276 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , and Letters. 
ever. Sucli tests have been worked out abroad but on a lim¬ 
ited scale, and, moreover, are not necessarily applicable here. 
Einet worked out, after years of preliminary effort, a scale 
of tests to determine when children might be considered men¬ 
tally defective. Norms were established for each age from 
three to thirteen. This scale of tests has been used extensively 
in the New Jersey institution for the feeble-minded at Vine- 
land and at the Illinois institution at Lincoln. 
“These institutions, however, are concerned to know whether 
these norms found for the successive ages of French children 
are really norms which hold good for the same ages of Ameri¬ 
can children. Besides, Einet himself calls attention to this: 
the Einet norms have been worked out for the children of the 
working classes of Paris and vicinity. They may need some 
revision when applied to other social classes and to other re¬ 
gions, even in France.” (Huey) 
What then is their probable practical value to school admin¬ 
istrators, here and now, with the children actually before them 
for educating? In the light of the above quotation the ques¬ 
tion answers itself. The theory is interesting, however. For 
could such normis be satisfactorily determined they would fur¬ 
nish a psychological basis for ascertaining the amount of re¬ 
tardation now existing, and also for constructing scientifically 
a course of study which should be so wisely adapted to the nor¬ 
mal child as to preclude the causing of more retardation among 
children in the public schools unless they were mentally de¬ 
fective, and proper subjects for institutional treatment. Prac¬ 
tically all the literature, even the psychological journals, deal 
with this question as one of practical school administration. 
From this point of view the question is not “has the child, for 
any reason, fallen below the psychologically established posi¬ 
tion for a child of his age” but rather “has he failed to meet 
the requirements laid down by the administration, in the course 
of study, for a child of his age?” 
