54 PSYCHOLOGICAL METHODS OP TESTING INTELLIGENCE 



viously depend more upon external circumstances, like knowing 

 the days of the week, the months of the year and coins. On the 

 other hand, the tests that Binet designates as revealing social dif- 

 ferences only slightly are for the most part those that hinge on 

 school instruction, as copying, writing from dictation, counting 

 backwards, making change, drawing a diamond. Only a single one 

 of the tests that fail to reveal social differences is a real test of 

 intelligence the completion of gaps in a text. However, in view 

 of the small number of children that could be used to base these 

 results upon, any generalization of the conclusions from them is 

 to be avoided. 



This problem of social differences and their effect 

 upon intelligence leads over directly to certain prac- 

 tical pedagogical principles. We may think, in this 

 connection, for instance, of the demand [in Ger- 

 many] for the establishment of the ' common' school 

 (Einheitss chide) j in which children of all classes of 

 society shall be included without distinction. 12 It 

 seems to me that in the discussion of this problem, 

 just as in the problem of co-education, the purely 

 psychological presuppositions are kept too little 

 in mind because the socio-ethical phase of the ques- 

 tion tends to claim first attention. 



But how the psychological methods of testing in- 

 telligence can become of direct service for these 

 practical questions will be shown, I hope, by an in- 

 vestigation with the Binet-Siinon tests that is now 

 being undertaken by a group of teachers in Breslau. 

 The problem under study is that of a systematic 

 comparison of pupils in a Volksschule and those in a 

 Vorschule, i. e., the younger pupils in the Vorscliule 

 of a Gymnasium. The aim is to find out whether 



12 See the footnote on p. 55. Translator. 



13 As it is impossible to render these terms in English equiva- 

 lents, it is proper to explain that the German Volksschule is the 

 elementary public school attended by children of the laboring or 

 lower business classes. In it attendance is absolutely compulsory 



