Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 84.djvu/81

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Twelve Years: (1) Repeat the following seven figures: 2, 9, 4, 6, 3, 7, 5. 1, 6, 9, 5, 8, 4, 7. 9, 2, 8, 5, 1, 6, 4. (2) What is charity, justice, goodness? (3) Repetition of a sentence of 26 syllables. (4) A booklet of six pages contains two horizontal lines on each. On the first three pages the right line is half an inch longer than the left, on the last three the lines are of equal length. The object is to see whether the child will be able to resist the suggestion of the first three pages and see the lines on the last three as equal. (5) A person who was walking in the forest at Fontainebleau suddenly stopped much frightened and hastened to the nearest police and reported that he had seen hanging from the limb of a tree a—what? My neighbor has been having strange visitors. He has received one after the other a physician, a lawyer and a clergyman. What has happened at the house of my neighbor?

The mental age of the child is determined by the highest group of tests he can pass successfully. Only one failure is permitted in each group. If in addition to passing his group successfully the child passes as many as five tests in higher groups he is given an additional year's credit. Thus, if a seven-year-old child pass all or all but one of the seven-year tests and three of the eight and two of the nine-year tests he is rated eight years mentally. Or if he misses two tests in his group, and therefore fails, but passes five tests in higher groups he is rated as normal. If he is more than three years backward he is mentally defective. The tests begin with the group corresponding to the child's physical age, e. g., a child eight years old is tested first with the eight year old tests, and then with the seven or nine, as the case may require.

The results of the investigation upon the white and colored children may be briefly summarized as follows:

The number of white children testing at age is decidedly larger than any other group, whereas for the colored children the largest group is the one testing one year below age. In the satisfactory group there is a difference of nearly 15 per cent, between the white and colored; nearly three times as many colored are more than a year backward, and less than 1 per cent, are more than a year advanced.

The picture tests gave the colored children considerable trouble, probably due to difference in racial esthetics. The tests relating to time and money, distinguishing between morning and afternoon, enumerating the months, counting stamps and making change, the drawing tests, both copying and reproducing from memory were all too difficult. The answers to the questions of comprehension, to the absurd statements and to the problems of various facts, were often absurd or senseless; the best replies, however, compare very favorably with those