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OF THE INTELLIGENCE OF YOUNG CHILDREN 45 



nor deferential. Every time that we pronounced one of our 

 "Why" absurdities, it was saluted by an explosion of ironic 

 laughter, which came from all the pupils. The defectives 

 comprehended the absurdity of our questions, and not being 

 held back by reserve, they expressed their feelings noisily. 

 All these reasons decided us to change the form of the test. 

 Instead of asking the child to discover whether there is an 

 absurdity or not, we tell him plainly that there is one, and 

 that we want him to discover it and point it out to us; with 

 this method no feeling of reserve, timidity or deference para- 

 lyzes the judgment of the child, if he is endowed with it. 



The only difficulty about the test is to grasp the meaning 

 of the child when he expresses himself badly by obscure 

 phrases. Often the child has the feeling that our statement 

 is absurd, but he cannot give the reasons for this feeling, can- 

 not express himself in words. To feel is one thing, to explain 

 the feeling another. It often happens that a child simply re- 

 peats the phrase, or the part of it containing the absurdity, 

 without further commentary than his insistence on that part 

 of the phrase, and his air of disapprobation. All this gives 

 opportunity for much interesting analysis on the processes 

 of comprehension and explanation. We will return to this 

 elsewhere. 



In making the test we begin with the following explana- 

 tion : 'T am going to read you some sentences, each of which 

 contains something foolish. Listen attentively, and tell me 

 each time what it is that is foolish." Then each sentence is 

 read slowly, very slowly, in an impressive tone, and immedi- 

 ately afterward, in a changed tone, the child is asked : "What 

 is foolish in that?" This test generally proves interesting on 

 account of its novelty. 



1. — An unfortunate bicycle rider fell on his head and zvas 

 killed instantly; he was taken to a hospital and they fear he 

 zvill not recover. Correct responses : As he is dead it is certain 

 that he cannot recover. — // he is dead he cannot recover. — See- 

 ing that he is dead, he cannot he cured. — You say that he is 



