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Indiana University Studies 



and ultimately upon the superintendent. In the light of this con- 

 clusion, the general standard determined by results obtained under 

 widely different conditions becomes vastly important. 



It is not sufficient, however, to discover what the final goal 

 of achievement should be. It is equally important to determine 

 what part of the whole achievement should be attained by each 

 grade. Mr. Courtis has tried to set both the ultimate standards 

 and the individual grade standards. His present statement may 

 not prove final. It is a great advance to have these definite aims 

 even though further study may alter them in detail. 



Even when we have determined what the standard score should 

 be we cannot condemn a school system for not meeting this standard 

 without a thorough study of the causes operating to determine 

 the particular score made. In fact it is quite likely that the 

 most important result forthcoming from the use of standard tests 

 will be an exact quantitative study of the causes which determine 

 school products. It is worth while to measure a pupil, a class, 

 a school, a city, or twenty cities, and discover that you can give 

 the subject of your measurement a rank in relation to a standard 

 score. It is worth very much more to the science of education 

 if by making such measurements you can discover the conditions 

 which induce to the high or low score of the subject measured. 

 And just this latter desirable issue is what the use of the standard 

 tests promises. 



Take the case in hand. What any child or group of children 

 do with the Courtis Arithmetic Tests, Series B, is the resultant of 

 two forces, the inherited qualities of the children and the environ- 

 mental conditions, remote and immediate, under which they have 

 lived. From our studies of heredity we now know that tall fathers 

 are much more likely to have tall sons than are fathers of small 

 stature. It is quite likely that arithmetical ability is likewise in- 

 herited. There is an accumulating body of evidence to show that 

 this is so. With the advent of standardized tests we have the means 

 of determining the extent to which such inheritance is a fact. Until 

 we have made the determination we cannot be sure how to place 

 the responsibility for the particular scores made nor be clear as 

 to the effect of books, methods, or teachers. In view of the very 

 probable effect of inherited qualities it is not at all clear how 

 this factor functions in the several cities here reported. If East 

 Chicago has a large foreign population and Kendallville has a 

 homogeneous native population, the resultant scores in the two 



