The Measurement of Intelligence Part 11

_Christmas_

Hurrah for Christmas And all it's joy's That come that day For girls and boy's.

_Flowers_

Flowers in the garden.

That is all you see Who likes them best?

That's the honey bee.

J. S. ought to be in the fifth grade, instead of the fourth. He will easily be able to enter college by the age of 15 if he is allowed to make the progress which would be normal to a child of his intelligence. But it is too much to expect that the school will permit this.

_F. McA. Boy, age 10-3; mental age 14-6; I Q 142._ Father a school princ.i.p.al. F. is leading his cla.s.s of 24 pupils in the high seventh grade. Has received so many extra promotions only because his father insisted that the teachers allow him to try the next grade. The dire consequences which they predicted have never followed. F. is perfectly healthy and one of the most attractive lads the writer has ever seen. He has the normal play instincts, but when not at play he has the dignified bearing of a young prince, although without vanity. His vocabulary is 9000 (14 years), and his ability is remarkably even in all directions. F. should easily enter college by the age of 15.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 14. BALL AND FIELD F. McA., AGE 10-3, MENTAL AGE 14-6]

_E. M. Boy, age 6-11; mental age 10; I Q 145._ Learned to read at age of 5 without instruction and shortly afterward had learned from geography maps the capitals of all the States of the Union. Started to school at 7. Entered the first grade at 9 A.M. and had been promoted to the fourth grade by 3 P.M. of the same day! Has now attended school a half-year and is in the fifth grade, age 7 years, 8 months. Father is on the faculty of a university.

E. M. is as superior in personal and moral traits as in intelligence. Responsible, st.u.r.dy, playful, full of humor, loving, obedient. Health is excellent. Has had no home instruction in school work. His progress has been perfectly natural.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 15. DRAWING DESIGNS FROM MEMORY. E. M., AGE 6-11; MENTAL AGE 10, I Q 145

(This performance is satisfactory for year 10)]

The above list of "very superior" children includes only a few of those we have tested who belong to this grade of intelligence. Every child in the list is so interesting that it is hard to omit any. We have found all such children (with one or two exceptions not included here) so superior to average children in all sorts of mental and moral traits that one is at a loss to understand how the popular superst.i.tions about the "queerness" of bright children could have originated or survived.

Nearly every child we have found with I Q above 140 is the kind one feels, before the test is over, one would like to adopt. If the crime of kidnaping could ever be forgiven it would be in the case of a child like one of these.

GENIUS AND "NEAR" GENIUS. Intelligence tests have not been in use long enough to enable us to define genius definitely in terms of I Q. The following two cases are offered as among the highest test records of which the writer has personal knowledge. It is doubtful whether more than one child in 10,000 goes as high as either. One case has been reported, however, in which the I Q was not far from 200. Such a record, if reliable, is certainly phenomenal.

_E. F. Russian boy, age 8-5; mental age 13; I Q approximately 155._ Mother is a university student apparently of very superior intelligence. E. F. has a sister almost as remarkable as himself. E. F. is in the sixth grade and at the head of his cla.s.s. Although about four grades advanced beyond his chronological age he is still one grade r.e.t.a.r.ded! He could easily carry seventh-grade work. In all probability E. F. could be made ready for college by the age of 12 years without injury to body or mind. His mother has taken the only sensible course; she has encouraged him without subjecting him to overstimulation.

E. F. was selected for the test as probably one of the brightest children in a city of a third of a million population. He may not be the brightest in that city, but he is one of the three or four most intelligent the writer has found after a good deal of searching. He is probably equaled by not more than one in several thousand unselected children. How impatiently one waits to see the fruit of such a budding genius!

_B. F. Son of a minister, age 7-8; mental age 12-4; I Q 160._ Vocabulary 7000 (12 years). This test was not made by the writer, but by one of his graduate students. The record included the _verbatim_ responses, so that it was easy to verify the scoring. There can be no doubt as to the substantial accuracy of the test. This I Q of 160 is the highest one in the Stanford University records. B. F. has excellent health, normal play interests, and is a favorite among his playfellows. Parents had not thought of him as especially remarkable. He is only in the third grade, and is therefore about three grades below his mental age.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 16. BALL AND FIELD. B. F., AGE 7-8; MENTAL AGE 12-4; I Q 160

(This is a 12-year performance)]

It is especially noteworthy that not one of the children we have described with I Q above 130 has ever had any unusual amount or kind of home instruction. In most cases the parents were not aware of their very great superiority. Nor can we give the credit to the school or its methods. The school has in most cases been a deterrent to their progress, rather than a help. These children have been taught in cla.s.ses with average and inferior children, like those described in the first part of this chapter. Their high I Q is only an index of their extraordinary cerebral endowment. This endowment is for life. There is not the remotest probability that any of these children will deteriorate to the average level of intelligence with the onset of maturity. Such an event would be no less a miracle (barring insanity) than the development of an imbecile into a successful lawyer or physician.

IS THE I Q OFTEN MISLEADING? Do the cases described in this chapter give a reliable picture as to what one may expect of the various I Q levels?

Does the I Q furnish anything like a reliable index of an individual's general educational possibilities and of his social worth? Are there not "feeble-minded geniuses," and are there not children of exceptionally high I Q who are nevertheless fools?

We have no hesitation in saying that there is not one case in fifty in which there is any serious contradiction between the I Q and the child's performances in and out of school. We cannot deny the existence of "feeble-minded geniuses," but after a good deal of search we have not found one. Occasionally, of course, one finds a feeble-minded person who is an expert penman, who draws skillfully, who plays a musical instrument tolerably well, or who handles number combinations with unusual rapidity; but these are not geniuses; they are not authors, artists, musicians, or mathematicians.

