Lewis M. Terman

“ Character and reputation. “Character is what you are; reputation is what people say about you.” “You have character if you are honest; but you might be honest and still have a bad reputation among people who misjudge you.” “Character is your real self; reputation is the opinion people have about you.” “Your character depends upon yourself; reputation depends on what others think of you.” “Character means your real morals; reputation is the way you are known in the world.” “A man has a good character if he would not do evil; but a man may have a good reputation and still have a bad character.” ”

“ Considering the difficulty which normal adults sometimes have in distinguishing right and left, is it fair to use this test as a measure of intelligence? We may answer in the affirmative. It is fair because normal adults, notwithstanding momentary uncertainty, are invariably able to make the distinction, if not by direct association, then by an intermediate one. We overlook the momentary confusion and regard only the correctness of the response. Subjects who are below middle-grade imbecile, however long they have lived, seldom pass the test. ”

“ We are beginning to realize that the school must take into account, more seriously than it has yet done, the existence and significance of these differences in endowment. Instead of wasting energy in the vain attempt to hold mentally slow and defective children up to a level of progress which is normal to the average child, it will be wiser to take account of the inequalities of children in original endowment and to differentiate the course of study in such a way that each child will be allowed to progress at the rate which is normal to him, whether that rate be rapid or slow. ”

“ Just as in the case of physical illness, we need to know not merely that the patient is sick, but also why he is sick, what organs are involved, what course the illness will run, and what physical work the patient can safely undertake, so in the case of a retarded child, we need to know the exact degree of intellectual deficiency, what mental functions are chiefly concerned in the defect, whether the deficiency is due to innate endowment, to physical illness, or to faults of education, and what lines of mental activity the child will be able to pursue with reasonable hope of success. ”

“ Finally, in arriving at an estimate of a subject’s grade of intelligence and his susceptibility to training, it would be a mistake to ignore the data obtainable from other sources. No competent psychologist, however ardent a supporter of the Binet method he might be, would recommend such a policy. Those who accept the method as all-sufficient are as much in error as those who consider it as no more important than any one of a dozen other approaches. ”

“ It would be a mistake to suppose that any set of mental tests could be devised which would give us complete information about a child’s native intelligence. There are no tests which are absolutely pure tests of intelligence. All are influenced to a greater or less degree also by training and by social environment. For this reason, all the ascertainable facts bearing on such influences should be added to the record of the mental examination, and should be given due weight in reaching a final conclusion as to the level of intelligence. ”

“ We do not have as much good as we desire, nor do we have as much misfortune as others want us to have. Nevertheless, we have enough good to keep life from being unjust.”
“Some people have different views of life from others. Some say it is bad, others say it is good. It is better to class life as mediocre, as it is never as good as we wish it, and on the other hand, it might be worse.” ”

“ Again, the most important question of heredity is that regarding the inheritance of intelligence; but this is a problem which cannot be attacked at all without some accurate means of identifying the thing which is the object of study. Without the use of scales for measuring intelligence we can give no better answer as to the essential difference between a genius and a fool than is to be found in legend and fiction. ”

“ According to the classical definition of feeble-mindedness such individuals cannot be considered defectives. Hardly any one would think of them as institutional cases. Among laboring men and servant girls there are thousands like them. They are the world’s “hewers of wood and drawers of water.” And yet, as far as intelligence is concerned, the tests have told the truth. These boys are uneducable beyond the merest rudiments of training. No amount of school instruction will ever make them intelligent voters or capable citizens in the true sense of the word. ”

“ A subject who fully grasps the meaning of the selection as it is read is not likely to fail because of poor memory. Mere verbal memory improves but little after the age of 14 or 15 years, as is shown by the fact that our adults do little better than eighth-grade children in repeating sentences of twenty-eight syllables. On the other hand, adult intelligence is vastly superior in the comprehension and retention of a logically presented group of abstract ideas.
There is nothing in which stupid persons cut a poorer figure than in grappling with the abstract. ”

“ It would be interesting to know what proportion of offenders have transgressed moral codes because of continued failure to grasp the essential lessons presented by human situations.
For the intelligent child even the common incidents of life carry an endless succession of lessons in right conduct. On the average school playground not an hour passes without some happening which is fraught with a moral hint to those who have intelligence enough to generalize the situation. A boy plays unfairly and is barred from the game. ”

“ Binet tells us that he often encountered the criticism that intelligence tests are superfluous, and that in going to so much trouble to devise his measuring scale he was forcing an open door. Those who made this criticism believed that the observant teacher or parent is able to make an offhand estimate of a child’s intelligence which is accurate enough. “It is a stupid teacher,” said one, “who needs a psychologist to tell her which pupils are not intelligent.” Every one who uses intelligence tests meets this attitude from time to time. ”

“ In testing normal children, little error will result if we go back no farther than the year which yielded only one failure, and if we stop with the year in which there was only one success. This is the lowest permissible limit of thoroughness. Defectives are more uneven mentally than normal children, and therefore scatter their successes and failures over a wider range. With such subjects it is absolutely imperative that the test be thorough. ”

“ Our experience in testing children for segregation in special classes has time and again brought this fallacy of teachers to our attention. We have often found one or more feeble-minded children in a class after the teacher had confidently asserted that there was not a single exceptionally dull child present. In every case where there has been opportunity to follow the later school progress of such a child the validity of the intelligence test has been fully confirmed. ”

