THE METHOD OP AGE GRADATION 57 



and even the older pupils in these tests fall 18 per 

 cent, behind the younger children of the better 

 school. If this interesting result should be con- 

 firmed again in the detailed computations, as it prob- 

 ably will be, we should then say: children of differ- 

 ent social classes differ from each other less in the 

 performances appropriate to their age than in the 

 mastery of tasks that really lie above their level. 

 We would have, then, a numerical demonstration for 

 that well-known early ripening of children of the 

 higher classes, for the anticipation of phenomena of 

 developmental stages yet to come before the content 

 of the current stage of development is fully ex- 

 hausted. 



We may look forward with interest to the final re- 

 sult of these investigations. 



The material of Table V also furnishes further 

 confirmation of a law of differential psychology : the 

 more complex a mental function, the more difficult 

 to bring it into action, the later its appearance in 

 the course of development, then so much the greater 

 is its variability, and so much the more definitely are 

 men and groups of men differentiated by it (cf. 1, 

 pp.258 and 269). 



(d) Intelligence and school performance. The 

 relation of these two factors is easily the most im- 

 portant problem presented by our theme for prac- 

 tical pedagogy. For at this point we may hope to 

 get an insight into the factors that condition the 

 progress of children within the school, the place that 

 they take among their fellow-pupils on the basis of 

 their work, and the way their marks turn out. Peo- 

 ple are generally inclined to think there is a very 



