42 A METHOD OF MEASURING THE DEVELOPMENT 



reservation, "without meaning to do so," has not been under- 

 stood: Tell the teacher. — Have revenge. — Punish him. 



3. — What would you do if you broke something belonging 

 to someone elsef Correct answers: Pay for it. — Ask to be ex- 

 cused. — Replace it. — Confess it. Incorrect answers are gener- 

 ally unintelligible : / would have to make it pay. — / woidd have 

 to cry. — Go to the commissary. 



It will be noticed that these three questions are easily 

 understood and present no difficulties of vocabulary. It some- 

 times happens that children of only six answer them satis- 

 factorily, but this is rare. At seven and eight years one-half 

 of the children answer correctly ; at nine years, three-quar- 

 ters; at ten years, all. The test is considered passed correctly 

 if two of the three questions are answered satisfactorily. 



CHILDREN OF TEN YEARS. 



I. Arranges five weights. — An excellent test which pre- 

 supposes no schooling or acquired knowledge, and expresses 

 intelligence in its most natural form ; but it is a special intel- 

 ligence, a sensorial intelligence, not at all verbal ; and some 

 children who use words easily fail to arrange the weights. 



For this test we use five little pasteboard boxes, of identi- 

 cal size and color and indistinguishable one from the other 

 by the eye alone. These are loaded, the filling being wrapped 

 in cotton, and weigh respectivly 3, 6, 9, 12 and 15 grams. 

 Each experimenter can construct his own. All that is required 

 is a letter-scale and five small match boxes, the weights of 

 which are varied by removing matches or adding sous ; a set 

 of boxes weighing 6, 9, 12, 15 and 18 grams can easily be 

 made in this way, and may be substituted for our series. 



The five boxes are placed in a pile before the subject. 

 We say to him: "The boxes which you see here do not 

 all weigh the same. Some of them are heavy and some are 

 light. Place the heaviest one here, and at its side the one 

 which is a little less heavy, then the one a little less heavy, 



