45° TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



gardening, cooking, carving, etc."). All comparisons or relations of 

 interests and abilities are within this group, so that, for example, the 

 statement that John Doe had interests in the high-school period dis- 

 tributed in the same order of strength as in the elementary-school 

 period will mean that these seven interests had the same order in the 

 two periods. 



Such being the meanings of terms and the limitations of the field 

 of inquiry I have measured: 



1. The permanence of interests from the last three years of the 

 elementary-school period to the junior year of college or professional 

 school. 



2. The correlation or correspondence between interests in a given 

 subject and ability therein at the elementary-school period. 



3. The same relation at the high-school period. 



4. The same relation toward the end of the college or professional 

 course. 



5. The same relation on the whole (this will be explained later). 



6. The correlation or correspondence between interest in a given 

 subject at the end of the elementary-school period (during its last three 

 years) and ability in that subject toward the end of the college or pro- 

 fessional-school period. 



The results to be here reported are for one hundred individuals, 

 juniors in Barnard College, Columbia College and Teachers College. 

 These results are corroborated by a similar but less minute study of two 

 hundred other individuals. 



The original measures are the judgments of the hundred individuals 

 themselves concerning the order of their interests in mathematics, his- 

 tory, literature and the rest, at each of the three periods. Each indi- 

 vidual reported in writing in response to the following instructions : 



Experiment 34. (Table 1) 



Consider your interests in the activities listed below during the last three years 

 of your attendance at the elementary school. Mark (under El. Interest) 

 with a 1 the activity which at that period was to you the most interesting 

 of the seven listed. Mark the one that was next most interesting, 2; and 

 so on. 



Record similarly (under H. S. Interest) the order of interest for you during the 

 high school period. Eecord similarly (under Col. Interest) the order of 

 interest for you now. 



Pay no attention at present to the spaces under ability. 



Later he reported similarly his judgment as to his relative ability in 

 each of these seven lines of activity in response to the following in- 

 structions : 



