478 



Indiana University Studies 



scores are approximately those of the Indiana standard for the 

 eighth grade, and in division there is distinct inferiority. 



Mr. Courtis has tested 41 employes in Wanamaker's New York 

 store and other adults. He concludes that the average adult adds 

 at about the standard rate, but found that a group of clerks from 

 the auditing department of the Wanamaker store considerably 

 exceeded the standard. They did not, however, exceed the record 

 of the upper 10 per cent of the children in the New York City 

 schools. Mr. Courtis has also tested adults with a view to dis- 

 covering whether any relation holds between skill in these tests 

 and one's practical efficiency as measured by his salary. He finds 

 that a correlation exists along the lower salary scale, but that after 

 the latter reaches about twelve hundred dollars per year the corre- 

 lation disappears. Persons of essentially the same ability in these 

 tests may draw any salary from two thousand to five thousand 

 dollars a year. You have here again an exact quantitative meas- 

 ure as to the maximum of effective skill in the fundamentals of 

 arithmetic. 



It seems quite possible that by testing persons who have suc- 

 cessfully advanced in various fields we may ultimately determine 

 the standard of work that it is wise to strive for in the public 

 schools. When such a standard has finally been determined it will 

 be incumbent upon teachers and school officers to "show cause" 

 why such a standard should not be met. No less must they justify 

 the overtraining of children. As Mr. Courtis repeatedly insists, 

 ''A standard is not only a goal to be reached but also a limit not 

 to be exceeded." 



So important is this matter of the limitation of training that 

 I quote from Mr. Courtis at length: 



If, for mstance, the average man requires an ability in Test 7 repre- 

 sented by a score of 12 examples in twelve minutes, then it is a waste 'of 

 time for the child that has reached this degree of development to continue 

 training until he is able to make a score of 24 examples right in twelve 

 minutes. Thirteen clerks in the Actuaries Department of the New York 

 Life Insurance Company. New York City, men and vfomen earning $1,200 

 a year and upwards, averaged 16 examples right. Five clerks in the 

 auditing department of Wanamaker's Store, New York City, made an 

 average score of 15.4 examples; a group of college professors, superintend- 

 ents, and teacher.?; in a class at the University of Oklahoma averaged 

 12.1 examples. The average score of 11,059 eighth grade children was 9.5 

 examples, which probably represents a reasonable degree of skill for this 

 grade. But 38 per cent of these same eighth grade children had been so 

 overtrained that they exceeded this score by from 10 per cent to 100 per 



