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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLII. No. 1091 



Section H and the American Psychological Asso- 

 ciation. The general subject of the Section's 

 meetings was, "The Scientific Study of Educa- 

 tional Problems. ' ' 



The joint meeting on Tuesday has already been 

 reported by Dr. J. E. C'oover for the American 

 Psychological Association,! and need not be re- 

 viewed here again. It is worth while noting, how- 

 ever, that the papers all dealt with the application 

 of psychological tests to various groups of individ- 

 uals. Drs. Grace M. Fernald and Olga L. Bridg- 

 man were interested in delinquents; Professor 

 Louis N. Terman in extending the Binet tests; 

 Professor Kate Brousseaux in the feeble-minded; 

 Mrs. V. C. Hicks and Dr. J. E. W. Wallin in men- 

 tal defectives in the schools; Professor Eleanor 

 Rowland in intelligence tests for college students, 

 and Mr. LeRoy W. Fike in tests for stenographers. 



In the afternoon President Wm. T. Foster re- 

 ported the system of scientific grading in opera- 

 tion at Eeed College and explained how credit was 

 awarded for varying grades of quality in the work 

 of the students. Mr. Chas T. Luthy, of Peoria, 

 111., reported in considerable detail the mechan- 

 ism of human speech sound and urged that greater 

 attention be paid this subject, especially on the 

 part of primary and language teachers, so that 

 they might more intelligently understand the mis- 

 takes made by their pupils and know how to correct 

 them. The paper by Mr. Walter B. Swift, of 

 Boston, on the "Management of the Speech De- 

 fect Problem in the Public Schools" was read by 

 Professor Terman. The acting-secretary read the 

 paper of Mr. Wm. Kent, of Montclair, N. J., on 

 "Elements in the Teaching of Writing." In this 

 paper the writer calls attention to the fact that 

 the difficulty in learning to write is as much due 

 to lack of training of the eye to see errors as it is 

 to lack of ability in executing movements with 

 the hand. He suggested a number of simple ex- 

 ercises by which the eye might be trained in 

 noting defects and in guiding simple movements 

 of the hand before actual practise in writing com- 

 menced. Professor Paul H. Hanus's paper, 

 ' ' Measuring Progress in Latin ' ' was also read by 

 the acting-secretary. His paper was a preliminary 

 report on the development of three tests which 

 might indicate progress in Latin. These tests cov- 

 ered vocabulary, grammar and translation. The 

 general scheme was to prepare such tests as might 

 1 J. E. Coover, Eeport of Secretary of Com- 

 mittee on Program for San Francisco meeting of 

 the American Psychological Association, Psychol. 

 Bull, September, 1915, 12, 313-332. 



be applied to first-year students and then to have 

 them given in each of the four high-school years. 

 Mr. Wilford E. Talbert called attention in his 

 paper on the "Principal's Study Club of Oak- 

 land, Calif., ' ' to what could be done in the way 

 of cooperative research work in a public-school 

 system — Dr. Sears 's work, reported below, being 

 mentioned as one example. The program for the 

 day was completed by a paper on ' ' The Vitaliz- 

 ing Principle in Education," by Professor Ed- 

 ward J. Kunze, of the Oakland Agricultural and 

 Mechanical College. 



After a very enjoyable morning spent in visit- 

 ing Stanford University where all were most hos- 

 pitably entertained, the Section held its conclud- 

 ing session on Wednesday afternoon. Dr. L. W. 

 Sackett, of the University of Texas, presented a 

 very interesting paper on ' ' Measuring a School 

 System by the Buckingham Spelling Scale" in 

 which he showed objectively each school system's 

 standing in spelling — also the standing of each 

 department and grade of each school system. Dr. 

 L. B. Sears, of Stanford University, reported on 

 the "Spelling Efficiency in the Oakland Schools." 

 His general conclusion was that there was no 

 standardization at all. Professor L. Edgar Coover 

 called attention to several of the technical diffi- 

 culties which still confuse the whole problem of 

 ' ' Formal Discipline. ' ' Professor Edward K. 

 Strong, Jr., of George Peabody College for Teach- 

 ers, reported on several cases in which special in- 

 struction had been given fourth-grade children in 

 arithmetic with the result that the children had 

 gained noticeably not only in arithmetic but in 

 other subjects — the gain being due to changes in 

 the child's attitude toward himself. It was sug- 

 gested that learning curves in arithmetic be em- 

 ployed for this particular purpose. Dr. David S. 

 Hill's paper was a "Survey of Industries in Me- 

 chanical Occupations in New Orleans by the Di- 

 vision of Educational Research." Several points 

 were presented dealing with the relationship be- 

 tween occupational needs and industrial and voca- 

 tional education. He also reported on the work 

 being done in New Orleans in handling the de- 

 fective child. Mr. Geo. E. Hall, describing an in- 

 teresting study being made in the Schenectady 

 high schools on "High-school Non-Promotions and 

 Some Factors that Affect them," brought out the 

 point that non-promotion is due not only to in- 

 capacity but in many cases to outside interests 

 such as society, clubs or the need to earn money. 

 Edward K. Strong, Jr., 

 Acting-Secretary, Section L 



