articulation, was best in those pupils whose school standing was highest, and
least where standing was lowest.
When a series of digits was immediately repeated orally and a record made, it
was found[23] that while from the age of eight to twelve the memory span
increased only eight points, from fourteen to eighteen it increased thirteen
points. The number of correct reproductions of numbers of seven places
increased during the teens, although this class of children remain about one digit
behind normal children of corresponding age. In general, though not without
exceptions, it was found that intelligence grew with memory span, although the
former is far more inferior to that of the normal child than the latter, and also
that weakness of this kind of memory is not an especially prominent factor of
weak-mindedness.
Shaw[24] tested memory in 700 school children by dividing a story of 324
words into 152 phrases, having it read and immediately reproduced by them, and
selecting alternate grades from the third grammar to the end of the high school,
with a few college students. The maximum power of this kind of memory was
attained by boys in the high school period. Girls remembered forty-three per cent
in the seventh grade, and in the high school forty-seven per cent. The increase by
two-year periods was most rapid between the third and fifth grades. Four terms
were remembered on the average by at least ninety per cent of the pupils, 41 by
fifty per cent, and 130 by ten per cent. The story written out in the terms
remembered by each percentage from ten to ninety affords a most interesting
picture of the growth of memory, and even its errors of omission, insertion,
substitution and displacement. "The growth of memory is more rapid in the case
of girls than boys, and the figures suggest a coincidence with the general law,
that the rapid development incident to puberty occurs earlier in girls than in
boys."
In a careful study of children's memory, Kemsies[25] concludes that the quality
of memory improves with age more rapidly than the quantity.
W.G. Monroe tested 275 boys and 293 girls, well distributed, from seven to
seventeen years of age, and found a marked rise for both visual and auditory
memory at fifteen for both sexes. For both sexes, also, auditory memory was
best at sixteen and visual at fifteen.
When accuracy in remembering the length of tone was used as a test, it was