Music, drawing, and physical training were taken by the class as general exercises. These covered the grade requirements. The composition of plays, songs, and dances for special programmes also was undertaken. The privilege of observing plants and live animals, their care, habits, and manner of reproduction, was provided in the nature-study room of the school. Some of the boys were given manual training in the shops of the prevocational school after the regular session of the academic department. The class attended the senior assemblies of the school at least once a week and as many more times as the educational activities of the school permitted. The privileges enjoyed outside the classroom educated these children socially in ways that few pupils of large and congested schools may experience.
One period a week was spent in the reading and study of assigned subjects in the Tompkins Square Public Library. Children were made acquainted with all departments of the library and its facilities. Reference books, magazines, and newspapers were at their service. The children were permitted to use a club room in the Christodora House once a week for musical and social exercises. A gymnasium was at their disposal in this institution two periods a week, and one of the Christodora House’s workers was assigned to teach the cooking club of the class. Another social worker taught a quartette of the class how to play the violin. Two boys who showed aptitude in art were given additional instruction after school at the “Boys’ Club,” a neighbouring institution. The class was taken on excursions to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York Public Library, the Jumel Mansion, and Dyckman House—to study colonial furnishings and historical material—the Museum of Natural History, a sight-seeing yacht trip around Manhattan Island, theatre parties, campfire parties, and flower shows.
During the first term of six months the progress ranged from one to four grades. No pressure of any kind was brought to bear. The children were allowed to advance as soon as they acquired the work of each grade. The younger children reaped the advantage of the experience of associating with those a trifle older. This privilege perhaps accounted for the greater rate of progress by the younger pupils. During the first term the average progress was two and two thirds grades and during the subsequent terms two grades were accomplished each term.
The suggestion, of course, is obvious, that the general application of psychological tests of intelligence to school children everywhere would reveal similar exceptional mentalities in many schools and classes, and that we have at last, in tests of this character, an accurate method of distinguishing between mere parrot-like ability to memorize and repeat lessons and actual mental capacity. That there must result, from the wider application of the scientific method of mental measurement, a general regrading of school pupils, if not indeed a general reorganization of existing schemes and systems of education, goes almost without saying.
The use of intelligence tests for college entrance has shown satisfactory results in several institutions. In one in particular, the Carnegie Institute of Technology of Pittsburgh, a group of the freshman girls in the Margaret Morrison Carnegie School for Girls, was experimented on with such success that the results have been widely discussed.
All of the 114 freshmen were high school graduates. The first-year course, on which the instructors based their estimates of the students, contains the following subjects; physics, sewing, history, English, drawing and colour, hygiene, chemistry, foods, accounting, and social ethics.
Six mental tests were used, designed to answer the following questions:
(1) Can we demonstrate that we can reduce the number of students who are dropped for poor scholarship or placed on probation for poor scholarship by the use of our mental tests for admission?
(2) How do our mental test ratings of all the students compare with the faculty opinion about the general ability of the students?
The first criterion referred only to those who were pronounced as failures and dropped from college for inability to do college work, or placed on probation as doubtful students with two thirds of the regular programme. The second criterion had reference to the whole class, including the good students. A letter was sent to all members of the faculty asking them to indicate the student’s general ability as compared to the general ability of the class. A list of names, with ten numbered spaces after each name, was appended. The tests which agreed fairly well with the pooled judgment of the faculty were retained. The tests which failed in this regard were either improved or cancelled. When the returns were complete the instructor’s estimate was determined for each student and was used as a criterion for the tests.