484 ILLINOIS STATE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 



cesses one which may be developed by the working con- 

 ditions of the school? 



Another factor involved in a few of the tests is lack 

 of experiences of a motor and spatial type necessary to 

 the development of the imagery underlying certain tests. 

 One of the tests which requires such experience is 

 the ball and field test which is difficult for our city 

 children to realize. In our poor and crowded sec- 

 tions many children have had no experience with a 

 space so large that every part could not be seen 

 readily. To ask them to consider such a one and 

 at the same time to call it a field, of which they have 

 never heard, is to assume a body of experience which 

 they have never had and a resultant imagery which they 

 do not possess. The children in the outlying districts, 

 near what they call "the prairie", have not this same 

 difficulty, nor those who live near the market garden 

 sections and know about the onion fields. Another test 

 which relies upon such a type of imagery and experience 

 is that absurdity, "I know a road which is downhill all 

 the way to the city and downhill all the way back home". 

 Our Chicago children have no imagery or experience 

 with a country road; they do not know the term. They 

 never saw a hill, for we have not one in all Chicago. There 

 is no such thing for them as going from their house to 

 the city. A variation of this test involving the same 

 idea but appealing to a familiar background of exper- 

 ience may take the form, "A boy said, 'My room is on 

 the top floor of the building. I go downstairs to get to 

 the street and downstairs to get back again.' " I am ac- 

 customed to ask children who fail with this test from 

 apparently some other reason than general inability to 

 think or plan or reason if they ever saw a hill or know 

 what it is, with always a negative answer. One boy said, 

 "Yes, by the Grand Trunk tracks at Forty-seventh 

 street". This place is a slight decline covered with 

 tracks, used for switching, I am told. "With only this 

 imagery as a back ground, what could this boy do with 

 the test? 



As has been intimated, the factor of schooling is im- 

 portant in test results. The fact of a child's having 



