APPRECIATION OF INTELLIGENCE 27 



examined in Jan. 1889, Dr. Warner is careful to lay on the 

 teachers the whole responsibility for the classification of 

 intelligence. 



And what are the results of this classification ? If, as we 

 have reason to believe, the distribution of intelligence is 

 nearly normal, we should expect that 50 % of the children 

 would be classed as ' under the average '. This percentage 

 would of course be considerably reduced by the use of an 

 'average' group, but no such group was used by Dr. Warner, 

 yet in his investigation, only 7-4 % of the children are classed 

 as under the average. It should be noted also that this 

 includes the i % of children who are now classed as * men- 

 tally defective ' and are trained in ' special ' schools. What 

 is the explanation of this extraordinarily small percentage of 

 * under the average ' children ? It is, I am convinced, to be 

 found in Dr. Warner's method of examination. 



We have seen that a certain number of children were 

 selected by Dr. Warner as possessing some visible defect. 

 These amounted to 18 % of the whole. In addition 'dull 

 children or children not picked out by inspection ' were 

 presented by the teacher, but Dr. Warner states that very 

 few were so presented ; he does not, however, give the 

 actual numbers. For each of those selected cases the 

 schedule already described was filled in, those children 

 being re-examined for this purpose, and the teachers were 

 then asked to say which of the selected cases were ' under 

 the average in ability for school work. The extraordinary 

 method of procedure by which the 82 % of children who are 

 said to be normal in every respect are summarily dismissed, 

 and detailed examination is reserved for the remaining 18%, 

 demands further notice. Dr. Warner's own words make it 

 quite clear that all the children were not examined in the 

 same way, and it seems certain that the very high correlation 