“ It is true, of course, that in solving them the subject makes use of knowledge which is ordinarily obtained in school; but this knowledge (that is, knowledge of reading and of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division) is possessed by practically all adults who are not feeble-minded, and by many who are. Success, therefore, depends upon the ability to apply this knowledge readily and accurately to the problems given—precisely the kind of ability in which a deficiency cannot be made good by school training. ”

“ Intellectual discrimination and judgment are inferior. The ideas do not cross-light each other, but remain relatively isolated. Hence, the most absurd contradictions are swallowed, so to speak, without arousing the protest of the critical faculty. The latter, indeed, is only a name for the tendency of intellectually irreconcilable elements to clash. If there is no clash, if the elements remain apart, it goes without saying that there will be no power of criticism. ”

“ In other words, not all criminals are feeble-minded, but all feeble-minded are at least potential criminals. That every feeble-minded woman is a potential prostitute would hardly be disputed by any one. Moral judgment, like business judgment, social judgment, or any other kind of higher thought process, is a function of intelligence. Morality cannot flower and fruit if intelligence remains infantile. ”

“ Binet fully appreciated the fact that intelligence is not homogeneous, that it has many aspects, and that no one kind of test will display it adequately. He therefore assembled for his intelligence scale tests of many different types, some of them designed to display differences of memory, others differences in power to reason, ability to compare, power of comprehension, time orientation, facility in the use of number concepts, power to combine ideas into a meaningful whole, the maturity of apperception, wealth of ideas, knowledge of common objects, etc. ”

“ The comments should describe as fully as possible the conduct and attitude of the child during the examination, with emphasis upon such disturbing factors as fear, timidity, unwillingness to answer, overconfidence, carelessness, lack of attention, etc. Sometimes, also, it is desirable to verify the child’s age and to make record of the verification.
Once more let it be urged that no degree of mechanical perfection of the tests can ever take the place of good judgment and psychological insight. Intelligence is too complicated to be weighed, like a bag of grain, by any one who can read figures. ”

“ All classes of intellects, the weakest as well as the strongest, will profit by the application of their talents to tasks which are consonant with their ability. When we have learned the lessons which intelligence tests have to teach, we shall no longer blame mentally defective workmen for their industrial inefficiency, punish weak-minded children because of their inability to learn, or imprison and hang mentally defective criminals because they lacked the intelligence to appreciate the ordinary codes of social conduct. ”

“ Meumann offers a twofold definition. From the psychological point of view, intelligence is the power of independent and creative elaboration of new products out of the material given by memory and the senses. From the practical point of view, it involves the ability to avoid errors, to surmount difficulties, and to adjust to environment.
Stern defines intelligence as “the general capacity of an individual consciously to adjust his thinking to new requirements: it is general adaptability to new problems and conditions of life.” ”

“ The universal criticism has been that it is a test of schooling rather than of intelligence. That the performance depends, in a certain sense, upon special instruction is self-evident. Without such instruction no child of 8 years, however intelligent, would be able to pass the test. Nature does not give us a conventionalized language, either written or spoken. It must be acquired. It is also true that a high-grade feeble-minded child, say 8 years of age and of 6-year intelligence, is sometimes (though not always) able to pass the test after two years of school instruction. ”

“ Indeed, it would be desirable to make all promotions on the basis chiefly of intellectual ability. Hitherto the school has had to rely on tests of information because reliable tests of intelligence have not until recently been available. As trained Binet examiners become more plentiful, the information standard will have to give way to the criterion which asks merely that the child shall be able to do the work of the next higher grade. The brief intelligence test is not only more enlightening than the examination ”

“ One cannot see justice, for example, but one is often confronted with situations in which justice or injustice is an element; and given a certain degree of abstraction and generalization, out of such situations the idea of justice will gradually be evolved.
The formation and use of abstract ideas, of one kind or another, represent, par excellence, the “higher thought processes.” It is not without significance that delinquents who test near the border-line of mental deficiency show such inferior ability in arriving at correct generalizations regarding matters of social and moral relationships. ”

“ The fact is, the more one sees of feeble-minded children, the less reliance one comes to place upon facial expression as a sign of intelligence. Some children who are only slightly backward have the general appearance of low-grade imbeciles. On the other hand, not a few who are distinctly feeble-minded are pretty and attractive. With many such children a ready smile takes the place of comprehension. ”

“ It is possibly true that even if the examiner is tactful and prudent an unfavorable attitude on the part of the subject may occasionally affect the results of a test to some extent, but it ought not seriously to invalidate one examination out of five hundred. The greatest danger is in the case of a young subject who has been recently arrested and brought before a court. Even here a little common sense and scientific insight should enable one to guard against a mistaken diagnosis. ”

“ Without the intelligence to generalize the particular, to foresee distant consequences of present acts, to weigh these foreseen consequences in the nice balance of imagination, morality cannot be learned. When the adult body, with its adult instincts, is coupled with the undeveloped intelligence and weak inhibitory powers of a 10-year-old child, the only possible outcome, except in those cases where constant guardianship is exercised by relatives or friends, is some form of delinquency. ”

“ As a guide to the interpretation of the results of other forms of investigation relating to the work, progress, and needs of children, intelligence tests form a very valuable aid. More than all other forms of data combined, such tests give the necessary information from which a pupil’s possibilities of future mental growth can be foretold, and upon which his further education can be most profitably directed. ”