A Clinial Survey of a Fsirst Grade
- Author:
Gladys G. Ide, Ph.D.
Director of Special Education, Public Schools of Philadelphia.
Education in the past has concerned itself with groups or a hypothetical individual representative of a group. The individual as a factor in retardation, in fixing the standard of grade work, in arranging a curriculum, has not been considered for himself alone. It has been taken more or less for granted until the past few years that there must be some laggards, but there has been no attempt to solve the problem of the laggard, any more than there has been an attempt to solve the problem of the extra-bright child. The sort of material that was dumped in the hopper of the first grade has not been the concern of anyone except possibly the first grade teacher who wanted to make a record for herself.
The entrance of the school doctor and nurse into the domain of education showed the lamentable condition of those children who are forced to compete with others in better health, with others older or younger, feebleminded or very bright.
Following the advent of the doctor and the nurse came the psychologist, who is interested in the state of the child from the standpoint of mental equipment. What is a child like who enters first grade? What does be bring to school? What does he lack for efficient work? With what children should he be associated? Is there a danger to him in his associates? What can be done with the group as it appears the first morning of school? Of what value will it be if an attempt is made to sort the children? Will it be of economic value, aside from the education of a good social product, that is, will it pay the community in terms of dollars and cents? These are some of the questions now being asked of the psychologist. The Local Problem.
To contribute toward the ultimate solution of this problem, the Psychological Clinic of the University of Pennsylvania sent a member of its staff, together with two students who had shown some ability for the work, to ‘a town a short distance from the city to test the school children of the first grade there, and to report both to the school and to the clinic the results obtained, the methods employed and the conclusions drawn.
The school in question is located in a town which has for its main support two huge steel mills. It is a fair sized town with the 1 This Survey was prepared by Dr Gladys G. Ide when Executive Officer of the Psychological Clinic, University of Pennsylvania. She was assisted by two students, Miss Rebecca E. Learning and Miss Cornelia Mann. usual stores and moving picture shows, a town which does not draw much of its support from the surrounding country. It is a town where there are many foreigners and negroes, and where but a small group of the inhabitants belong to the professional class. There is a school population, including the high school, of 3000 children of which approximately 400 are in the first grade.
The children examined included all of the first grade group and those of the second grade who had entered school in September of 1919 and who had been found competent to do the work of the second grade before the end of the year.
The School Organization.
The grade work is so planned that the children are placed in classes according to the teachers’ estimates of their proficiency. Thus a group of bright children are placed in one room or section of a room, while those who are of average ability, are in a second, and the children doing poor work are put in a third. Where there are three first grades in a school, there are at least three rooms of children of different capacity, with different levels of competency. Each room is further subdivided, the better children occupying the seats at one side of the room, the poorer ones at the other. There is no differentiation of curriculum for these children, but there is a differentiation in the amount which the children are expected to cover. The best children are promoted as fast as possible to higher sections and, the moment they seem ready, into other grades, without waiting for any definite time for promotion. There are no mid-year promotions. The teachers of the different sections, at this time were much on a par in training and ability. Largely through experience and better opportunities, two of them did much better work than the rest, but all were co-operative, both in trying to teach the different groups to the best of their ability and also in handling the children for the psychologists’ tests.
The Method of Testing.
The children were brought from their school rooms to an empty room, either an unused school room, an office, or a room used by the nurse and doctor. They were brought in groups of six, as that was a convenient number to test at one time. Each examiner arranged for a series of tests which she continued throughout the period of examination so that she became familiar with the reactions of this group on that particular series. While the tests were all done in the same room, it was possible to avoid observation by the children through the arrangement of chairs and tables. The results were dictated to two stenographers who sat near by. The children responded to the tests with enthusiasm. In no case did they seem afraid or emotionally overwrought by the situation. They had already been in school for some months, and were used to the routine they found there.
The Tests.
There were three different sorts of tests used with these children, educational, psychological and physical. The last consisted merely in observing the general condition, emphasizing especially the teeth, the throat, and any obvious physical defects.
The educational tests consisted, for this group, in reading from a book their teacher believed they could read, and counting to 100. They were also asked for the addition combinations up to six. In the reading examination the book was opened at random to some page with which they were supposed to be very familiar, and the child was asked to read a sentence at some point along the page, but not the top line. Several lines on different pages were tried. If the child failed to do this, he was asked for words commonly taught in the first grade, and if he failed there, he was asked to give letters, either phonetically or by name.
