OF THE INTELLIGENCE OF YOUNG CHILDREN 11 



PART I. 



DESCRIPTION OF TESTS. 



CHILDREN OF THREE YEARS. 



I. Shows nose, eyes and mouth. — To perform the test 

 one should look steadily at the child, attract his attention, 

 and repeaj: several times: "Show me your nose," or "Put 

 your finger on your nose," and follow this by repeating the 

 same order for the eyes and the mouth. Sometimes the child 

 does not comply because he is distracted, or because he is 

 timid and too bashful to do that which is desired, but usually, with 

 a little insistence, a response is secured. Sometimes a child shows 

 his nose by thrusting it forward, without making any hand 

 movement, or shows his mouth by opening it, as would an 

 animal. This is, in fact, an animal stage, when the hand is 

 still a paw, and not an organ used for significant or expressive 

 movements. 



As this test and the following ones are especially applic- 

 able to very young children, it is necessary that the experi- 

 menter be warned that many very young children, especially 

 those of three and four years, remain voluntarily mute and 

 motionless when questioned. Some consent to do little acts, 

 such as showing where the nose is, but they refuse to speak; 

 speech seems to require a greater efifort than gesture. The 

 directors of the Ecole maternelle can always point out chil- 

 dren who, in class, never answer the teacher, sometimes even 

 after two years of attendance; the majority of these mutes 

 chatter away with their comrades ; they are mutes only in 



