same chapter mentioned 
 jabovei, Binet makes a distinction be- 
 tween two kinds of intelligence, the 
 maturity of intelligence and the ac- 
 curacy of intelligence. "An intelli- 
 gence which is not ripe is an infan- 
 tile intelligence; an intelligence that 
 is ripe before its time is called 
 
 1. L' Annee Psychologique, 1909. 
 
 65 
 
precocious. Maturity consists, in 
 part, in a development of the abilities 
 of comprehension and judgment; at 
 least, that is possible, a child compre- 
 hends less and judges with less pene- 
 tration than an adult ; it consists also 
 in tlie increase of the bulk of ac- 
 quisitions of all sorts — the child has 
 less experience, it knows less than 
 the adult. * * * * We believe the ma- 
 turity of intelligence is brought out 
 by three or four tt ;: These 
 
 tests are definitions, descriptions of 
 pictures, construction of a sentence 
 containing three given words, and, 
 perhaps, also the arrangement of 
 weights. * * * * It is easy to see of 
 what the infantile turn of thought 
 consists. In definitions, it is the 
 utilitarian point of view, the idea 
 of the self is not lost and the objects 
 are imagined in their relation to 
 the person ; in description of pictures, 
 it is in enumeration, instead of recog- 
 nition of the relation of things; in 
 the construction of sentences, it is in 
 the production of three different 
 ideas; * * * * in the comparison of 
 66 
 
weights, it is somewhat analogous; 
 the contrast between the difficulty of 
 comprehending and retaining the idea 
 that the blocks are to be arranged in 
 the order of weight and the facility 
 of comparing one with another. 
 These are some of the traits of infan- 
 tile intelligence." 
 
 According to the classification of 
 M. Binet, I find by looking over the 
 records of the 286 children who were 
 tested, that a great majority of the 
 older ones whose intelligence should 
 be mature intelligence according to 
 their age, are decidedly the type with 
 the infantile intelligence. When we 
 find a boy whose age is sixteen years, 
 but who we learn by testing, cannot 
 name the four colors which we place 
 before him, who does not know a two 
 cent stamp from a one cent stamp, 
 and who cannot even name the 
 months of the year, surely he has 
 only infantile intelligence; although, 
 according to his age, his intelligence 
 should be mature. 
 
 The great number of children who 
 missed question two in year nine, 
 67 
 
proves that point which Binet makes 
 concerning the point of view the 
 child takes in giving these defi- 
 nitions. From the table we find that 
 of the eight-year-old children, not 
 one was able to give any better defi- 
 nitions than those of use. Of the 
 nine-year-old group, only five de- 
 fined the objects in terms superior 
 to use, while twenty-two failed entire- 
 ly. I varied my questions in every 
 way I could possibly think of in 
 order to get the child to tell ji 
 how a table was made, what a chair 
 looked like, what it was made of, etc., 
 but he seemed to be able to think oi 
 these objects only from his own point 
 of view, namely, not of what these 
 articles are made, but of what serv- 
 ice they were to him and how he used 
 them. 
 
 According to my table, there are 
 two tests that seem to be too easy and 
 should be set back a year or so in 
 the scale. The first test in year six, 
 in which the child was asked to state 
 whether it was morning or afternoon, 
 proved very easy for most of the 
 68 
 
children who were given the six-year- 
 old test. The two six-year-old chil- 
 dren answered it correctly, as did 
 all of the seven-year-olds, and only 
 one eight-year-old failed. The other 
 is test one, in year ten. We show the 
 subject a penny, a nickel, a dime, a 
 quarter, a half-dollar, and a two, a 
 five, and a ten dollar bill. I followed 
 carefully Dr. Goddard's suggestions 
 on this point in his revised method. 
 He makes the suggestion that since 
 our coins above fifty cents are so 
 rarely seen by children that we should 
 show coins up to the dollar, but not in 
 their order. He says that the child 
 may name the paper money from 
 memory, and if he tells you that he 
 has seen a three or a four-dollar bill, 
 then you are pretty safe in judging 
 that he does not know much about 
 paper money. I followed these in- 
 structions and found that only two 
 out of the ten in their ninth year 
 did not know the different coins, 
 while every one of the ten, eleven, 
 and on up through the sixteen-year- 
 
 69 
 
old children knew all of the differ- 
 ent pieces of money. 
 
 So it stands to reason that if these 
 two tests seem easy for the back- 
 ward child, it is very good proof that 
 they would be far too easy for the 
 normal child. 
 
 The third test in year twelve is 
 entirely too difficult. Among the 286 
 children, there was not one child who 
 was able to repeat the given sentence 
 correctly. The sentence reads, "I 
 saw in the street a pretty little dog. 
 He had curly brown hair, short legs, 
 and a long tail." Not even were they 
 able to reproduce the sentence with 
 no more errors than one omission and 
 one transposition. According to Dr. 
 Goddard's manual, the child should 
 be given credit if he made no other 
 errors than those mentioned. 
 
 Aside from these three tests the 
 scale is well arranged and the ques- 
 tions are well suited to the age for 
 which they are designed. 
 
 Terman, in giving his impression 
 of the Binet Scale after he himself 
 had tested ninety children and had 
 . 70 
 
supervised the testing of four hun- 
 dred, said i "However, in spite of the 
 many imperfections and inadequacies 
 of the revised scale, I believe that 
 by its use it is possible for the 
 psychologist to submit, after a forty 
 minute diagnostication, a more relia- 
 ble and a more enlightening estimate 
 of the child's intelligence than most 
 teachers can after a year of daily 
 contact in the school-room." 
 
 In the above tables of the sum- 
 mary of the tests, the vertical column 
 of figures on the left refers to the 
 number of the questions as given in 
 Goddard's revision of the tests; the 
 horizontal row of figures, under 
 "Chronological Ages" at the top of 
 tables refers to the chronological 
 ages of the children tested; 
 the letters "R" and "W" refer to the 
 answers to the questions made by 
 the children of the respective ages 
 and grades, "R," indicating the right 
 
 1. Article by Dr. Edward B. Huey on the 
 Present Status of the Binet Scale of Tests for 
 the Measurement of Intelligence.— Psychological 
 Clinic, 1911. 
 
 71 
 
answer, and "W," indiciating wrong 
 answer. 
 
M. Binet's Method for the Meas- 
 urement of Intelligence Some Re- 
 sults — Katherine L. Johnson — 
 Journal of Experimental Pedagogy, 
 1911. 
 
 The Present Status of the Binet 
 Scale of tests for the Measuring of In- 
 telligence, — Edward B. Huey, Psy- 
 chological Bulletin, 1912. 
 
 The Present Status of the Binev 
 and Simon Tests of the Intelligence of 
 Children, — F. Kuhlmann, Journal of 
 Psycho-Asthenics, 1912. 
 
 The Binet-Simon Scale for Meas- 
 uring Intelligence, — Impressions 
 gained by its application upon four 
 hundred non-selected children, — 
 Lewis M. Terman, Psychological 
 Clinic, 1911. 
 
 A Study of the Binet Definition 
 Tests, — Isabel Lawrence, Psycholo- 
 logical Clinic, 1911. 
 
 The Binet-Simon Scale and the 
 Psychologist, — Clara Harrison Town, 
 Psychological Clinic, 1911. 
 
 Four Hundred Feeble-minded Chil- 
 dren Classified by the Binet Method, 
 
 74 
 
— H. Goddard, Journal of Psycho- 
 Asthenics. 
 
 The Binet-Simon Tests,— C. E. 
 Seashore, — Journal of Educational 
 Psychology, 1912. 
 
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