The children counted to 100 fairly readily. Where they seemed to know the sequence well, they were asked the question, “What comes after 59, 79?” or what not, in order to save time. Each child was asked for all the combinations up to 6. The question as stated was, “How much are 2 and 2?” etc.
For the psychological tests, three trials of the Witmer formboard were given, three trials of the puzzle designated by Iiealy as A, and two designs on blocks called the color cubes, a series commonly used in kindergartens. The designs were a square within a square, in red and white, and a blue chevron in a yellow field. Besides these performance tests, the child was asked for his auditory memory span, and the tests given at the seven year level of the Stanford Revision of the Binet-Simon scale.
The formboard has been analyzed by Young.1 Its possibilities are rather wide in range, and it gives a good learning curve when used for successive trials. It is well below the six year level so that most all of a group may be expected to pass it. It is a very satisfactory test of attention and learning. The Healy puzzle was not given in accordance with the strict requirements of Terman in his Binet revision at the ten year level. The child was given the opportunity to work it out three times by himself in five minutes. At the ?The Psychological Clinic, November, 1916, Vol. 10, p. 149. A CLINICAL SURVEY OF A FIRST GRADE. 277 end of thai time, if he failed to do it at all, he was shown, and given two more minutes to complete it. If he failed this time, he was shown again. The most important element to be observed in this test is imageability. The other qualities which may be easily observed are the child’s learning ability, his planfulness and his general knowledge of relations. The color cubes were introduced to see whether they are satisfactory as a test for children of these years. They give an opportunity for a child to analyze and copy a design from a model. The Binet series of tests at the seven-year-level were chosen to show the general information possessed by the children, as well as to give the child an opportunity to display his vocabulary. It is to be expected that children just finishing the first grade will be seven years of age, or very close to that age, if they enter the first grade at six, and it is not asking too much of them that they show what they can do at the seven-year level. The older children are certainly not handicapped by the requirements of an age level less than their chronological ages.
The Group.
The group of children included all who were in the first grade. They ranged in age from five years ten months to twelve years, and in nationality through all the geographical shades. Of these children 28 per cent were negroes, 45 per cent called themselves Americans, 11 per cent were Italians, 3 per cent were Hebrews, 4 per cent were Hungarian, and the remainder of the group were about equally divided between Ukranian, Scotch, Syrian, Polish, Slav, Austrian, Russian, English and German children.
As far as it was possible to determine, 67 per cent of these children entered school in September and October of 1919, 21 per cent entered during the first three months of 1920, 12 per cent entered in 1918, and 7 per cent entered in 1917. This record is not accurate, as the school records were often incomplete, and the children themselves did not know when they had entered school. Of the white children 47 per cent were six years of age, and 38 per cent seven years of age, 13 per cent eight years of age, 3 per cent nine years old, and 1 per cent ten years old. If eight years is considered a maximum age for children to complete the first grade, then but 3 per cent of the group could be considered over-age.
On the basis of the work the children did with performance tests, they were divided roughly into four groups, the decision whether the children were actually in one group or another depending largely upon whether or not they were able to analyze a performance test and do efficient work with it.
The ages of the children placed in Group A averaged seven years five months, those in Group B seven years two months, those in Group C seven years eight months and those in Group D eight years two months.
Physical Dcfects.
Of the 305 white children in the first grades, 121 had defects of the teeth, most of them of a serious nature. Many children could scarcely chew, their teeth were so badly decayed; three of these children had no teeth at all on the lower jaw, one apparently had never had any, and the others had had them, but they had decayed so that they barely showed above the surface of the gums. There is the greatest need of dental work with children whose first teeth are lost or nearly lost before the second teeth appear, Also many suffer the loss of their six year molars because the neighboring teeth are in such bad condition. The disturbances of nutrition so common among the children, may, therefore, be due in part to the condition of the teeth. One hundred and twenty-two of the children also showed hypertrophied tonsils, many of them badly in need of care. Twenty-five cases of obvious eye deficiency included ten cases of strabismus. Doubtless there were many more eye defects, but these were cases which was easily detected. Nine of the children had defective hearing, and 8 had speech defects other than those caused by the absence of teeth.
