poet, or executive, it is almost
impossible from original nature to tell.[1]

[Footnote 1: The psychological tests used in the army, and being
used now with modifications in the admission of students to
Columbia College, are "general intelligence" tests. That is, they
show general alertness and intellectual promise, but are not
prophetic of any specialized talents or capacities.]

INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES--DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION. The
fact that individuals differ in ability and interest has important
consequences for education and social progress. It
means, in the first place, that while current optimistic
doctrines about the modifiability of human nature are true, they
are true within limits--limits that vary with the individual.
Whether or not we shall ever succeed, through the science or
the practice of eugenics, in eliminating low ability and
perpetuating high exclusively, the fact remains that there are in
contemporary society the widest variations both in the kinds
of interest and ability displayed, and in their relative efficacy
under present social and industrial conditions.

There are, it must be noted at the outset, a not inconsiderable
number of individuals who must be set down as absolute
social liabilities. Even if existing social and educational
arrangements were perfect, these would remain unaffected
and unavailable for any useful purpose. They would have to
be endowed, cared for, or confined. There is the quite
considerable class, who, while normal with respect to sensory and
motor discrimination, seem to be seriously and irremediably
defective in their powers of judgment. These also seem to
offer invulnerable resistance to education, and their original
natures would not be subject to modification even by an
education perfectly adapted to the needs of normal people.

But the more significant fact, more significant because it
affects so many, is the fact that within the ranks of the great
class of normal people, there are fundamental inherited differences
in ability and interest. Next in importance to the fact
that an individual is human is the fact that he is an individual,
with very specific initial capacities and desires. For education
the implications are serious. Education aims, among
other things, to give the individual habits that will enable
him to deal most effectively with his environment. But an
individual can be trained best, it goes without saying, in the
capacities and interests he ha