PAPERS OX PSYCHOLOGY AND EDUCATION 363 



though it seems so to be used in many school systems. 

 It is assumed that intelligence plays a very important 

 role among the factors that should determine the el 

 fying. grading and promoting of pupils, and that in t 

 to place pupils in the school system where they will 

 probably make the best progr sss of which they are cap- 

 able, it is necesary to know, among other things, all that 

 it is possible to know about their intelliger. 



We recognize that traditionally the teachers' jr 

 ment, often expressed in very vagne term-. - the only 

 basis used in classifying, grading and promoting pupils. 

 That these judgments were often mistaken will probably 

 be first admitted by the teachers themselve-. There are 

 many reasons why teachers' judgments are not infallible. 

 In the first place, they are personal and individual judg- 

 ments, the validity of which must vary according to the 

 ability of the teachers to judge. In the second place, the 

 judgments of the teachers are being applied to the most 

 difiicult and complex of all phenomena, i.e.. mental ca- 

 pacities, whose nature mplex that the : 

 searching study must be made of each pupil before one 

 can be reasonably sure of one' aent. In the third 

 place, teachers' ju oils' mental capacities 

 are. by the very nature of their situation, lai 

 mined by the accomplishment of the pupil hool 

 studies, limiting the judgment, therefore, to a special 

 type of activity in a special environment. Accomplish- 

 ment in any field is a resultant of many fact h as 

 interest, capacity, industry, health, etc. To say that 

 mental ability, therefore, is measured by accomplish- 

 ment in school work is true only in part. In the fourth 

 place, it is inconsistent to measure children of differing 

 decrees of maturity on the same basis; yei this is the 

 common practice, chronological age seldom being taken 

 into consideration. A ninety per cent achievement in a 

 school subject by a child ten years of age means a mental 

 capacity greater than the same degree, of achievement 

 by a thirteen year old child, yet it is the usual procedure 

 among schools to apply a standard of achievement to a 

 class regardless of the - >f the children in it. An 

 examination of the grading and promotion plans of pub- 



