June 12, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



875 



Nor does the use of such a syllabus prevent 

 the selection by one teacher of only easy exer- 

 cises, and by another teacher of only hard ex- 

 ercises. It is my opinion that the value of a 

 syllabus is overestimated, that our high-school 

 text-books do not differ widely in the amount 

 of material, nor in the degree of difficulty of 

 the exercises contained therein. If a teacher 

 carefully prepares a set of questions which, 

 taken as a whole, are of average difficulty, he 

 may rightly assume that he has a standard 

 test. Notice my use of the word " carefully." 

 No system of marking, however perfect, can 

 be successful, if the teacher does not exercise 

 care. A 12-inch disappearing gun will not de- 

 fend Panama unless there is a careful eye to 

 train it. 



Granted that a standard set of questions is 

 at hand, are our difficulties solved? Have we 

 an absolute system of marking? By no means. 

 Every one knows that two teachers seldom 

 agree on the marking of the same examina- 

 tion paper. They differ often by 10 or 20, 

 and sometimes even by 30 points on the scale 

 of 100. Suppose a pupil in algebra makes a 

 mistake in algebraic sign, but otherwise an- 

 swers a question correctly. One teacher will 

 attribute the error to mere oversight, and 

 mark the question nearly perfect. Another 

 teacher will be horrified at the ignorance of 

 fundamentals, and will mark the same ques- 

 tion nearly 0. Such discrepancies will arise 

 even in the use of the Binet-Simon system. 

 That system does not eliminate the lopsided- 

 ness of the examiner. One of the questions 

 put to a child of ten is this : " What would you 

 do if you were delayed in going to school?" 

 Various replies may follow, as, for instance, 

 " I would have to hurry," " I would have to 

 run," " I would return home," " I would be 

 punished," " The teacher would slap me," " I 

 would not do it again." Do you believe that 

 in such a variety of answers which children 

 may give, any two examiners would agree in 

 their markings ? "I would be punished " does 

 not answer the question. Accordingly, some 

 examiners would mark 0. Other examiners 

 would say that the reply not only implies that 

 the question was properly understood, but that 



the child's mind passed beyond the immediate 

 reply, that it " would have to hurry," and gave 

 expression to a possible consequence that was 

 more remote and therefore indicative of 

 greater intellectuality. The diversity of esti- 

 mates would be as conspicuous here as in any 

 ordinary examination. As yet we are as far 

 as ever from an accurate standard of marking. 

 But a more or less absolute standard of 

 marking is the very thing we are after. We 

 need a common mode of procedure, such that 

 a mark of " excellent " in first-year geometry, 

 given by a teacher this year, means nearly the 

 same thing as a mark of " excellent " in this 

 subject that will be given by a teacher twenty 

 years from now. We need a system of mark- 

 ing such that a mark expressed in numbers 

 conveys to every one a fairly uniform and 

 definite idea of proficiency. During the last 

 few years great progress has been made in de- 

 vising plans toward achieving this end. What 

 I shall present to you to-day contains little 

 that is novel. In this matter I follow in the 

 foot-steps of Cattell,^ Colvin,* Dearborn,^ 

 Finkelstein,'' Foster,' Hall,^ Herschel,^ 

 Huey,!" Judd," Meyer.i^ Sargant," Smith,i* 

 Steele,^^ Stevens,^" StarcW and others. 



3 J. M. Cattell, Popular Science Monthly, Vol. 

 66, 1905, p. 367. 



4 S. S. Coh'in, Education, Vol. 32, 1912, p. 560. 



5 W. F. Dearborn, Bulletm of the University of 

 Wisconsin, 1910, No. 368. 



6 1. E. Finkelstein, "The Marking System in 

 Theory and Practice," 1913. 



^ W. F. Foster, Science, Vol. 35, 1912, p. 887 

 Fopular Science Monthly, Vol. 78, 1911, p. 388 

 "Administration of the CoUege Curriculum,' 

 1911, Chap. 13. 



s W. S. Hall, School of Science and Mathematics, 

 Vol. 6, 1906, p. 501. 



sW. H. Hersehel, Bull, of Soc. from Prom, of 

 Engineer. Education, Vol. 3, 1913, p. 529. 



10 E. B. Huey, Journal of Psycho-Asthenics, 

 Vol. 15, 1910, p. 31. 



11 C. H. Judd, School Bevieiu, Vol. 18, 1910, p. 

 460. 



12 M. Meyer, Science, Vol. 28, 1908, p. 243; 

 Vol. 33, 1911, p. 661. 



13 E. B. Sargant, Nature, Vol. 70, 1904, p. 63. 

 1* A. G. Smith, Journal of Educational Psy- 

 chology, Vol. 2, 1911, p. 383. 



