OF THE INTELLIGENCE OF YOUNG CHILDREN 5 



would be diagnosed in the same way by different examiners ; 

 the personal equation necessarily entered into all diagnoses. 

 Binet was of the opinion that uniformity of diagnosis should 

 be secured, and he succeeded in devising a plan which, if 

 generally accepted, would doubtless secure it. Being a stu- 

 dent of language development, and holding the opinion that 

 in intellectual development language is so intimately involved 

 that it may be considered as one criterion of intellectual level, 

 he used three great planes of language development to differ- 

 entiate between the mental conditions of idiots, imbeciles and 

 morons. According to this classification the idiot never 

 reaches the plane of spoken language; he is limited to the 

 use and understanding of gesture; the imbecile understands 

 spoken language and talks himself in varying degrees of flu- 

 ency; the moron, in addition to using spoken language, is 

 capable of learning to read and write. Applying this differ- 

 entiation to the Scale, the idiots fall to the age groups one 

 and two, the imbeciles to the age groups three, four, five, six 

 and seven, and the morons to the age groups eight, nine, ten, 

 eleven and twelve. Further than the twelve year level the 

 feeble-minded individual seems not to develop. 



The feeble-minded patients at the Salpetriere were exam- 

 ined by the Scale and it proved to be a most satisfactory 

 means of diagnosis, for the reason that each diagnosis carried 

 with it a distinct idea of the child's mental status. 



In 1908 the first revision of the Scale appeared, published 

 as the result of further experimental work with the method. 

 This is the form of the Scale most used in the United States. 

 Between 1908 and 1911, the Scale was applied by various 

 experimenters as well as by the originators, and as a result 

 of the combined findings the final revision of the Scale was 

 published in 1911. It appeared in "L'Annee Psychologique" 

 in the article entitled "Nouvelle Recherches sur la Mesure 

 du Niveau intellectuel chez les Enfants d'Ecole," and in 

 the "Bulletin de la Societe libre pour I'Etude psychologique 