As for exceptionally intelligent children who appear feeble-minded, we have found but one case, a boy of 10 years with an I Q of about 125.

This boy, whom we have tested several times and whose development we have followed for five years, was once diagnosed by a physician as feeble-minded. His behavior among other persons than his familiar a.s.sociates is such as to give this impression. Nothing less than an entire chapter would be adequate for a description of this case, which is in reality one of disturbed emotional and social development with superior intelligence.

It should be emphasized, however, that what we have said about the significance of various I Q's holds only for the I Q's secured by the use of the Stanford revision. As we have shown elsewhere (p. 62 _ff._) the I Q yielded by other versions of the Binet tests are often so inaccurate as to be misleading.

We have not found a single child who tested between 70 and 80 I Q by the Stanford revision who was able to do satisfactory school work in the grade where he belonged by chronological age. Such children are usually from two to three grades r.e.t.a.r.ded by the age of 12 years. On the other hand, the child with an I Q of 120 or above is almost never found below the grade for his chronological age, and occasionally he is one or two grades above. Wherever located, his school work is so superior as to suggest strongly the desirability of extra promotions. Those who test between 96 and 105 are almost never more than one grade above or below where they belong by chronological age, and even the small displacement of one year is usually determined by illness, age of beginning school, etc.

CHAPTER VII

RELIABILITY OF THE BINET-SIMON METHOD

GENERAL VALUE OF THE METHOD. In a former chapter we have noted certain imperfections of the scale devised by Binet and Simon; namely, that many of the tests were not correctly located, that the choice of tests was in a few cases unsatisfactory, that the directions for giving and scoring the tests were sometimes too indefinite, and that the upper and lower ranges of the scale especially stood in need of extensions and corrections. All of these faults have been quite generally admitted. The method itself, however, after being put to the test by psychologists of all countries and of all faiths, by the skeptical as well as the friendly, has amply demonstrated its value. The agreement on this point is as complete as it is regarding the scale's imperfections.

The following quotations from prominent psychologists who have studied the method will serve to show how it is regarded by those most ent.i.tled to an opinion:--

There can be no question about the fact that the Binet-Simon tests do not make half as frequent or half as great errors in the mental ages (of feeble-minded children) as are included in gradings based on careful, prolonged general observation by experienced observers.[30]

[30] Dr. F. Kuhlmann: "The Binet-Simon Tests of Intelligence in Grading Feeble-Minded Children," in _Journal of Psycho-Asthenics_ (1912), p. 189.

All of the different authors who have made these researches (with Binet's method) are in a general way unanimous in recognizing that the principle of the scale is extremely fortunate, and all believe that it offers the basis of a most useful method for the examination of intelligence.[31]

[31] Dr. Otto Bobertag: "L'ech.e.l.le metrique de l'intelligence," in _L'Annee Psychologique_ (1912), p. 272.

It serves as a relatively simple and speedy method of securing, by means accessible to every one, a true insight into the average level of ability of a child between 3 and 15 years of age.[32]

[32] Dr. Ernest Meumann: _Experimentelle Padagogik_ (1913), vol. II, p. 277.

That, despite the differences in race and language, despite the divergences in school organization and in methods of instruction, there should be so decided agreement in the reactions of the children--is, in my opinion, the best vindication of the _principle_ of the tests that one could imagine, because this agreement demonstrates that _the tests do actually reach and discover the general developmental conditions of intelligence_ (so far as these are operative in public-school children of the present cultural epoch), and not mere fragments of knowledge and attainments acquired by chance.[33]

[33] Dr. W. Stern: _The Psychological Methods of Testing Intelligence._ Translated by Whipple (1913), p. 49.

It is without doubt the most satisfactory and accurate method of determining a child's intelligence that we have, and so far superior to everything else which has been proposed that as yet there is nothing else to be considered.[34]

[34] Dr. H. H. G.o.ddard: "The Binet Measuring Scale of Intelligence; What it is and How it is to be Used," in _The Training School Bulletin_ (1912).

The value of the method lies both in the swiftness and the accuracy with which it works. One who knows how to apply the tests correctly and who is experienced in the psychological interpretation of responses can in forty minutes arrive at a more accurate judgment as to a subject's intelligence than would be possible without the tests after months or even years of close observation. The reasons for this have already been set forth.[35] The difference is something like that between measuring a person's height with a yardstick and estimating it by guess. That this is not an unfair statement of the case is well shown by the following candid confession by a psychologist who tested 200 juvenile delinquents brought before Judge Lindsey's court:--

[35] See this volume, p. 24 _ff._

As a matter of interest I estimated the mental ages of 150 of my subjects before testing them. In 54 of the estimates the error was not more than one year in either direction; 70 of the subjects were estimated too high, the average error being 2 years and 7 months; 26 of the subjects were estimated too low, the average error being 2 years and 2 months. _These figures would seem to imply that an estimate with nothing to support it is wholly unreliable, more especially as many of the estimates were four or five years wide of the mark._[36]

[36] C. S. Bluemel: "Binet Tests on 200 Delinquents," in _The Training School Bulletin_ (1915), p. 192. (Italics inserted.)

Criticisms of the Binet method have also been frequently voiced, but chiefly by persons who have had little experience with it or by those whose scientific training hardly justifies an opinion. It cannot be too strongly emphasized that eminence in law, medicine, education, or any other profession does not of itself enable any one to pa.s.s judgment on the validity of a psychological method.