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142
Annual Report of the London County Council, 1911.

This test, although useful, took so long that it was used only in these cases recorded, and in the
series where Binet tests were utilised in full.
A similar test was to ask for differences between two familiar objects, such as a fly, and a butterfly.
Roughly, for two who succeeded three failed. Many children seemed to try to recall something they
had heard rather than what they themselves had noticed. Many answers were absurd, but in a few
cases unexpected power of observation came to light. Being different from ordinary school procedure
the teachers thought the test likely to be confusing to the children. It is set down by Binet as one which
eight-year-old children should pass.
A simpler test involving every-day experience and also the effects of school instruction is the
power of recognising coins. For this purpose a full series was used, but for the younger children the
values under 1s. only were employed, and even in the elder children cases of confusion between 2s. and
2s. 6d. were ignored in marking the result. Had these been included the results of the following table
would have been reduced materially—
Age—7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Total.
Knowledge—
Plus— 2 3 12 7 23 30 23 13 119
Minus 3 3 8 8 2 8 12 5 6 55
174
The power of readiness in recognising absurdities was tested in a few cases, but led to such bad
results that it was abandoned, save in the formal Binet series. The sentence was read over twice to the
child who was told there was something wrong about it of the nature of a catch. The sentence chiefly
used was "a man was walking along the street with his hands in his pockets and twirling his cane."
This catch and others were detected by a few elder boys. The test is given as one for 11-year olds.
Each child was tested with a series of readers until his upper limit was determined ; when he
had read a passage he was asked to say what he had been reading about. The type of reading, the
frequency of errors, and the accuracy of the subsequent report was noted. The range varied from

The jerky type of reading, in which each word is brought out as though an interjection expressive
of pleasure or pain, is the characteristic of the special school boy in the main, though it is found in
the infants' school and the lower standards. It is survival in the older defective children of a type