72 PSYCHOLOGICAL METHODS OF TESTING INTELLIGENCE 



exactly after that followed by Bobertag, who had 

 himself tested a group of abnormal children as well 

 as normal children. 



Both of these investigators express a favorable 

 opinion of the value of the method for their pur- 

 poses. Thus Kramer writes : 



"In summing up our results we might say, first of all, that we 

 are very much satisfied with the method for our purposes. Leav- 

 ing the quantitative results entirely out of consideration, we came 

 in the course of the testing, on account of the varied nature of the 

 tests, to get acquainted with the peculiarities of the child's make- 

 up, to understand surprisingly well his response to requirements of 

 a varied sort, and acquired valuable insight into the qualitative 

 differences in the method of reaction displayed by the feeble- 

 minded. In the case of the children sent by the central office for 

 corrective treatment, most of whom we could get hold of but for a 

 single examination, the relatively short time that was needed 

 (about 45 minutes to one hour) to reach a reliable judgment con- 

 cerning their intelligence proved to be an exceptionally agreeable 

 feature of the work. In all the cases in which a judgment con- 

 cerning the intelligence could be reached by anamnestic data or on 

 the basis of clinical observations themselves, there resulted with 

 but few exceptions no contradictions with the outcome of the 

 Binet testing" (54, p. 27). 



To turn, now, to the figures : To begin with the 

 second of the two theses of Binet that we cited above, 

 his assertion of the existence of a "mental arrest" 

 has also found confirmation in other directions. 

 This thesis may be stated thus: For every feeble- 

 minded child there is a level which, once attained, 

 represents a definite terminus for his capacities to 

 meet the demands of mental tests. That is, even 

 though his age advances, his capacities do not ad- 

 vance further than this level. 



Goddard found that the inmates of his institution 

 were distributed in terms of mental age rather uni- 

 formly over the age-levels from one to nine years 

 (with approximately 10 to 11 per cent, in each year), 