The most important point noted in regard to the children of this entire first grade group was their slow responses. They lacked energy, or that quality known to the high school boy as “pep.” Very few of them, in fact really possessed the energy necessary to complete efficiency for the first grade. This lack of energy in some cases was explained by physical deficiency caused by tuberculosis, diabetes or related diseases, but in most cases was probably due to lack of proper food. The people in the town are not poor, for their wages are good, and there have been no strikes to interrupt employment; but they do not know how to cook food properly and especially for a growing child. It is doubtful whether any of these children are suffering from a lack of quantity in food, but many are suffering from a lack of quality suitable for their age. On being questioned a number of children reported that their breakfasts consisted of bread and coffee, “just taties,” cookies and milk or some other light foods not considered adequate for a child’s breakfast, especially as that breakA CLINICAL SURVEY OF A FIRST GRADE. 279 fast is served early in the morning, because the mill whistles blow at seven o’clock. This is the customary breakfast for the foreign children, and it is among them that much of real mal-nutrition exists; but the old American families are also remiss in this respect, and their children show it, in an unmistakable slowness and lack of energy, even when they are fairly well nourished.
An open air class will aid in clearing up some of the more obstinate cases requiring medical attention, especially those with tuberculosis, but fresh air is not a substitute for food, and the school at the present time has not been able to do much toward solving his problem.
Still more work from the school doctor and nurse in connection with a dietician is necessary before the majority of children are really ready to do school work. Defects of sense organs are especially bad for the nervous, under-fed child, and the drainage from infected nasal and throat passages does not augur well for his general physical condition. The more that is done to increase the physical efficiency of the group the less retardation there will be.
Educational Tests.
On the educational scale it was found that the eleven children, who were promoted into the second grade some time during the year, had second grade or better proficiency in reading; 36 had first grade proficiency in reading one month before the end of the school year; that is, they were able to read any first grade book with a fair amount of ease and with a knowledge of all the common words; and 25 did not read at all. Of the others, all had a proficiency in reading less than that required by the first grade, generally about half as much as is expected of the first year.
The poor reading in this school has been due largely to the prevailing system of teaching. The first series of books are based upon familiar tales. These are told to the children first in complete story form. Then the readers based on these stories are presented to the children. The books are profusely illustrated with clever pictures, and even a comparatively unintelligent child can guess at the reading matter in connection with these pictures. The completed sentence is used as a unit, and very little work is given in phonics and word drills. In consequence, the children read very well when they are permitted to start at the top of the page, and especially so when there are pictures on the page, but they do not know the words when asked for them separately, that is, they are reciting material they have formerly committed to memory. Asking a child to begin further down the page spoils his reading entirely. The members of the group do not really read, although they apparently can read well. The fault lies in the system, which fundamentally is good, but which requires much more extensive drill on words and phonics than has been given if it is to succeed with children who are not unusually bright. The bright ones get along all right with it. No special emphasis is placed on numbers in this school system, so that the amount of number work the children know is limited very much to their experience with numbers, 59 per cent of the wholegroup of children were able to count to 100, and all were able to count some. Sixty per cent of all the children knew their addition combinations up to 6. There was a very evident difference in the ability to count and add in the different schools. Three-fourths of the children in one school succeeded with the test, while in another less than half were able to add and count. The school requirements were not rigid in this respect.
The Performance Tests.
The average time for the formboard for the first trial for all white children was 43.2 seconds, minimum 27 seconds and maximum 130 seconds. For the second trial it was 36 seconds, with a minimum of 19 seconds and a maximum of 162 seconds. For the third trial, the average time was 3.4 seconds with a minimum of 15 seconds and a maximum of 90 seconds. The results in this test show that the ranges for those succeeding in the test were not extensive. In some cases, where the first trial was not successful and the time therefore was not included, or where for any reasons a failure was recorded and the time was not included, the time was greater than this, but there were few children whose average time was not under sixty seconds for the first trial.
On the basis of their success with the formboard, especially on the way they solved the problem and on the sort of attention they displayed, the group was divided roughly into four groups known as A, B, C, and D. These divisions cannot be justified on other grounds than an examiner’s opinion, but the results of the averages of time for the different groups show that there was some sort of difference which the examiner was able to use as a basis for a judgment as to quality of performance. The A group averaged 40.1, 30 and 26.3 seconds respectively for their three trials, the B group 44.3, 36.5 and 32.2 seconds for the same three trials. The C group required 46.9, 37.8 and 35.9 seconds respectively for their three trials, and the D group required 52.1, 66.1 and 47.9 seconds for the three trials. Two of the group failed to complete the test. It will be noted that as the group became poorer the average time required for the completion of the formboard became greater. With the Healy A puzzle 68 per cent of all the children succeeded. This means that they did the puzzle three times without help. There was no time limit. Of the remaining 32 per cent approximately 85 per cent succeeded after they were shown the first time. Of the remainder, two failed entirely and could not be taught how to do it in the time allowed to the examiner, and of the rest, several failed on the second or third trial or both.
