ed and tormented him. The Binet tests
gave an I Q of approximately 75; that is, the retardation
amounted to about two years. The child was examined again three
years later. At that time, after attending school two years, he
had recently completed the first grade. This time the I Q was
73. Strange to say, the mother is encouraged and hopeful because
she sees that her boy is learning to read. She does not seem to
realize that at his age he ought to be within three years of
entering high school.

The forty-minute test had told more about the mental ability of
this boy than the intelligent mother had been able to learn in
eleven years of daily and hourly observation. For X is
feeble-minded; he will never complete the grammar school; he
will never be an efficient worker or a responsible citizen.

Let us change the picture. Z is a bright-eyed, dark-skinned girl
of 9 years. She is dark-skinned because her father is a mixture
of Indian and Spanish. The mother is of Irish descent. With her
strangely mated parents and two brothers she lives in a dirty,
cramped, and poorly furnished house in the country. The parents
are illiterate, and the brothers are retarded and dull, though
not feeble-minded.

It is Z's turn to be tested. I inquire the name. It is familiar,
for I have already tested the two stupid brothers. I also know
her ignorant parents and the miserable cabin in which she lives.
The examination begins with the 8-year tests. The responses are
quick and accurate. We proceed to the 9-year group. There is no
failure, and there is but one minor error. Successes and
failures alternate for a while until the latter prevail. Z has
tested at 11 years. In spite of her wretched home, she is
mentally advanced nearly 25 per cent. By the vocabulary test she
is credited with a knowledge of nearly 6000 words, or nearly
four times as many as X, the boy of cultured home and scholarly
parents, had learned by the age of 8 years.

Five years have passed. When given the test, Z was in the fourth
grade and, as we have already stated, 9 years of age. As a
result of the test she was transferred to the fifth grade. Later
she skipped again and at the age of 14 is a successful student
in the second year of high school. To assay her intelligence and
determine its quality was a task of forty-five mi