18. Mental Level in the Formation of Boys' Gangs [WARNER, M. La Vinia, "Influence of Mental Level on the Formation of Boys' Gangs," Journal of Applied Psychology, September, 1923, Vol. 7, pp. 224-236.]

Miss Warner's data for this study was derived from the school reports, court records, and the records filed by the Children's Service Bureau, Youngstown, Ohio. Binet mental ages were obtained by Dr. H. H. Young, then director of the Children's Service Bureau, and his assistants.

The following table shows the age, mental age and I. Q. of each at the time of breaking the jewelry store window:

The public school attendance department shows that in cases of truancy among the Franklin Club, the boys were either alone or in company with another member of the club. However, the record of J. F. shows that he played truant three times with two other boys but their mental ages do not differ from J. F.'s more than six months and the I. Q.'s are within the range of seven units.

Court records show that boys from this club have committed ten different crimes in company with one another, but there is no account of any one of them being arrested in company with a boy who rates with normal mentality.

Influence of Nationality and Proximity.-In most of the groups there would be as many nationalities represented as there were cases. It was found that the nationality did not enter in. If the boys were all Italians it was because they lived and met in the same Italian district. . . .

In nine groups the boys of each group attended the same school, in ten groups the boys attended adjoining schools, and in one group three of the boys attended different schools found

in the same quarter of the city and the other two boys in the group were the ones who lived on the opposite side of the city.

Boys of the same mental level can understand and appreciate the same things. They have reached the same degree of progress in the stage of mental development. . . . Consequently, each is at home with each other. No one is comfortable for a very long time if he is much inferior to those about him. . . .

A boy mentally high will not be satisfied with companions several degrees below himself. They cannot reach his ideas and he will grow tired of being tied down to their level. . . .

This is not an attempt to solve the problem of group companionship in so brief a study of a few cases, but the investigation indicates that mental age is the greatest factor in the selection of one's companions and in holding groups together. It indicates that a common mental level with similar experiences as a background is a much stronger factor in group formation than any other factors investigated.

19. Mental Age

[MATEER, Florence, The Unstable Child, pp. 446, 455, 459. New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1924.]

Mental age is usually regarded as the final solution of all of the complicating situations found in delinquents. A feebleminded child is delinquent because he is feeble-minded. In a certain sense this is absolutely true, in another sense it is just as false. Feeble-mindedness is by no means a cause of delinquency. . . . The feeble-minded individual is frequently delinquent because the discrepancy between what he understands and can do and what is expected of him is too great. It is feeblemindedness plus opportunity, minus right training in sufficient intensity that makes a delinquent moron or imbecile.

Mental age is one of the determiners of delinquency, but this determination is not limited to the cases in which mental age is inferior to the point of feeble-mindedness. . . . If school demands more than a child can give, he is provoked to truancy.

Delinquent children are highly variable in their qualities, most inconsistent in their abilities and their disabilities, surprisingly able, surprisingly stupid, erratic and queer. They are over quick and very slow, nonadaptive and nonpersistent, forgetful, laboriously remindful. They are psychopaths.

The psychopath is a chance waste product of our attempts at civilization. He will not grow less numerous. He is with

us to stay. . . . He has potentialities. What he needs is early detection, long years of training, supervised parole without stigma, and a chance to make good. He will repay such care as no feeble-minded individual can.

20. The Theory of the Constancy of Intelligence [STERN, William, "The Theory of the Constancy of Intelligence," Psychological Clinic, March-April, 1925, Vol. 16, pp. 110-118.]

I. Retests of the same children show that the I. Q. varies within certain limits which are, however, in most cases so narrow that practically one can speak of constancy. The probable range of variation of the I. Q. of a child is 10 points (5 points up and 5 points down). The chance that the I. Q. will either increase or decrease as much as 15 points is only 1/20. . . .

II. Considerable intra-individual variations occur now and then especially in the case of psychopaths. But neither superior nor feeble-minded children show a constant tendency to change the I. Q. in certain directions. There is especially no verification of Peters' assumption that the I. Q. of feeble-minded individuals is liable to decrease with increasing age.

III. Changes to such an extent that pronounced subnormality becomes normality or normality becomes supernormality or vice versa, hardly ever occur.

Values of the I. Q.-The positive value of the I. Q. seems to me a four-fold one.

I. It gives us a quantitative measure for the mental level of adjustment of an individual which can be readily used and interpreted.

