Ideally, the secondary school should receive these pupils already tested mentally, with cumulative records; but, since in the existing state of affairs this is not possible, because such tests have not been generally made, the high schools are wondering what methods to use in selecting the highly intelligent as they arrive, in the ordinary course of events, for admission.
We must agree that we have, in fact, no method at present generally available of distributing the top percentile of the adolescent population. The Army Alpha, which strictly speaking pertains to adults, is no doubt the most nearly appropriate instrument we have for distributing the top one per cent of adolescents. No other group test has sufficient "top" for this purpose, and no individual test has a "ceiling" high enough to prevent the best from "going through." Two forms of Army Alpha combined will give as good an approximation as is at present available to a correct distribution of adolescents at and above 130 IQ (S-B).
There exist tests of scholastic aptitude which pertain to adolescents of college caliber, but these are not generally available, being limited to the organizations which make specific use of them.
From observations of the progress of highly intelligent children tested at an early age, I offer the hypothesis that pupils of 130 to 150 IQ (S-B) have quite enough to do in the truly efficient pursuit of the college preparatory curriculum of the senior high schools, and do not need any enrichment of this curriculum as far as challenge to ability is concerned. What these pupils need is merely freedom from the presence of great masses of classmates who are mentally unadapted to the college preparatory course, and the opportunity to work unhampered, in segregated groups, such as are now being formed in many secondary schools under the concept of the honor school.
Pupils above 150 IQ (S-B) are, however, probably in definite need of an enrichment of even the college preparatory course as it exists currently in senior high schools. If experimental observation should prove this hypothesis to be true, how should the secondary school set about it to provide for the genuine education of such pupils? Should the huge high schools of a great city, like New York, organize an enrichment curriculum within the honor schools for these extreme deviates? Should honor schools have faculties proper to them only? Assuming an enrichment program for pupils above 150 IQ (S-B) to be found desirable or necessary in secondary school, what matters shall find place in such a curriculum?
The answers to these questions cannot be stated from the swivel chair or the arm chair. Years of realistic hard and intelligent work will have to be done, by way of experiment with various groups of adolescents. As regards the question pertaining to enrichment of curriculum, I dare offer the suggestion that there are "common things" the evolution of which would be more properly worked out at the adolescent level than at the level of childhood by highly intelligent pupils. Thus at Public School 500, Manhattan (Speyer School), we often find ourselves wishing that we might have our pupils at adolescence in order to take up with them the evolution of law and order, of trade and money, of warfare, of punishment, and many other things concerning which no systematic instruction is ever given outside of professional schools.
One may suggest that in the elementary school the enrichment curriculum might proceed by covering the evolution of "common things" which are concrete, as we have been doing, leaving for the secondary school those "common things" which are relatively abstract and involve especially concepts of social-economic consequence.
It is to be considered, also, that each of these pupils, at and above 150 IQ (S-B), would have the capacity to master a manual trade, in addition to mastering a profession, if time were allowed during adolescence. At 13 years of age, the hand then being developed, such pupils might be trained for skilled trades, in their spare time, as an enrichment of curriculum. In a changing world it is perhaps a good thing for those who are capable of both profession and skilled manual craft to have both at their service as adults, and to be capable of serving society and themselves in more than one specialized vocation, as was and is actually the case with many able Americans, reared and educated under pioneering conditions of the nineteenth century and earlier.
To this point we have been speaking of enrichments accompanying and supplementing the college preparatory course for pupils testing above 150 IQ (S-B). But shall we guide all our highly intelligent pupils into college preparatory courses? Or shall some of them be positively guided so that they will end high school without the "credits" for college? Shall all whose circumstances tend to force them into vocational high schools be allowed to drift in that direction? Here is a question of fundamental importance for society, which at this moment we hardly know enough to raise, much less answer. Only one in every hundred tests at or above 130 IQ (S-B). What does society most need from this little handful of persons? These can perform socially desired functions which none of the other ninety and nine can possibly perform. They can be educated in ways which are forever out of the reach of all who test below them. What should we, as educators, the publicly appointed guardians of their intellectual lives, do with these children for their own and society's best interests?
There is no more serious question than this in all education. How shall a democracy educate the most educable? At present these children are to a great extent lost in the vast enterprises of mass education, and are left to handle their special problems as they may, by themselves, while the energies of teachers are bent upon the main business of dealing with the ninety-nine per cent who test below 130 IQ (S-B). Common sense would tell us that a child who tests as far above the average as a feeble-minded child tests below cannot escape having special problems under conditions of mass education. We cannot go into this matter in detail here. These problems have been set forth in another place. [7] It is for us to consider them carefully, for educators are the sole group appointed by society to guard the interests of children. We are their official guardians, adding our guidance to that of their natural guardians, parents, who are often helpless either to recognize these children's abilities or to develop them.