NATURE AND PROBLEM OF INTELLIGENCE TESTING 7 



their methods by extensive application of them to 

 normal persons (Sommer, 26; Ziehen, 30; Bansch- 

 burg; Kossolimo, 23-25). Others have turned to ac- 

 count the fact that certain methods had already 

 been tried out extensively by psychologists upon 

 normal persons, e. g., Ebbinghaus' completion 

 method, the report experiment. 4 But how far all this 

 comes from meeting the need of the alienist himself 

 is shown by the decision of the International Con- 

 gress of Physicians to turn to the psychologists in 

 order to secure normal series for the various psy- 

 chiatrical tests of intelligence. This task has been 

 undertaken by the Institute for Applied Psychology. 



(b) Abnormal children have become, just in the 

 last few decades, a center of pedagogical, socio-polit- 

 ical, and medical interest. The whole pedagogy of 

 the subnormal, the schema of auxiliary schools and 

 special classes, the juvenile court and the various 

 protective and corrective institutions are, indeed, 

 matters of very recent development, but they are de- 

 manding a more exact study of the individuality of 

 the child, both for purposes of mental diagnosis and 

 for 'psychotechnic 7 purposes (training, treatment, 

 punishment, etc.). To meet these needs, the determi- 

 nation of degree of intelligence is, though not the 

 only, at least a most important factor. 



The weaknesses of the psychiatrical methods men- 

 tioned above were doubled when these methods were 

 applied to these new problems. With adults we knew 

 little enough of the normal standard to which the per- 

 formances of abnormal subjects were to be com- 



4 For a general account of these methods, see the translator's 

 Manual of Mental ami Physical Tests, Baltimore, 2d ed., 1914. 



