Haggerty: The Ability to Read 



27 



tance from one set to the next. In the upper two intervals it is but 

 about one-fourth of this average. Using this average as a measure, 

 it is seen that about 9 per cent of the eighth grade is 3 grade- 

 intervals below the best in the grade; for the seventh grade, 20 

 per cent are 3 grade-intervals below the best, etc. Thus, whether 

 we group classes and grades from a number of cities or consider 

 the classes and grades within a single city, and whether we con- 

 sider the range of vocabulary or the understanding of printed 

 sentences, the conclusion forces itself that there is a degree of mis- 

 grading of children on the basis of reading ability that is startling 

 and that must be subversive of good teaching in the whole range 

 of subjects where efficiency depends upon the ability to read. 



Effective Speed 



'^Slow and sure" is ceasing to-exert its witchery as a precept 

 in mental control in the hght of experimental results. We now 

 know perfectly well that rapid work may be more accurate than 

 slow work, that many of the most accurate workers are the most 

 rapid, that many of the slow ones are the most inaccurate, that 

 some are made more inaccurate by being slowed down, and that 

 some are made more accurate by being speeded up. It is probable 

 that the proper adjustment of speed and accuracy is a highly 

 individual matter. On the physiological side, the most efficient 

 speed for any activit}^ involving skills or well established habits 

 would be that speed at which interfering or distracting stimuli 

 were most consistently inhibited. In other words, it is the speed 

 at which the attention is least dispersed. That we are in need of 

 extended studies in order to determine the most efficient speed 

 for persons of any age and in various forms of activity is evident 

 whenever one tries to say at what speed any piece of work should 

 be done by any individual. It is not amiss, therefore, to deduce 

 whatever evidence we can from the results of these tests regard- 

 ing the relation of correct results to the speed at which the work 

 was done. The folder containing the tests had on the first cover 

 page a form of this sort: 



Time of beginning test 



Time of finishing test 



Time for doing test 



Instructions were given to the experimenter for taking the time. 

 As the papers were handed in by the pupils, he was to record the 