This test gave the examiner an opportunity to make observations especially in regard to imageability, both from the standpoint of the image before the puzzle is completed and the memory image of it after it is once completed. The analysis of the relations of the blocks required in the first trial was beyond many of these children, but the ability to retain a memory image of the relations was present in over four-fifths of the cases.
The design blocks were used to find out whether children of this age could be expected to imitate a given design. Ninety per cent of the entire group succeeded with the test. No one group showed any particular advantage over another, but group D was the poorest. Results seem to show that the test is valuable for this age, providing a more complete analysis can be made of it. At the present time it does not bring out qualities any better than Healy A, and its use is complicated by the Kindergarteners, who value it as training material. The Binet Tests.
Eighteen children of this entire group passed the Binet test at the seven year level. Six full tests were given. Forty-one of the group passed five of the tests, and sixty-two passed four of the tests. Two tests?naming the days of the week and the memory span of 5 caused the most failures. Less than half of the entire group did even passably well with the Binet series.
Part of the difficulty in passing the Binet tests is the lack of language. Tests like the days of the week, counting the fingers and tying a bow, show nothing more than whether the children have or have not been taught to do these things, and while they are significant in regard to their general information they give no indication of mental ability. When a child fails on the memory span test, it follows that either the tests are standardized at too high a level or the children are of a poor type. Since the average age of these children was past seven years, and the average memory span for the group is 4.4 digits on auditory presentation according to the Binet standard, it follows that, for this group of children, the Binet standards are unsatisfactory. On tests requiring the use of language, the difficulty is of another type. When there are twelve different nationalities represented in a rather small school, and when the children come to school prepared according to the home standards, and especially when that home does not teach English, it is not surprising that some children are unable to do the work of the first grade. Some of this group could not yet speak a word of English. They could not understand a word of directions; the only communication between the teacher and child must be by imitation or gesture To be sure, this group is very small, but the school is not only for the majority, it is also for the minority. More than one-third of the children do not speak enough English to make their first readers really intelligible, nor do they understand the difference between certain words well enough to use them. Often it has been found that children of foreign speaking parents do not understand the difference between the word different and the word alike. The relatively poor results obtained from the Binet test indicate that the children’s English vocabulary is extremely limited, although without these words they are unable to progress at a normal rate through the grades. Many children who do well with performance tests, whose memory spans are adequate and whose rate of learning is high, still do not succeed in passing language tests, because they do not understand what is wanted. Still less do they understand what is required of them by their teachers. Even some children of native-born Americans do not possess words enough to express their ideas, since in the home they are not trained in language.
Because of the absence of language, and because of an absence of information common to children of seven years, not half of the children of the group reach the point required of them by Terman. Terman’s standards are based upon a different group of children, but nevertheless they approximately represent, what is expected in school by the teachers of the first grades. This group of children was much below the seven-year level. While it is not at all necessary that a first grader pass these tests, it is necessary for him to possess a certain amount of general information as well as to have the use of a certain number of words. In this respect the group was lacking, and so must be considered inadequately prepared to do first grade work with the greatest efficiency. It is likely that an effort on the part of the school can produce much improvement along this line. Taking the tests separately, it was found that the average memory span for all the white children was 4.4 digits with auditory presentation. With the exception of the A group in one school, which returned an average of 5.1 digits, there was no averages above 4.8. The group averages did not vary in any significant fashion, except that several children placed in group D had a memory span of 3. No child had a memory span of less than three.
In the differences asked in the seven year test 43 per cent of all the children succeeded; 79 per cent were able to draw acceptable diamonds for this level; 81 per cent were able to count the fingers of both hands; 25 per cent knew the days of the week, and 66 per cent could tie a bow knot.
Results: 1. The results show that this group of children was lacking in vocabulary and in general information, if the standard made by Terman is correct or even approximately correct. 2. Performance tests show them to be slow, but otherwise capable of doing good work. 3. The memory span is less than is ordinarily expected of children of these ages.
