Brightness and dullness in children 1923

Front matter

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Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I INTRODUCTION

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Introduction

THE day before his fifth birthday, Francis Galton wrote the following letter + to his sister: My DEAR ADELE:

I am 4 years old and J can read any English book. I can say all the Latin Substantives and Adjectives and active verbs besides 52 lines of Latin poetry. I can cast up any sum in addition and can multiply by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, [9], 10, [11].

I can also say the pence table. I read French a little and I know the clock.

FRANCIS GALTON, Febuary 15, 1827.

The only misspelling is in the word February. The numbers g and 11 are bracketed because one had been scratched out with a knife, and the other was covered by a bit of paper pasted over it.

By the age of six, Galton was conversant with the Iliad and the Odyssey. At six and seven, he busied himself with collecting insects and minerals, which he is said to have classified and studied in more than a childish fashion. The following well-worded note proves that at the age of ten he was absorbed in religious questions:

From vol. i of Karl Pearson’s “Life, Letters and Labors of Galton.” Quoted by Terman in the American Journal of Psychology, yo]. xviii, 1917, p. 210,

December 30, 1832.

My DEAREST PAPA: It is now my pleasure to disclose the most ardent wishes of my heart, which are to extract out of my boundless wealth in compound, money sufficient to make this addition to my unequaled library:

Notwithstanding his wonderful precociousness, this noted English scientist accomplished his best work at an advanced age. Hereditary Genius was published in his fiftieth year; Natural Inheritance in his sixty-eighth.

Galton is only one among a vast number of men of genius who are known to have displayed exceptional ability in childhood. The majority of poets and musicians show their genius at a very early age. Tasso was famous at the age of eight and Southey wrote dramas before that age; at the age of three, Mozart took piano lessons; at four, he played minuets and composed short pieces; and at five, he performed in public.

In the field of science and philosophy, among those who were famous in their youth are Lord Bacon, Kant, Locke, Berkeley, Descartes, Spinoza, and Lord Macaulay. Macaulay read incessantly at the age of three. At seven, he began A Compendium of Universal History, and at eight he wrote A Treatise to Convert the Natives of Malabar to Christianity. All of these men lived to a fairly advanced age and continued their creative work throughout the greater part of their lives.

I have referred particularly to Galton merely because

INTRODUCTION II he belongs to that group of geniuses of whom it is sometimes alleged that they show no signs of exceptional ability until late in life. Clearly in Galton’s case, the idea that genius develops slowly is based on ignorance: Galton was a genius even in his boyhood. Whether with more abundant information we should find all men of genius to have been exceptional children, it is impossible to say. On the other hand, of those placed at the opposite extreme of intelligence, the feeble-minded, it may be said with assurance that their careers as adults are faithfully foreshadowed by the performances of their childhood, even of their very early childhood. And since our interest at present is in differences in intelligence which exist in children, it is well worth our while to consider the contrast between the early record of Francis Galton and the following one of a girl named Abbie, a case typical of high-grade feeble-mindedness of the sort that is not uncommon in the special classes of our city schools.

Admitted to the New Jersey Training School for Feeble-Minded Boys and Girls im 1900, at the age of eleven, Abbie was small for her age, left-handed, and * awkward. She always put the same foot forward when going up or down stairs; she knew her letters but could not read; she could count to ten; she knew some color and form; and she sang a number of hymns that she had learned at home. Her sight and hearing were normal, and she was fond of play.2 = Among Abbie’s more unfavorable characteristics were a bad memory and a poor power of imitation. She was gluttonous, untidy, untruthful, sly and profane.

Three months after her admission she could thread

* The Training School, vol. vii, 1910, p. 182.

a needle and sew on buttons, could dust and rub floors a little, had learned to read A man ran and I see a man (sometimes), counted to twenty, and, with help, could do such number work as this: i 7 7.