III. As to negative prognoses, the I. Q. renders valuable service. supporting (but not establishing) our judgments concerning the degree of feeble-mindedness, the unfittedness for certain school systems and school classes, for training in certain professions and for the professions themselves. It also is of value in the determination of responsibility with respect to criminal proceedings, etc.

IV. As to positive prognoses and conferences, the I. Q. furnishes a preliminary orientation which, however, must be controlled, supplemented and corrected by other psychological methods.

21. Superior I. Q. in Mental Breakdown

[WELLS, F. L., "Superior I. Q. in Mental Breakdown," Psychological Bulletin, February, 1920, Vol. 17, pp. 63-64.]

Median I. Q. (adult) in 102 consecutive Stanford scale examinations of McLean Hospital patients is 88. This is entirely compatible with normal self-maintenance. I. Q. over 100 is frequent, and as high as 119 has been observed in adults conspicuously incapable of self-maintenance. Only in the organic psychoses does the breakdown regularly involve the ideational capacities with which the intelligence scales are concerned. Normal and superior "intelligence" is very generally associated with grave judgment and conduct disorder. Above a necessary minimum, the value of intelligence for general adaptation depends greatly upon the support of other factors in the personality, somewhat as a boxer's mechanical skill must be supported by courage and physique. Intelligence scales measure essentially ability to deal with ideas, as distinct from ability to deal with things, or with other persons. Psychotic breakdowns are essentially failures of adjustment to the social environment. The present experience emphasizes the minor rôle of "intelligence" (ideational capacity) in mental balance, and supports the conception of education as a discipline of character rather than of knowledge.

22. Correlation Between I. Q. and A. Q.

[MACPHAIL, Andrew H., "The Correlation Between the I. Q. and the A. Q.," School and Society, November 18, 1922, Vol. 16, pp. 586588.]

It is the purpose of this article to present significant data bearing upon the relationship existing between capacity, as indicated by the I. Q. and actual achievement, as indicated by the A. Q. (accomplishment quotient). . . . In grades 5-8 inclusive, the National Intelligence Test (A) and the LippincottChapman Test (in arithmetic and reading) were used. In the lower grades use was made of the Otis Primary Group Intelligence Scale and the Haggerty Reading Examination, Sigma I. In either case . . . mental ages and the individual I. Q.'s were found. The scores on the school products tests were converted into pedagogical ages and the individual accomplishment quotients were found by dividing the pedagogical age by the mental age. Thus there was found for each pupil tested an I. Q. and an A. Q. . . . Increases in the I. Q. are accompanied

by decreases in the A. Q. and that, on the whole, pupils having I. Q.'s above 85 are not working up to capacity and the greater the intelligence of the pupil the less is he actually accomplishing that which one is justified in expecting him to accomplish. . . . For every ten points of increase in the I. Q. there is a corresponding decrease of two and one-half points in the A. Q. Moreover, if the 409 cases be divided into groups of below normal, normal, and above normal, intelligence in terms of the I. Q., it is found that the mean A. Q.'s for each of these groups are 103.1, 95.5, and 90.5, respectively. . . . Roughly speaking, the A. Q.'s of 100 or more are made by pupils having I. Q.'s of 100 or less and the A. Q.'s of less than 100 are made by pupils having I. Q.'s of more than 100. . . . We have a striking portrayal of the fact that the superior children are not working up to their capacity as well as do normal children and that the less gifted children exceed both of these groups in this respect by doing just about what one is justified in expecting of them.

From such data as has been here presented, it is quite fair to conclude, as others have done from like data, that existing standards of achievement in the elementary school are better suited to the slower pupils than to either the normal or the superior pupils. Accordingly, the normal (average) and especially the superior children are not working up to their capacity and under such conditions can only be expected to contract habits that are not conducive to studiousness and industry. In actual practice, it was found in the case of the above-mentioned elementary school that 60 per cent of the four hundred odd pupils were retarded 17.9 months each, on the average, with respect to mental age. In other words, the mental age of 60 per cent of the children was one year and a half beyond the average mental age of the grade in which each pupil was found to be classified. In terms of intelligence these pupils were capable of doing work beyond what they were being asked to do. Likewise, in terms of the school subjects tested, 33 per cent of the pupils were found to be classified nearly one year (10.9 months), on the average, below where one would expect to find them. In other words, their pedagogical age exceeded by nearly a year the average pedagogical age of the grade in which each was found respectively. . . . Surely there is much need for such changes in methods of classification and in the incentives offered pupils as will take into consideration the capacity and mastery of subject