12 PSYCHOLOGICAL METHODS OP TESTING INTELLIGENCE 



gence are not easy to conduct. Their administra- 

 tion demands extended practise, psychological train- 

 ing, and a critical mind. Thus, for instance, the 

 average teacher, whose work has been with the 

 wholly different methods of pedagogical question- 

 ing and examining, is very apt to apply psychologi- 

 cal tests in those forms in which their value would 

 be positively illusory. If, accordingly, the use of 

 tests for practical purposes shall attain any very 

 large currency, the training of a specially psycholog- 

 ically drilled personnel will become a necessity. 

 School psychologists would then take their place side 

 by side with the school physicians. 6 



What erroneous ideas prevail concerning the ease of conducting 

 tests is illustrated, e. g., in the declaration of Captain Meyer that 

 in military enlistment tests of intelligence could some- day be 

 carried on quite mechanically by subalterns. But, as a matter of 

 fact, a psychological test is quite a different thing than the de- 

 termination of weight or of stature which might very well be 

 carried out by minor military officers. 



(c) Psychological tests must not be overesti- 

 mated, as if they were complete and automatically 

 operative measures of mind. At most they are the 

 psychographic minimum that gives us a first orien- 

 tation concerning individuals about whom nothing 

 else is known, and they are of service to complement 

 and to render comparable and objectively grad- 

 able other observations psychological, pedagogical, 

 medical not to replace these. 7 



7 Similar warnings against the overestimation, mechanization 

 and diletante employment of tests are to be found in Myers (21), 

 Bobertag (40), and also in Binet's last work (37, pp. 155 ff.). 



[Cf. also the translator's Manual of Mental and, Physical Tests, 

 Oh. 1.] 



"On the demand for school psychologists, see 11, p. 19. 



[The situation in America is discussed by J. E. W. Wallin in 

 two interesting papers, Jour, of Educ. Psychol 2 : 1911, 121 and 

 191. Translator.] 



