Mrs. Barnes[19], told a story without date, place, name, or moral and compared the questions which 1,250 children would like to have answered about it. She found that the interest of girls in persons, or the number who asked the question "who," culminated at twelve, when it coincided with that of boys, but that the latter continued to rise to fifteen. The interest to know "place where" events occurred culminated at eleven with girls, and at fifteen, and at a far higher point, with boys. The questions "how" and "why," calling for the method and reason, both culminated at twelve for girls and fifteen for boys, but were more infrequent and showed less age differences than the preceding question. Interest in the results of the action was most pronounced of all, culminating at twelve in girls and fifteen in boys. Details and time excited far less interest, the former jointly culminating for both sexes at eleven. Interest in the truth of the narrative was extremely slight, although it became manifest at fifteen, and was growing at sixteen. The number of inferences drawn steadily increased with age, although the increase was very slight after thirteen. Both legitimate and critical inferences increased after eleven, while imaginative inferences at that age had nearly reached their maximum. Interest in names was very strong throughout, as in primitive people. Boys were more curious concerning "who," "where," and "how"; girls as to "why." In general, the historic curiosity of boys was greater than that of girls, and culminated later. The inferences drawn from an imagined finding of a log-house, boat, and arrows on a lonely island indicate that the power of inference, both legitimate and imaginative, develops strongly at twelve and thirteen, after which doubt and the critical faculties are apparent; which coincides with Mr. M.A. Tucker's conclusion, that doubt develops at thirteen and that personal inference diminishes about that age.
The children were given two accounts of the fall of Fort Sumter, one in the terms of a school history and the other a despatch of equal length from Major Anderson, and asked which was best, should be kept, and why. Choice of the narrative steadily declined after eleven and that of the despatch increased, the former reaching its lowest, the latter its highest, point at fifteen, indicating a preference for the first-hand record. The number of those whose choice was affected by style showed no great change, from twelve to fifteen, but rose very rapidly for the nest two years. Those who chose the despatch because it was true, signed, etc., increased rapidly in girls and boys throughout the teens, and the preference for the telegram as a more direct source increased very rapidly from thirteen to seventeen.
Other studies of this kind led Mrs. Barnes to conclude that children remembered items by groups; that whole groups were often omitted; that those containing most action were best remembered; that what is remembered is remembered with great accuracy; that generalities are often made more specific; that the number of details a child carries away from a connected narrative is not much above fifty, so that their numbers should be limited; and from it all was inferred the necessity of accuracy, of massing details about central characters or incidents, letting action dominate, omitting all that is aside from the main line of the story, of bringing out cause and effect and dramatizing where possible.
Miss Patterson[20] collated the answers of 2,237 children to the question "What does 1895 mean?" The blanks "Don't know" decreased very rapidly from six to eight, and thereafter maintained a slight but constant percentage. Those who expanded the phase a little without intelligence were most numerous from eight to ten, while the proportion who gave a correct explanation rose quite steadily for both sexes and culminated at fourteen for girls and fifteen for boys. The latter only indicates the pupils of real historic knowledge. The writer concludes that "the sense of historical time is altogether lacking with children of seven, and may be described as slight up to the age of twelve." History, it is thought, should be introduced early with no difference between boys and girls, but "up to the age of twelve or thirteen it should be presented in a series of striking biographies and events, appearing if possible in contemporary ballads and chronicles, and illustrated by maps, chronological charts, and as richly as possible by pictures of contemporary objects, buildings, and people." At the age of fourteen or fifteen, another sort of work should appear. Original sources should still be used, but they should illustrate not "the picture of human society moving before us in a long panorama, but should give us the opportunity to study the organization, thought, feeling, of a time as seen in its concrete embodiments, its documents, monuments, men, and books." The statesmen, thinkers, poets, should now exceed explorers and fighters; reflection and interpretation, discrimination of the true from the false, comparison, etc., are now first in order; while later yet, perhaps in college, should come severer methods and special monographic study.
Studies of mentality, so well advanced for infants and so well begun for lower grades, are still very meager for adolescent stages so far as they bear on growth in the power to deal with arithmetic, drawing and pictures, puzzles, superstitions, collections, attention, reason, etc. Enough has been done to show that with authority to collect data on plans and by methods that can now be operated and with aid which should now be appropriated by school boards and teachers' associations, incalculable pedagogic economy could be secured and the scientific and professional character of teaching every topic in upper grammar and high school and even in the early college grades be greatly enhanced. To enter upon this laborious task in every branch of study is perhaps our chief present need and duty to our youth in school, although individual studies like that of Binet[21] belong elsewhere.
(C) The studies of memory up the grades show characteristic adolescent changes, and some of these results are directly usable in school.
Bolton[22] tested the power of 1,500 children to remember and write dictated digits, and found, of course, increasing accuracy with the older pupils. He also found that the memory span increased with age rather than with the growth of intelligence as determined by grade. The pupils depended largely upon visualisation, and this and concentrated attention suggested that growth of memory did not necessarily accompany intellectual advancement. Girls generally surpassed boys, and as with clicks too rapid to be counted, it was found that when the pupils reached the limits of their span, the number of digits was overestimated. The power of concentrated and prolonged attention was tested. The probability of error for the larger number of digits, 7 and 8, decreased in a marked way with the development of pubescence, at least up to fourteen years, with the suggestion of a slight rise again at fifteen.
In comprehensive tests of the ability of Chicago children to remember figures seen, heard, or repeated by them, it was found that, from seven to nine, auditory were slightly better remembered than visual impressions. From that age the latter steadily increased over the former. After thirteen, auditory memory increased but little, and was already about ten per cent behind visual, which continued to increase at least till seventeen. Audiovisual memory was better than either alone, and the span of even this was improved when articulatory memory was added. When the tests were made upon pupils of the same age in different grades it was found in Chicago that memory power, whether tested by sight, hearing, or articulation, was best in those pupils whose school standing was highest, and least where standing was lowest.
When a series of digits was immediately repeated orally and a record made, it was found[23] that while from the age of eight to twelve the memory span increased only eight points, from fourteen to eighteen it increased thirteen points. The number of correct reproductions of numbers of seven places increased during the teens, although this class of children remain about one digit behind normal children of corresponding age. In general, though not without exceptions, it was found that intelligence grew with memory span, although the former is far more inferior to that of the normal child than the latter, and also that weakness of this kind of memory is not an especially prominent factor of weak-mindedness.
Shaw[24] tested memory in 700 school children by dividing a story of 324 words into 152 phrases, having it read and immediately reproduced by them, and selecting alternate grades from the third grammar to the end of the high school, with a few college students. The maximum power of this kind of memory was attained by boys in the high school period. Girls remembered forty-three per cent in the seventh grade, and in the high school forty-seven per cent. The increase by two-year periods was most rapid between the third and fifth grades. Four terms were remembered on the average by at least ninety per cent of the pupils, 41 by fifty per cent, and 130 by ten per cent. The story written out in the terms remembered by each percentage from ten to ninety affords a most interesting picture of the growth of memory, and even its errors of omission, insertion, substitution and displacement. "The growth of memory is more rapid in the case of girls than boys, and the figures suggest a coincidence with the general law, that the rapid development incident to puberty occurs earlier in girls than in boys."