STUDENTS' BRAINS

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 7, 8 July 1922, Page 4

STUDENTS' BRAINS

TESTS OF INTELLIGENCE

The scholars who have the honour of belonging to the. University of Wisconsin have recently had put before them a somewhat formidable task, remarks the London Daily Telegraph. The authorities have decided to institute a test of [intelligence, which is to comprise the successful answering of 100 questions dealing, for the most part, with current topics of the day. Apparently Mr. Thorau Edison has recently drawn up a, somewhat similar test, but the average college man and woman has discovered that this older' test is not satisfactory, and should be supplanted by one more elaborate and more sensible. We accept these judgments with all the humility of those who have not had to pass la similar examination, and who wonder I what would happen if an', unkind fate were to confront thoni with those problems. The nearest approach' we have in this country to a test of this kind is the so-called "General Paper" which scholars of our publio schools have to do their best to answer either before they leai-e school or before they enter the university. r

The. General Paper, we take it, is to bo recommended on the ground that a boy should (be encouraged' to be interested in every kind. of knowledge, but especially of that knowledge which will put him on tho level of the men and women whom he meets. Men and women of the world have very varied interests, and the accomplished scholar who has passed his test will be able to hold his own with them, whatever may be the immediate subject of inquiry. In this country a scholar has, perhaps, to answer of the "General Paper" not more than some twelve or fifteen problems. The notion that at least one hundred replies are required before intelligence can be guaranteed is an additional burden, with regard to which we do not altogether envy ; the scholars of Wisconsin. Obviously a clear, distinction must be .drawn in these matters between intelligence and learning. The really learned man is, of course, the man who knows his one subject well. The homo unius libri—the man of one book—was usually considered in the Middle Ages as the bastequipped student. of all. But, apart from . definite knowledge, ' apart, , too, from the necessary training and development of mind, for the sake of wliich a man is sent to a college, tl^ere ia the faculty which, in Wisconsin, at all events, they seek to evolveand which they term intelligence. Intelligence is a quick receptivity, an instinctive power of amassing all eorts of heterogeneous data, a gift which flows from that dubious human benefit—versatility.

It is right, of course, that an intelligent man should know all sorts of things that are going on around him, and even be convorsant with the phrases and argot of the day. If ho is set down before the 100 questions of the authorities of Wisconsin, he may or may not be able to answer all of them, but, al, all events, just, so far.as ho has an intelligent interest, ho will be ablo.'to prove.the vivacity of his mind and the alertness required for a clever man of the world. Wo are not told what would happen to.a man who cannot answer a 'definite proportion of these questions, still less of tho fato of the man who is hopelossly at soa, but we quite realise the value of such i tests, together also with t.lioir limited range. Some of. tho problems mentioned may strike ono as trivial. For, example, we doubt if to say whether Mr. Bernard Shaw" is young or old is of any value until wo remember that youthfulnoss is a considerable asset, arid that an old man with a cynical tendency is not soattraetivo as a young man with an occasional tendency to satire. We do not, however, suppose that this is in any sense a fair specimen. Other questions havo a more awesome importance; for oxample, whether' articulation is performed in the lungs, the voice-box. or the 'head. Nor would tho majority of us bo able to say off hand, if we were asked, who wrote the song, "Old Biack Joe." The real point involved in these discussions is whether by. examinations we can ever gauge the intelligence of a pupil. We can test his knowledge, for this is a definite matter within a definite sphere. Intelligence is another and more subtle matter, somotimes to be ascertained by

a. vivo, voce examination, but rarely found as a result of a series of disquisitions on paper. Somo time ago a .well-known tutor in Oxford declared that ho could reduce all the possible questions to bo set in tho Pinal School of Humane Letters to some twenty propositions. That is the worst of all mechanical devices; they have a tendency to become stereotyped. And even a General Paper is found to revolve round only relatively few questions and answers. If Wisconsin finds that her students aro more intelligent' than others in consequence of the tests she has proposed, we shall indeed congratulate the University. Only the fear is that if tho experiment is successful the 100/ necessary questions, like the 100 best books, may gradually grow, into quite uumanigeable proportions.