For ten years she went to school. “ For ten years,” runs the report, “her teachers struggled heroically to give her the mastery of something. Little less than marvelous is the optimism and faithfulness of those teachers ! We see them struggling on month after month, not in that perfunctory way born of discouragement or conscious failure, but with that courage and cheerfulness which comes from grasping at every straw of encouragement, of progress, of fancied improvement. Had these teachers become discouraged, we would have to admit that perhaps the result might be due to that fact. But there is no sign of giving up in all these years. Within the last few months, however, there has appeared the feeling that Abbie has reached her limit. She will be twenty-two years old before long.

“To-day she is still small for her age. She can braid corn-husks a little; can make a bed; can iron an apron; cannot count the cost of three one-cent stamps and three two-cent stamps, with the stamps before her; cannot repeat five figures or a sentence of fifteen words; defines only in terms of use; can read a few sentences, spell a few words and write about twenty-five words from memory ; knows the days of the week, but not the months of the year; and does not know how many fingers she has on both hands.”

Francis Galton and little Abbie represent opposite poles of human intelligence; they typify the extremes and between them are any number of variations. The differences existing between individuals in regard to common sense, mental ability and character are enormous. Obviously, they are of the utmost importance in determining the constitution of society and the aims of education. These differences come most clearly to view in the successes and failures of adult life. What is opportunity for one man is discouragement for another; as one climbs to eminence, another, starting with equal opportunities, treads a path that leads him to the poor-house. The struggle of life constitutes the test, a test which some pass gloriously and others utterly fail. Adult life, however, merely emphasizes the existence of individual differences in endowment; it does not create them. For the most part, these differences, determining factors in the careers of men and women, are present in early childhood. In almost any American school the children display nearly every degree of intelligence between the brilliant Francis Galton and the feeble-minded Abbie.

Psychological and pedagogical investigations conducted during the last decade have clearly demonstrated the fact that children of the same age and the same amount of schooling vary from one to five years or more in mental capacity as well as in their school grade, and that the number of children who differ widely from what may be termed the normal is very much greater than has been generally supposed. Of course the factors which determine the rank a child takes, whether in school or out of school, are innumerable. One child may enjoy better health than another, be better nourished and less easily fatigued, or have fewer physical defects. One may study harder or with more interest and concentration of attention than another. Home environment is of great importance. A child reared in a slum, by ignorant or wicked parents incapable of training him properly, cannot fairly compete with one who is influenced from the first by culture and sane discipline. Again, the quality of a child’s companions is a crucial element. Differences in intelligence may depend upon ability or disability in some particular mental function, such as the capacity for visualization or for rote memory. Countless circumstances and conditions affect a child’s success in the innumerable performances which make up his life; but the most comprehensive and fundamental of them all, to which the tests must inevitably return, is, finally, his innate brightness or dullness.

Now brightness and dullness refer merely to a child’s comparative intelligence. A bright child is one with more than ordinary intelligence and a dull child one with less than ordinary intelligence. Evidently, then, if we wish to act wisely in guiding the development of our children, we must understand the nature of intelligence, the factors affecting it, and the consideration that must be given it in the choice of educational aims and methods. These subjects are discussed in the following pages. Our knowledge of them has greatly advanced since 1908, when Binet and Simon perfected their famous method of measuring intelligence. This information is practically new, and is constantly and rapidly increasing, but it already constitutes one of the most important chapters of modern science.

