deterioration or "falling back" among A and B men is just about as likely to take place during the Sophomore year (compared with the Freshman year) as it is in the second semester (compared with the first). Quite plainly a surprising number (twenty-eight to thirty per cent) of the men who are superior academically early in their college career fail to maintain that standing. Among the two lowest academic groups, the D and E men, there is a much greater improvement in the Sophomore year over the Freshman year than in the second semester over the first. This greater improvement doubtless finds an explanation in part in the elimination of the poorer men by natural and artificial (administrative) means. The D men who survive the Sophomore year must be looked upon as the survivors of nonadministrative elimination factors. It is probably fair to assume that they were the ones among the whole Freshman D group who possessed more than their fellows those qualities that tend to insure survival in a college community. The adaptation to the academic life of the college as indicated by progressive improvement in scholarship that seems absent as a general tendency during the Freshman year, and which manifests itself mainly in the Sophomore year by the improvement of the low grade men, shows its full strength in the Junior year where progress all along the line is the rule. The analysis of marks received during the Freshman year in relation to their prognostic value for later college achievement clearly indicates that while the majority of men who receive, during their Freshman year, low grades fail later to do satisfactory college work, there are numerous instances where decided and satisfactory improvement takes place. Rarely does a Freshmen with an average grade of E (below sixty) at the end of the year do creditable work in College. Such men should not be continued except in rare instances and for very definite reasons. However, among the Freshmen with D records nearly a third stay in College and subsequently succeed. Is there any basis by which this third who will succeed may be distinguished from the two-thirds who will fail? Clearly no test of absolute validity is available. However, the previous discussion indicates the following: From those members of the Freshman class receiving average D marks for their first year grades, those should be selected to continue whose academic averages are a high D (above sixty-five), whose psychological scores are predictive of future college success, and whose low averages are due rather to failure in certain subjects, particularly mathematics, than to an all-round mediocrity. Although the question of admission and of elimination of college students is important, this has not been the chief problem of the committee. Its major problem has been that of helping students in College to find themselves and of aiding them to direct their efforts in worth while ways. By studying the records of the psychological examinations, by comparing these with college grades and other evidences of academic achievement, and above all by personal interviews, the members of the committee have been able to advise students more intelligently in regard to their college work and the possibilities of life careers. In estimating a student's fitness for academic work no single test, whatever its nature, can uniformly measure this fitness. Clearly, psychological tests are not perfect, but what other test is more adequate? It has been emphasized in the above discussion that all known tests of fitness should be combined in such ways as to obtain the most valuable criteria possible; further, that these should be administered with commonsense and sympathy. No student should be excluded from college until his case has been investigated in all possible ways. It should also be the aim of the academic college not merely to exclude the unfit but to make the relatively unfit capable of academic success. Many who now fail could have succeeded under more favorable conditions. The American college should not be merely an institution to test efficiency. It will not serve the purposes for which it is founded unless it discovers and develops efficiency. 56. Effects of Primogeniture on Intellectual Capacity [WILLIS, Charles B., "Effect of Primogeniture on Intellectual Capacity," Journal of Abnormal Psychology, January, March, 1924, Vol. 18, pp. 375-377.] The writer tested almost 2,000 children by the Stanford Revision of the Binet Scale, in the Alexander Taylor School, Edmonton, Canada. The low-grade defectives were in the school population. The basis of comparison used was the I. Q. ratings of 219 pairs of children which were obtained, each pair being respectively, the first and second children in the family. The writer recognizes that a large number of factors must be considered in explaining the differences in intellectual oa pacity of siblings. The reliability of results submitted is high and he assumes that the primogeniture is the only variable at work in the results. He submits the following results: 1. First born children are, on the average, slightly lower in intellectual ability than second born children. 2. The extent of the difference is so small as to indicate that the part played by primogeniture is real, but relatively small. 3. The higher incidence of mental deficiency among first born children may be due in part, to the fact that they are the first born children in families in which the rest of the children are properly classified only as "borderline" or "backward" cases. 