MISCELLANEA. 
I. On the Value of the Teachers' Opinion of the General Intelligence 
of School Children. 
Compiled from the Tables and Reductions of 
H. GERTRUDE JONES, University College, London. 
A great deal of random criticism has recently been made of school-teachers' estimates of 
general intelligence. We have been told that those estimates are absolutely without value, that 
any correlations obtained from them are idle and that the personal equation involved is so great 
that no use can legitimately be made of them. Good illustrations of this type of criticism 
will be foun(i in the notices of Heron's memoir on The Influence of Defective Physique and 
Unfavourable Home Environment on the Intelligence of School Children, which Mr G. U. Yule 
has considered it desirable to publish in two separate journals*. As it does not appear that 
those who criticise the teacher's estimate of general intelligence in this way have made any 
experimental inquiry into the matter themselves, it may be of value to publish an investiga- 
tion of a preliminary character made some time ago as an attempt to ascertain whether such 
classifications are really idle. More ample researches will shortly be published, but it may be 
said in advance here that they serve to confirm the present result. 
The data are taken from schedules filled in by over 20 Aberdeen teachers t, who were not 
specially prepared for the task. 249 boys were taken from 4 different schools ; their ages ran from 6 
to 14 and they belonged to classes which were termed " Infants," I, II, III, IV, V, and VI. They 
were judged not only by difi'erent teachers, but in different schools, and their mental capacity 
was appreciated in four groups: (i) Escellent = E., (ii) Good = G., (iii) Moderate = M., (iv) Dull = D. 
This is a pure appreciation of general intelligence by a variety of teachers in a variety of schools. 
Next we have taken the individual boy's place in class as shewn by examination results and 
divided by the number of boys in the class. This may be adopted as a measure of the boy's 
examinational intelligence. If the teacher's estimate of general intelligence be of small value we 
should expect that when allowance is made for difference of class and age there would be little 
relation between examinational test and general intelligence. 
The following characters were taken out and tabled, "Mental Capacity," Age, Position in 
Class (measured as above stated) and Class or Standard, and the following six tables obtained. 
* Journal of the Statistical Society, Vol. Lxxiir. p. 547, and School Hygiene, Vol. i. p. 473. 
+ For the Eoyal Commission on Physical Training (Scotland). We have gratefully to acknowledge 
the loan of these schedules by Professor Matthew Hay. 