Although, as I have said, a child’s success in school is not determined solely by his intelligence, but depends on a great many other factors, every one of these stands in some relationship to intelligence. Consequently they must be included in any thorough study of brightness and dullness. One cannot understand the nature of intelligence without studying its relation to health, to the development of the brain and the rest of the body, its

INTRODUCTION rs relation to the senses and to the various mental processes such as attention, memory and judgment and to defects in these, the degree to which it is modifiable by learning and by the environment and, on the other hand, the degree to which it is fixed by heredity. It is evident that the subject of intelligence is a broad one, as broad: as the whole field of psychology, and that it touches upon other sciences as well. It deals with fundamental problems to be met with in all branches of human activity. Heretofore the lower degrees of intelligence, dullness and feeble-mindedness, have forced themselves most strongly upon the attention of investigators. Because more is known about the lower end of the scale than the higher, I have purposely emphasized, in this discussion, the higher. To be sure, the problem of feeble-mindedness is enormously important. “Feeble-mindedness,” wroteAmos Butler, “ produces more pauperism, degeneracy and crime than any other one force. It touches every form of charitable activity. It is felt in every part of our land. It affects in some way all our people.” * But facts concerning feeble-mindedness constitute only a small part of our knowledge about intelligence. We are beginning nowadays to study the exceptionally bright child as well as the dull one, realizing that, if it is worth while to discover the best training for a feeble-minded girl like Abbie, it is many times worth while to seek out adequate preparation for the future leaders in literature and art, science, business, and government. But in dealing with bright children or with dull, there are certain laws and relationships which are fundamental, and which hold for all

*“The Burden of Feeble-Mindedness.” Proceedings of: the 34th Conference of Charities and Corrections, 1907, p. 10.

He INTRODUCTION degrees of intelligence. There has grown up a science of general intelligence. This book is intended to serve as an introduction to that science.

By the science of intelligence I do not mean simply the art of applying a modern scale for the measurement of intelligence. To apply these scales is the task of the specially trained expert. The scales themselves are still in the experimental stage, and so are constantly being modified. It requires a prohibitive amount of time and study to keep abreast with the latest developments, to say nothing of the time necessary to give the tests. Consequently no one but a specialist has the opportunity and skill to be a good intelligence tester. However, no matter how successfully the tests of intelligence are conducted, the immediate results in themselves have little value. They by no means constitute an adequate mental diagnosis. They must be interpreted in connection with other data before any definite conclusions can be drawn. The intelligence tester needs, in addition to his technical skill, a knowledge of intelligence in all its aspects and relations—a very broad and thorough knowledge. And to the average worker with children, to the educator, whether administrator or teacher, just this broader knowledge is of infinite value. It is with this material that the following pages are concerned ; they do not comprise a manual of intelligence testing. Some account, it is true, is given of the methods for measuring intelligence. . This is done, however, for the light that a knowledge of these methods throws upon the meaning of intelligence, and upon the many important conclusions to which their use has led.

The topic of intelligence is naturally of the utmost concern to the educator, because education deals primarily with the development or training of intelligence. The teacher must grapple with problems of the development of intelligence, and of individual differences in intelli. gence, not occasionally and incidentally, but constantly. These are the very gist of her work. Without a thorough understanding of the modern investigations along this line, and their significance, it is impossible for the teacher to know what she should aim to do or what methods she should employ in the accomplishment of her aims. The teacher of to-day needs a knowledge of the modern psychology of intelligence. She must know when it is desirable to try to bring a backward pupil up to grade, and when it is not, and why it usually is not. She should realize that the exceptionally bright child who seldom troubles her may be her greatest problem. She should understand the sources of the errors teachers often make in their estimates of brightness and dullness, such, for instance, as the failure to take properly into account differences in age. She should be familiar with the concept of mental age and with the method of classifying children as superior, dull, or normal by its aid more accurately than in any other manner. The teacher should know that intelligence has a physical basis, and should understand the relation of intelligence to the brain and to physical defects. This relation places heavy responsibilities upon her. Further, she ought to understand the part played by the various mental processes in the make-up of intelligence, and the interrelationship and organization of these processes. She should comprehend the relationship between mental ability and success and failure in school work, in order to determine upon the proper treat- 2 ment of over-age pupils, and in order to value the great problem of preventing children from dropping out of school before they have received the education that is their right. She must know that innate brightness and dullness can be recognized at an early age, and that they demand recognition as fundamental factors in the determination both of the general school organization and of educational methods.

