OF THE INTELLIGENCE OF YOUNG CHILDREN 51 



information carried from child to child. We have had such 

 experience. 



A second remark: We have already said, apropos ot 

 pictures, that it is necessary to make a distinction between 

 the level of intelligence and the judgment, and have cited the 

 example of an adult who had reached an advanced mental 

 level, being able to interpret pictures, who nevertheless gave 

 expression to ridiculous ideas in the midst of his interpreta- 

 tions. This distinction between the judgment and the intel- 

 lectual level appears subtle, but it is not. We again find it 

 in this test. There are children who compose a single sen- 

 tence containing the three given words, but the sentence is 

 devoid of sense and they fail to see it. Examples: Paris is 

 a city of fortune by the stream. — At Paris, zvhere there are 

 streams, they make fortunes. — Paris is a great fortune, tvhich 

 has a large stream. 



These sentences are correctly constructed, and prove their 

 authors to be of the mental age of twelve years, but they at 

 the same time prove them to be very weak in judgment. Ulte- 

 rior researches will doubtless show how much importance 

 should be attached to these facts. 



CHILDREN OF TWELVE YEARS. 



I. Resists suggestion (length of lines.)— This test be- 

 longs to the twelfth year. A little white paper book of 6 

 pages is made. On the first page two lines are drawn with 

 ink a and b ; the first, that is, the one on the left, is four centi- 

 meters long, and the second five centimeters ; they are placed 

 in line with each other and one centimeter apart; on the sec- 

 ond page two similar lines are drawn, the first five centimeters, 

 the second six; on the third page the first line is six centi- 

 meters and the second seven. On each of the three following 

 pages two lines are drawn in the same position, but all are of 

 the same length, seven centimeters. We have, then, if we 

 designate the lines by the letters of the alphabet, the follow- 

 ing order: 