4. The amount of work done in the majority of cases is less than should be expected for a good first grade. 5. Still more work by the school doctors and nurses will tend to increase the efficiency of the classes by a decrease of physical disabilities. Recommendations: 1. More intensive work by the school doctors and nurses for the removal of physical defects. 2. The rearrangement of curriculum, and further training of teachers to enable the school work to be more effectively done. 3. Further effort to increase the nutrition of the children through training of the parents in the homes.
The Colored School.
Of this group of tested children 28 per cent were colored. With the exception of one child these attended one school, under the supervision of a colored principal and with colored teachers in the school rooms. The conditions surrounding these children were rather better than in some of the white schools, and the teachers and principal seemed affable and efficient. The children were clean, well-dressed, and, if physical development is of any indication, fairly well-fed. An examination of the teeth of these children showed that they were farther along in the second dentition than their ages seemed to warrant. Inasmuch as the doctors reported the children rather over-weight and taller than the white children of corresponding ages, it seems likely that there is a slight acceleration of growth in colored children. If this is true, then the ages reported, which are probably not accurate, do not compare with the physical acceleration of the children. The average age is 7.7 years for this group of children, but the ages range from five years ten months, to twelve years. The fact that there are so many over-age children in this group is accounted for by the influx of colored families from the south, who came to work in the steel mills. Many of the children, nine, ten and eleven years old, have attended school not more than three months in a year, or in some cases have never attended school at all until the present year.
The children were graded on a five point scale as to the depth of pigmentation of the skin. Supposing that 5 indicates the deepest color, the lightest color shown by these children was 4.2, with the majority in the 5 group. Two of the children showed the redness of skin which is associated with the Indian, and one of the children had red hair of a somewhat dusky shade.
Physically the group were in good condition. One child was badly paralyzed probably due to a birth palsy. He is not likely to get along in his social group because he is not a very bright boy and is physically too handicapped to be efficient. Forty-five out of the group (about 50 per cent) showed some enlargement of the tonsils, only a few cases, however, especially bad. Twenty-seven children (about 33.3 per cent) had badly decayed teeth, two had mal-occlusions, five had obvious eye defects, three had running ears, and two had speech defects. It is also noted that three of these children had tufted hair, characteristic of some African tribes, and one had hazel eyes. In general it seemed that this group of children showed better energy than the white children in the same school. If the state of their clothing was an indication, the housekeeping at home was better than in the homes of many of the white children. The school has attached to it a visiting nurse who is doing good work in teaching the mothers some of the simpler facts of sanitation.
In educational tests these children did not do well, but, inasmuch as they had had very little schooling, they probably did as well as could be expected. Only one child of the entire group was able to read with first grade efficiency, that is, well enough to warrant his placement in a good second grade. Of the others, sixty-nine had IB proficiency in reading, that is, they read about as well as a child ought to read who has just completed half of the first grade work. The remainder did not read, but only one was judged to be unable to learn to read, and of the others, two had been in school not more than a month. The same criticism which holds good for the reading of the white children holds good for the reading of the colored children. Young teachers without adequate experience and the poor methods used in teaching reading tended to lower the efficiency of the work.
The children were tried on their ability to count. It was found A CLINICAL SURVEY OF A FIRST GRADE. 285 that forty-eight (approximately 50 per cent) were able to count to 100. Of the others all could count some, the poorest counting being done by a child who reached only 10.
On the psychological tests this group of children did very well, but proved themselves slow for their age. They were given two trials on the formboard. The children who were judged best, that is those called group A, succeeded in 39.1 seconds for an average time for the first trial, and 29.6 for the second trial. The B group did the first trial in 37.1 seconds, and the second trial in 32.4 seconds. The C group did the first trial in 44 seconds and the second trial in 37.4 seconds. Of the D group, of which there were two, each trial took more than a minute. One child failed completely on the formboard. The children were then tried with the Healy A puzzle. Forty children (approximately 50 per cent) succeeded in all three trials of the Healy A, while the remainder 21 succeeded on the last two trials, having been shown the first time. Only the very poorest of the class failed to complete this test after having been shown once. With the memory span this group of children showed up very well. The average memory span for the group is 4.4 digits on oral presentation. Divided into groups, we find that group A gets an average memory span of 5, group B of 4.9, group C of 4.1 and group D of 3.5. The other two tests given these children were the drawing of a diamond after a model shown them the differences as suggested by Terman in the seven-year-level of the Binet Tests. Of the former, approximately half the children were able to draw a diamond which could be credited on the Binet Test. The younger children were poorer than the older children, so the children in group D did better than those in group A. Of the differences the condition is quite reversed. Eighty-six per cent of group A succeeded in passing this test according to the Binet requirements, while 53 per cent of group B and 44 per cent of group C passed. Of the children in group D one succeeded and one failed. Thus approximately a little more than half of the children succeeded in passing this test. It is worthy of note that although these children succeeded they did not return stereotyped answers. Almost none of the replies were those suggested either as successes or failures by Terman. This suggests a need of closer study of the children’s vocabulary.