Clearly, the science of education depends upon, and finds its surest foundation in, the science of intelligence.

Chapter II The Measurement Of Intelligence

THE successful measurement of intelligence, first accomplished by the method of Binet and Simon, is perhaps the most brilliant achievement of modern psychology. It supplied an imperative need long felt by all discerning persons engaged in work with children. The science of psychology has been vitalized and rejuvenated by this achievement, which, in its far-reaching and evergrowing developments in the fields of psychology and education, has exceeded the most sanguine expectations of those men of clear vision who labored towards its culmination.

Pioneer Studies in the Measurement of Intelligence.— Work earlier than that of Binet, and, indeed, much of the earlier work of Binet himself, was directed not so much towards the measurement of intelligence as a whole as towards the development of tests for measuring various elementary features of human capacity. The great pioneer in this sort of work was Francis Galton, who, in 1883, published an elaborate account of individual and racial differences.1 The object of his tests and measurements, he described as follows: “It is to obtain a general knowledge of the capacities of a man by sinking shafts, as it were, at a few critical points. In order to ascertain the best points for the purpose, the set of measures should be compared with an independent estimate of the man’s

*“Tnquiries into Human Faculty.” 19 powers. We may thus (ees which of the measurements are the most instructive.”

Galton gathered much of his data by rather crude methods, such as mere casual observation. In some cases, however, he followed quasi-scientific procedures. He studied differences in mental imagery by elaborate questionnaires; the ability to make discriminations in weight, he tested by careful experiment; and for determining sensitivity to high pitches, and the limit at which pitches become too high to be audible, he devised a kind of whistle. One of these, he tells us, he had set into the end of his walking-stick, with a bit of rubber tubing concealed under the handle. A sudden squeeze of the tubing forced a little air into the whistle and caused it to sound. On his walks through zoological gardens, he amused himself by sounding this apparatus as near to the ears of the animals, as he safely could. If the animals pricked up their ears, he concluded that they had heard the whistle; if they did not, that the tone was inaudible.

Galton was followed by a large number of investigators, who, while perfecting the precision of mental tests and increasing their number, made observations regarding their applicability to various practical problems. In Germany, Kraepelin inaugurated studies of the differences between the mentally normal and the insane. In America, Cattell devised a set of tests which for a number of years were given to freshmen entering Columbia University. These tests were designed to measure such capacities as the following: Strength of grip, or the greatest possible squeeze of the hand; sensory discrimination by the skin, indicated by the distance that must separate two

* Remarks, following an article by Cattell, on “ Mental Tests and Measurements,” in Mind, vol. xv, 1890, p. 380.

PIONERR STUDIRG = ---7 ot compass points in order that they may be felt as two; the sense of pain, measured by the amount of pressure on the ball of the hand required to produce a painful sensation; the ability to discriminate weight, marked by the least difference noticeable; reaction time, the time elapsing before a stimulus, e.g., a loud sound, calls forth a movement made in response to it by the finger; visual space perception, determined by the ability to bisect a 50 cm. line; time estimation, shown in the ability to reproduce an. interval of 10 seconds by taps made on the table; and memory, manifested by the number of letters that can be repeated correctly after one hearing.?

As measures of ability, Cattell’s tests were chiefly negative in value.* Other tests, however, which were directed primarily to the study of children, were somewhat more successful. Gilbert, for example, established by a number of tests, norms of performance for schoolchildren of all ages from 6 to 17. Besides finding an increase in ability with advance in years, he found some of his tests to correlate with the brightness of the children as estimated by their teachers. ‘“‘ The curves for reaction time gave the most positive results, showing that the brighter the child the more quickly he is able to act.” ° These tentative beginnings continued until finally it appeared possible to establish norms whereby a child could be readily classified for pedagogical purposes.*®

The work of American investigators was criticized by |

*« Mental Tests and Measurements.” Mind, vol. xv, pp. 374-377.

