DISCOVERY 



107 



fourteen ? Professor Terman says yes, emphatically. 

 He declares that skipping classes in these circumstances 

 is justified, and quotes his experience and authorities 

 for his statements. 



In addition to an index of absolute mental level, the 

 mental age, an index of relative ability is necessary in 

 this study. This is called the " intelligence quotient " 

 (IQ). It is obtained by multiplying by loo the ratio 

 of mental age to chronological age. For example, a 

 clever boy of seven with a mental age of ten would have 

 an IQ of 143 ; an average boy of ten one of 100 ; and 

 a feeble-minded boy of sixteen with a mental age of 

 ten one of 62. In each of these three cases the mental 

 age is the same, but the intelligence quotient indicates 

 whether a child is clever, average, or dull. It is a 

 measure of ability. 



Professor Ternian's second book (published in Feb- 

 ruary of this year), The I iiteUigence of School Children, 

 deals with the use of mental tests in school-grading, 

 and the proper education of exceptional children. It 

 illustrates the large indi\'idual differences in original 

 endowment which exist among school-children, and 

 shows the practical bearing of these differences upon 

 the everyday problems of class-room management and 

 of school administration. He discusses fully what 

 may be expected from, and what ought to be done for, 

 pupils of different degrees of intellectual capacity. 



The most interesting part of the book to the general 

 reader is the able study of forty-one " superior " 

 children. Verj- clever children are commonly supposed 

 to turn out very dull in after-life, and many men and 

 women who show marked ability are commonly sup- 

 posed to have been " very ordinary " at school. Pro- 

 fessor Terraan's experience — and it is a wide one — 

 is that both of these common suppositions are wrong. 

 An intelligent boy becomes an intelligent man, a very 

 intelligent boy a very intelligent man, and so on. 

 Feeble-minded or dull children never blossom out into 

 keen, alert, and intelligent men and women. This rule 

 seems to hold generally, and the exceptional cases which 

 have led to the common suppositions mentioned mav 

 be easily and reasonably explained. 



Professor Terman's top-notcher is a boy D. B. When 

 he was tested he was just under 7 years 5 months. 

 His mental age came out as 13 years 7 months. His 

 IQ consequently was 184 (100 is the normal). This is 

 the highest intelligence quotient in Professor Terman's 

 experience. 



D: B. is an .\merican boy. His father is Russian- 

 Jewish, his mother Polish- Jewish. On both sides he is 

 descended from men and women of unusual ability. 

 At six months he stood alone, and at nine months he 

 walked. He played at anagrams when a babv, and 

 learned to read as gradually and naturally as he learned 

 to talk. At three, without his parents knowing he 

 could do it, he picked up a new book suitable for children 

 of nine years and read it through intelligently. He 

 handles " Meccano " models requiring deft fingers, 

 type-writes rapidly, using two fingers only on each hand, 

 and has taught himself printing. He reads for eight or 



ten hours a week, and always rapidly. He has already 

 read the Iliad and much of Shakespeare, and has a par- 

 ticular liking for the historical plays. Pericles is his 

 favourite. He has read every history book in his home, 

 and these include Gibbon and Crote. He criticised 

 Gibbon as " having left too much out " in writing about 

 Home. Among his papers are sundry notes marked 

 " Important things the Scottish kings did," " I-ist of 

 Roman emperors and what they ruled over," etc. 

 History is his favourite subject. 



At seven years of age he commenced issuing a weekly 

 playground newspaper, a one-sheet, three-column 

 affair, typed. He writes the whole of it himself, and 

 does the typing too. There is a joke section, an 

 advertising section, a news section, and various extras 

 and incidentals from time to time. The jokes are 

 often such as would not be understood by children 

 below the mental level of twelve years. 



This prodigy has other qualities. He is conscientious 

 and truthful. He obeys instructions regarding errands. 

 He is considered above the average in unselfishness. 

 He loves to share his things with others, and remarks at 

 selfishness in others. 



Whether he will fulfil this present promise, only the 

 future can decide. But there is every indication that 

 he will become a very great man. 



Measure Your Mind, the third book on the list, differs 

 from the two others in that it deals with mental 

 tests, for adults only. There are thirty different sets of 

 tests, each of which has from six to twenty-four ques- 

 tions. Full instructions regarding the conditions under 

 which the tests are to be given and the manner in which 

 marks are to be scored are given with each. 



From the marks of each test the person tested is 

 graded as possessing Very Inferior Ability, Inferior 

 Ability, Average Ability , Superior Ability, or Very 

 Superior Ability. 



The tests differ very widely, but all are designed as 

 far as possible to test general intelligence, and not 

 merely acquired knowledge or special ability in one or 

 two particular directions. The first deals with the 

 detection of Pictorial Absurdities, and .brings back to 

 mind the evenings when we used to do competitions in 

 the boys' magazines — a drawing of an aeroplane with 

 the pilot facing the wrong way, a boy with six fingers 

 on one hand playing with a bat, and so on. Next 

 we have a competition in threading our way through 

 mazes. If we get through them all in a given time we 

 are of " very superior ability." If we do ten only out 

 of twenty, we are of " low average ability." Several 

 geometrical and drawing problems follow, all very 

 interesting, all very amusing. There are addition 

 tests, tests of memory for numbers and of memory for 

 sentences. Next come tests which deal with range of 

 information, spelling tests, and handwriting tests. 

 Disarranged sentences have to be arranged properly 

 and letters to be composed. There is finally a test in 

 what is called poetic discrimination. It is essentially a 

 test for editors. In this test several verses from good 

 poems have been rewritten more or less badly twice. 