The purpose of the examination of the colored children was to determine, if possible, the ten or fifteen children who could be expected to do fairly well in school, in order that they might be trained for leadership among the people of their own race. The general level of these children was very much alike. They all proved slow in reaction. They showed less initiative than the white children, but they were also more responsive. Very few children could be chosen from the group as being predominantly better than the others. Not more than 8 per cent could be placed in a group for satisfactory work under pressure.
Results: 1. Physically the children proved to be in better condition than the white children of the same social group. Although many cases of enlarged tonsils were reported, not many were in very bad condition. 2. Educationally the group has not advanced a full year’s work in either reading or numbers, the majority having accomplished about a half year’s work. 3. The performance tests show the group to have adequate ability for training but slow reaction. Very few of the children are alert enough to indicate rapid ability to learn. Only about half the group do the performance tests with the highest degree of efficiency for their age. Recommendation: 1. S6me further medical care to reduce the number of physical defects. 2. A change of curriculum which will permit the introduction of work more nearly filling the needs of the children.
Results.
The psychologist may discover what the child entering the first grade is like, if he also has the co-operation of a social service worker, the doctor, the nurse, and the teacher, together with the parent. Even then many children will not be understood, but, with so large a group co-operating to give the child the best of opportunities much better work should be done than has been accomplished in the past. The psychologist stands in relation to the child’s mental ability as does the doctor to the physical condition of the child. While it is not possible to know everything about a child, one can at least know many of the qualities which are directly necessary to a child’s success in the first grade. For instance, a child who does not have enough language to take and execute ordinary verbal commands is not likely to work to his full capacity in regular grade work. A child, whose imagery is distinctly auditory in character does not do well under a teacher who makes her chief appeal to the eye, and the child with a limited memory span, the child who might do very well where material is stated in simple form, does not succeed at all when the material is expressed in a more complex way. The child who is deficient in any one of these fields, when associated with other children of the group, suffers socially because of his apparent dullness, for children are the keenest critics of their own group. The brightest children do best when they are placed in competing groups of about equal ability. The same may be said of the average children and also of the dullest ones. It does not follow, however, that the groups should be utterly isolated from each other, but only that they should be isolated in classes for group instruction. The danger to the child who is inferior on an intellectual scale is that he will believe himself inferior in other respects. This inferiority does not follow at all, and he may be more successful than his brighter brother in some particular occupation, or in a particular social group.
The sorting of children into groups can be done very nicely on an educational scale alone, but not until opportunity has been created for the children to try educational work. The first morning when the child appears in school as a stranger to his teachers there is no way for him to be placed in the proper class, or to sit where he ought to be. Only a trial will* show this. The psychologist, on the other hand, brings to the work material which is ready for use and which he is ready to apply on short notice. The child who is slow but dull, will be placed in his proper group at once, because the test will show him to be that kind. The tests are not omnipotent, nor is the judgment of the psychologist without possibility of error, but the chances are good that he will select the group in which Johnny belongs and save time for the teacher in the presentation of her work. It will be more economical when differentiation is made in the curriculum, and undoubtedly such differentiation will be made, as we come to understand the great amount of individual difference common to an ordinary first grade group. It will be found that the placement of a child in a group or class where the work can be most efficiently arranged for him will be the greatest contribution of the psychologist to the school. The child who is sidetracked because of illness, poor physical condition, or any other reason, will be enabled to do the best that is in him, through the investigation of the psychologist in the first place and secondly through the auxiliary teacher who will tutor him. The loss of a prospective citizen, well-trained and efficient, is too great to the community to warrant any other measures than the best that can be given.
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