Studies of mentality, so well advanced for infants and so well begun for lower
grades, are still very meager for adolescent stages so far as they bear on growth
in the power to deal with arithmetic, drawing and pictures, puzzles, superstitions,
collections, attention, reason, etc. Enough has been done to show that with
authority to collect data on plans and by methods that can now be operated and
with aid which should now be appropriated by school boards and teachers'
associations, incalculable pedagogic economy could be secured and the scientific
and professional character of teaching every topic in upper grammar and high
school and even in the early college grades be greatly enhanced. To enter upon
this laborious task in every branch of study is perhaps our chief present need and
duty to our youth in school, although individual studies like that of Binet[21]
belong elsewhere.
(C) The studies of memory up the grades show characteristic adolescent
changes, and some of these results are directly usable in school.
Bolton[22] tested the power of 1,500 children to remember and write dictated
digits, and found, of course, increasing accuracy with the older pupils. He also
found that the memory span increased with age rather than with the growth of
intelligence as determined by grade. The pupils depended largely upon
visualisation, and this and concentrated attention suggested that growth of
memory did not necessarily accompany intellectual advancement. Girls
generally surpassed boys, and as with clicks too rapid to be counted, it was
found that when the pupils reached the limits of their span, the number of digits
was overestimated. The power of concentrated and prolonged attention was
tested. The probability of error for the larger number of digits, 7 and 8,
decreased in a marked way with the development of pubescence, at least up to
fourteen years, with the suggestion of a slight rise again at fifteen.
In comprehensive tests of the ability of Chicago children to remember figures
seen, heard, or repeated by them, it was found that, from seven to nine, auditory
were slightly better remembered than visual impressions. From that age the latter
steadily increased over the former. After thirteen, auditory memory increased but
little, and was already about ten per cent behind visual, which continued to
increase at least till seventeen. Audiovisual memory was better than either alone,
and the span of even this was improved when articulatory memory was added.
When the tests were made upon pupils of the same age in different grades it was
found in Chicago that memory power, whether tested by sight, hearing, or