*See Wissler, “Correlation of Mental and Physical Tests.” Psychological Review Monograph Supplements, vol. iii, 1901, No. 16.

*“ Researches on the Mental and Physical Development of School Children.” Studies from the Yale Psychological Laboratory, vol. ii, 1894, p

. O4. *See Kelley, “ Psycho-Physical Tests of Normal and Abnormal Children.” Psychological Review, vol. x, 1903, p. 371.

Binet and Henri,’ the distinguished French psychologists, on the ground that the tests employed measured mental processes which were too simple—which did not sufhciently involve the “superior mental faculties.” They accordingly proceeded to devise a large number of tests, which, although simple in application, involved more complex mental activity. Instead of measuring the ability to distinguish slightly different weights or colors, they sought to obtain an appreciation of such powers as those of judgment, synthesis, imagination and zsthetic appreciation; often the mental functions tested could not be exactly analyzed; it could only be said that they were complex.

The Binet-Simon Measuring Scale.—The Binet-Simon scale represents a crystallization of the experience acquired through many years of experimentation. For years before the perfection of this scale, Binet had studied the value of mental and physical tests. He had covered an extensive field, including measurements of the head, height and weight, and tests of perception, memory and attention. He had for years been experimenting among the children in the schools of Paris, until he had acquired an expert knowledge of child psychology.

The practical necessity of devising some means for the measurement of intelligence was brought home to him with great force when, in 1904, the French Minister of Public Instruction made him a member of a commission appointed for the purpose of organizing classes for subnormal children in the public schools of Paris. How were subnormal children to be positively distinguished? Very hazy notions surrounded the matter, and

*“La psychologie individuelle.” L’Année psychologique, vol. ii, 1895, p. 426.

THE BINET-SIMON MEASURING SCALE — 23 it was important that the selection of children for special classes should not be left to the uncertainties of personal opinion. It was under the incentive of this pressing and practical difficulty that Binet, in collaboration with Dr. Simon, produced the brilliant synthesis known as the Binet-Simon measuring scale of intelligence. This scale, in its earliest guise, was published in 1905 and in its perfected form in 1908.

The Binet-Simon scale comprises a large number of intelligence tests arranged in a series of increasing diffculty. The tests require the answering of brief, direct questions and the performance of simple tasks, all bearing upon matters of every-day life. They manifest great variety and demand many different mental processes, as the following list shows. Subjects are asked to execute simple orders; to name familiar objects; to repeat short series of digits and short sentences; to compare lengths, and weights; to count, naming pieces of money, and making change; to define familiar, concrete terms and abstract terms; to point out similarities in the meaning of two words; to point out differences; to tell what they see in a complex picture; to copy geometrical figures ‘or reproduce them from memory; to tell what ought to be done in various situations; to put together the words of a dissected sentence so that they make sense; and to recognize absurdities.

Some authorities are of the opinion that the success of the Binet and Simon tests is due to their preoccupation with the higher and more complex mental functions. Although there is some truth in this contention, many of Binet’s tests are exceedingly simple; as simple as any of the older tests. Taken individually, Binet’s tests have not been proved superior to, nor greatly different from the older tests. Indeed, some of the Binet tests, such as those calling for weight discrimination and memory feats, are survivals of the oldest psychological tests in existence. The real secret of Binet’s success lies in the fact that, after long years of experimenting with separate tests, he finally decided to use a large number of tests in combination. Intelligence, he decided, is too complex to be measured by any one test; but by using in combination five or six quite dissimilar tests, he found immediately that he could obtain significant results.