57. Education According to Social Levels [DAVIDSON, Percy E., "Social Significance of the Army Intelligence Findings," The Scientific Monthly, February, 1923, Vol. 16, p. 193.] The implications for universal education are not obscure. Doubtless the gifted minority should be discovered, wherever it may happen to reside upon the social levels, and be given all possible encouragement. Traditional wholesale methods of schooling have been quite too negligent of this precious element in the population, and economic resourcelessness often hampers it. But it surely does not follow that the great majority should be denied any training by which it can possibly profit, because of an arbitrarily imputed stupidity. Scientific methods of training have not as yet been inaugurated either for one group or the other. If the potentialities of average endowment are known only when they are thoroughly exploited, any neglect of them will be as wasteful from the viewpoint of the largest social good as would be the neglect of the highly endowed. 58. The Relation of Intelligence to Social Status [BRIDGES, James W. and COLER, Lillian E., "The Relation of Intelligence to Social Status," Psychological Review, January, 1917, Vol. 24, pp. 29-30.] The authors used the Yerkes-Bridges Point Scale in this investigation and tested 301 children in two schools situated in very different localities of Columbus, Ohio. The results of these tests were compared with similar scores for Cambridge, Mass., school children of the same ages. Their conclusions, in part, are as follows: Our results corroborate the conclusions of Binet in France, Hoffman in Germany and Yerkes et al. in United States that there is a very considerable dependence of intelligence upon sociological condition. We have further shown that when children are classified according to the occupations of their fathers, a striking correlation is shown between intelligence quotient and occupation group. Hence, if mental age rather than chronological age were used to determine the time for beginning school, the children of the professional group, for example, would begin school two years earlier than the children of the unskilled labor group; for the former mature intellectually much earlier than the latter. Incidentally the results have shown that the correlation of intelligence and social status is probably higher for boys than for girls. The girls of the poorer school are considerably superior to the boys; but the boys of the better school are only at one age noticeably superior to the girls. The superiority of the better classes is most evident in tests that involve higher mental processes like analysis and abstraction; but it is also shown to a lesser extent in sensory motor functions. We have not discussed the causes of this relation of intelligence to social status for the very good reason that our data do not contribute anything towards a solution of the problem. They aim merely to establish the fact and amount of the difference, and could be used by adherents of the "Environment Theory" as well as by advocates of "Inheritance." Thus, the former could emphasize the quite evident differences in home and school environments, teaching staff, etc.; while the latter would point to the just as evident differences in the character and intelligence of the parents. It is worth noting that in the few cases where the mothers were tested they showed a mental age about equivalent to that of their children. If intelligence quotients could be obtained for a number of successive generations with different environments, such data might contribute to a solution of the problem. 59. Notes on Racial Differences [JORDAN, A. M., "Notes on Racial Differences," School and Society, October 28, 1922, Vol. 16, pp. 503-504.] During the year 1920-21 the National Intelligence Tests, Form A, were given to the pupils of Fort Smith, Arkansas. There were tested 1,502 whites and 247 negroes between the ages of 10 and 14, inclusive. All children were attending grades IV to VIII. . . . The purpose of this study is to point out the differences of attainment of whites and of negroes between the ages of 10 and 14 in the National Intelligence Tests. . . Summary.-Racial differences between white children and negro children are pronounced. This difference varies from one and one half years at 10 years of age to three years at 14, the whites being uniformly ahead. Moreover there is considerable overlapping, since there are 20-26 per cent of the negroes reaching or exceeding the median of the whites. The negroes seem to be divided into two groups,-one very backward, and the other quite bright. In all but one age there are several white children that surpass the highest negro score and in all but two ages some whites are lower than the lowest negroes. 60. Mental Changes After Removing Tonsils and [LowE, Gladys M., "Mental Changes After Removing Tonsils and Adenoids," Psychological Clinic, May, June, 1923, Vol. 15, pp. 92100.] This paper presents the results of an attempt to measure the change in general alertness which followed the operation for diseased tonsils and adenoids. The comparisons made in this study involve the use of a control group with adenoids which did not undergo the operation. Only one other investigator has taken advantage of the fact that the best control group would consist of those suffering from the same defects but not operated upon. Three methods were used to determine the changes in mental ability; tests of mental alertness, teachers' estimates of certain traits, and the actual scholarship records. Cornell estimates that about 8 per cent of school children suffer from diseased tonsils and adenoids. The prevalence and the easy correction of these defects make important the question of the mental changes after their removal. . . . One hundred names of children, diagnosed by the city school physician as having diseased tonsils and adenoids, were taken consecutively from the records of the Lexington Public Health Nursing Association and were tested. Of this group sixty were available for testing after a lapse of one year. Twenty-five of this group of sixty failed to follow the recommendation for an |