TESTS OF GENIUS.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 18444, 30 March 1922, Page 4

TESTS OF GENIUS.

Professor John Adams, of London University, gave a brilliant address on the same subject. Indeed, it was so successful that it had to be repeated, a common experience in theatrical performances, but a rare thing In pedagogue lectures. Professor Adams pointed out that mental tests tended to favour indoor, rather than outdoor, workers. Shopkeepers and book-keepers earned a higher percentage of marks than those who worked out of doors, but it would be dangerous to deduce from this that indoor workers had greater intelligence. The practical result of the application of intelligence tests to the American army (1,750,000 men) was that it revealed that the work of the whole of the United States was being carried on with intelligence not higher than that of a boy of fourteen! The wisdom which was brought into play later was knowledge of the world; gained afterwards—a very different thing. Professor' Adams also had some wise and witty things to say upon psychoanalysis, which he defined as the psychology of the unconscious. He recalled that of the millions of ideas that experience bad given us the power of recalling, only a tiny fragment could be presented at any one moment. The unrealised ideas formed the submerged part of this psycho-analytical iceberg. For the actual application of psycho-analysis in education Professor Adams laid down the following principles: 1. Make psycho-analysis, or an extension of ordinary philosophy, and study it, in order to show what the unconscious means.

2. Confine it almost entirely to wholesome, normal children.

3. Try to apply psycho-analytical psychology to the teaching of history, to the management of the class, to the training of character, etc. 4. Discover pathological cases wherever the are likely to occur, and refer them at once to experts—but do not be too easily convinced that it is a pathological case. 5. Be very careful not to let their pupils know that they are being observed phycho-analytically. It will be deplorable if they begin to join in and “play up." Mr. Hilaire Belloc’s plea for history teaching by the eye, rather than the ear, including the greater use of the kinema, was an interesting feature in the history discussions. Both in Manchester and London, history teachers also sharply denounced a tendency to use the history lesson for propaganda purposes. This protest is, in part, due to well-intentioned people connected with the League of Nations desiring to rewrite history “without any battles." Sir Michael Sadler, vice-chancellor of Leeds University, and Professod Hearnshaw, of London, were leading men who pointed to the danger of the history teacher taking sides against historical facts. Dr. Walford Davies, the famous organist of the Temple Church, now Professor of Music at the University of Wales, urged that to no children should music be "taught”—; “let them catch it like the mumps or measles.” Indeed, there should be daily singing in the school for 10 minutes, and a weekly concert. Mr. Armstrong Gibbs, the writer of the incidental music of Maeterlinck’s “Betrothal,” was insistent upon the value of gramophones in school. The instrument made frequent repetition possible and enabled the under-melo-dies in music to be pointed out. So much for the high-brows and their theories of reform. Nevertheless, the correspondent reminds us that In spite of theories, and in spite of reforms, Smith Minor will continue as a prime factor in education. So, very aptly, he alloys Smith Minor to end this interesting record of England’s Educational Week, with the following flowers of fancy, culled from a long list of “howlers" perpetrated during the Christmas examinations. Evidently, in history, geography, literature, mathematics, or science alike, Smith Minor was amusing. Here are his latest additions to the world’s store of unconscious humour: — Shakespeare wrote tragedies, comedies, and errors. Philippa was a brave Queen. She married Edward I. Henry met Beckett on the altar steps, and severely massacred Mai.

Martin Luther did not die a natural death, but was excommunicated by a bull. A straight line is one which, being continually produced, shall never end. “Anno Domini,” means “after death." The three estates of the realm are Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, and Balmoral. People go to Africa to hunt rh'inostriches.

The guilds were the ancestors of trade unions, but now only old women go there to sew.