While the success of the Binet and Simon tests is due fundamentally to the use of a number of tests in combination, the world-wide popularity they so rapidly attained must be attributed largely to their arrangement by ages. They are all classified according to the age at which the average, or normal, child can pass them. Thus, there are five tests for four-year-old children, five others for children of five years, five, still different, for children of six years, and so on. The idea is simply that at each age the ordinary, normal child can do certain things which he could not do at an earlier age; and that by arranging a system of tests to test ability to do these things, one can determine to what age of a normal child the ability of any tested child corresponds. The age of the normal child whose ability is equalled by the tested child is said to be the mental age of the latter. It is thus an easy matter to understand just what the Binet tests do: they measure intelligence in terms of mental age.

The desirability of obtaining an estimate of intelligence in terms of mental age had long been recognized.®

*See Rogers, “ The Classification of the Feeble-Minded Based on Mental Age.” Reprinted from the Bulletin of the American Academy of Medicine, vol, xiii, 1912, No. 3.

THE BINET-SIMON MEASURING SCALE — 25

As far back as 1828, Esquirol, the first writer clearly to define the term idiocy, called attention to the fact that an idiot was incapable of acquiring the knowledge of other persons of Mis own age placed in similar conditions with himself.®

Duncan and Millard, in 1866, plainly thought in terms of mental age, when they wrote, concerning the various classes of feeble-minded, “It is a very striking method of showing the mental deficiency of a member of any one of these classes to compare its mental gifts with those of children of perfect mind at younger ages.” !°

In the same vein, we find Down, in 1887, discussing as follows the classification of backward and feeble-minded children: “In any given case we have to ask ourselves, can we in imagination put back the age two or more years and arrive thus at a time perfectly consistent with the mental condition of our patient? If he be a backward child, we shall have no difficulty in saying what period of life would be in harmony with his state. If, however, he be an idiot, there is no amount of imaginary antedated age to which the present condition of the child corresponds.” 1?

The concept of mental age is clearly implied, though not definitely formulated, in these passages. Mental age means a certain degree or amount of intelligence. A year’s growth in mental age is a unit, although one which changes with age, for the measurement of intelligence. Each mental age stands for the degree of intelligence possessed by the normal child of the corresponding

Manual for the Classification, Training, and Education of the Feeble-Minded, Imbecile, and Idiotic,” ors 4“ Mental Affections of Childhood and Youth,” 1887, chronological age. To say that a child has a given mental age means simply that he behaves in the manner of the average, or normal, child of that age—that he is capable of doing the same things. Thus, if a child ten years of age can do only the same things that a normal eight-year-old child can do, if he passes only the same tests, then, in spite of the fact that his chronological age is ten, his mental age is only eight ; he is two years mentally retarded. On the other hand, if a child of ten is found to be capable of the same mental performances as the average twelve-year-old child, we say that his mental age is twelve and that he is two years mentally advanced.

Binet and Simon adopted this concept of mental age, and arranged their tests in such a manner as to measure it. In order to determine what normal children of each chronological age could do, they tried out their assortment of tests on children of all ages and thus settled upon those which could be passed by a majority of children of each age. In this way, they secured certain tests which six-year-old children could pass, but which most five-year-olds could not; others which most seven-year-olds could pass, but most six-year-olds could not, and so on. It is such a series of tests, classified in sets according to the age at which normal children ought to pass them, that constitutes the Binet-Simon scale for the measurement of intelligence. It extends from the age of three to the age of fifteen.

To illustrate the arrangement of these test-performances by years, I may cite the original list of accomplishments, in an abbreviated form, for children of the ages four to twelve.*?

“Goddard, “The Binet-Simon Measuring Scale for Intelligence.” The Training School, vol. vi, 1910, pp. 146-154.

THE BINET-SIMON MEASURING SCALE 27

MENTAL AGE Four YEARS

. Gives sex of self.

. Names familiar objects (key, knife and penny).

. Repeats correctly three digits, e.g., “7-2-9.”

. Tells which of two lines is the longer (5 cms. and 6 cms.).

MENTAL AGE FIvE YEARS

. Correctly compares 3 and 12 grams and 6 and 15 grams. . Copies a square of 3 or 4 centimeters well enough to recognize it as a square.