NATURE AND PROBLEM OP INTELLIGENCE TESTING 9 



exists within the ordinary administration of the 

 school as well, for the demand, nowadays so em- 

 phatically voiced, that instruction shall be individ- 

 ualized to the fullest possible extent, presupposes 

 a fuller insight into the nature of individualities. 

 Very recently, in fact, serious attempts have been 

 made to make divisions into classes and sections on 

 a psychological and qualitative basis (special classes 

 for the subnormal, classes for the backward, sepa- 

 rate classes for the specially gifted, ' parallel' 

 classes with normal and minimal courses of instruc- 

 tion for pupils of different degrees of ability in par- 

 ticular subjects) attempts that demand, as an in- 

 dispensable prerequisite the possibility of very ex- 

 act determination of the actual degree of mental 

 ability. 5 



In this connection we must, of course, guard 

 against the danger which is apt to arise of suppos- 

 ing that we have grasped the individuality of a pupil 

 in its totality when we have tested his intelligence. 

 The fact that intelligence can be more easily treated 

 quantitatively than can other individual capacities 

 must not lead us to overestimate its import. Never- 

 theless, the fact that we can deal with intelligence by 

 itself does serve to disclose the structure of the in- 

 dividuality. We can determine whether a perform- 



B A11 these pedagogical reform-movements that are related to the 

 problem of intelligence were the general subject of discussion at 

 the first German Congress for Child Training and Paidology 

 (Kongress fur JugendMldung und Jugendkunde) that it was con- 

 ducted by the School Reform Association (Bund fur Schulreform) 

 at Dresden, 1911. The addresses and discussions of this congress 

 have been published in separate form (11) : the special problem of 

 testing intelligence was discussed in the addresses of Meumann, 

 Kramer, and the author. 



