president's address — SECTION J. 229 



various means by which knowledge and skill in a foreign tongue 

 may be acquired, and which of these various means is in the* given 

 circumstances incst effective. The study of educational aims and 

 ends demands a procedure different from that required for the 

 study of educational means. . The procedure must here be that of 

 the other sciences of value, and the conclusions w© come to respect- 

 ing the aims of education will be largely determined by our general 

 philosophical position. I have argued this question elsewhere, and 

 do not propose to consider it further to-day. 



Any study of educational means and methods must include the 

 following divisions. In the first place, school education will not be 

 effectively conducted unless we know something of the disti'ibution 

 of natural capacity throughout the school population, aaid of the 

 variation in the attainments of pupils within each age group and 

 m successive age gixups. Considerable- success has attended the 

 efforts of those who in recent years have sought to measure the 

 natural abilitv and the attainments of the school population. A 

 complete mental survey of the school population would seem to 

 be even more necessary than the complete physical survey which 

 medical inspection now endeavours to secure. Educational treat- 

 ment, like medical treatment, must rest on a foundation of know- 

 ledge, and that knowledge can only be gained by a mental survey. 

 This appears to me to be the significance of the movement towards 

 the measurement of general and scholastic ability — by means of 

 mental tests. The scholastic, lik© the medical, treatment will then 

 have a twofold aim. It will seek to promote the best mental 

 growth of those who are intellectually sound, and it will seek, so 

 far as may be, to remedy mental defects, whether general or 

 specific. Where cure is impossible, as in cases of innate mental 

 deficiency, it will do what is possible to prevent mental deteriora- 

 tion . 



How dependent effective educational treatment must be upon 

 our knowledge of the distribution of general and scholastic ability 

 is emphasized by Mr. Burt in his recent "Study of the Distribution 

 and Relations of Educational Abilities." "There are few pro- 

 blems," he says, '' in educational organization which do nob 

 involve some assumption, either tacit or express, as to the way in 

 which educational ability is distributed. The most efficient method 

 of organizing school classes ; the subjects for which cross classifica- 

 tion is needed ; the best schemes of promotion ; the proper allot- 

 ment of marks; the procedure in internal examinations and in 

 examinations for scholarships ; the standards of achievement, 

 optimal as well as minimal, attainable under different conditions 

 and at crucial stages in the school career; tests of progress or 

 deterioration in the educational system as a whole and in indi- 

 vidual schools and children ; the provision needed for children in 

 jpecial categories — backward, defective, unstable, advanced, or 

 alented ; the allocation of individuals of appropriate ability to 



