ested in the problems which concern the college and the secondary school should be brought into active membership in the Association. Immediate steps should be taken to increase the membership of the Association to at least five hundred.

2. The Annual Meeting of the Association should be held in Boston, but there should also be a "Spring Meeting" held each year in a part of New England more or less distant from Boston; for example, one year in New Haven, another year in Springfield, another year in Portland.

3. Co-operation with the other associations in New England whose interests center about the college and secondary school has already been initiated. The co-operation should be greatly strengthened and enlarged. The date of the Annual Meeting of our Association should be a convention date in which all these associations should have a part. Teachers should be granted the privilege of leaving their schools to attend these convention meetings. Colleges, private schools, and public schools should not only urge their instructors to attend, but be ready to contribute to the expenses incurred. In the solving of educational problems our Association, representing all educational fields and all educational interests, should be a clearing-house where the pronounce ments of the various departmental associations should be discussed and harmonized.

4. The Annual Saturday morning business session should be devoted to reports of active committees offering solutions for current educational problems, and to the discussion of these reports. Not more than one formal address should be placed upon the Saturday morning program. The proceedings of this session should be published.

5. The Executive Committee as a body should have a very much more important place in the conduct of the Association than it has had in the past. It should meet more frequently. It should discuss in a preliminary way the educational problems which arise in New England. It should itself present to the Association tentative solutions of these problems or entrust the study of such problems to small active committees.

As the record of the business of the last annual meeting of the Association had been printed and sent to the members, the reading of the record was omitted. The secretary presented the following analysis of the membership of the Association as of April,

1919:

ANALYSIS OF MEMBERSHIP, APRIL, 1919.

Colleges

Private Schools

Public Schools

Superintendents, etc.

Totals ....

The report of the treasurer from January 31, 1918, to January 31, 1919, was approved and placed on file.

The Nominating Committee, consisting of Robert N. Corwin, William Gallagher, Arthur O. Norton, Frederick Winsor and Enoch C. Adams, presented the following list of officers for the ensuing year, and they were elected:

President, LEMUEL HERBERT MURLIN.

Vice-Presidents, JAMES ARTHUR TUFTS, GEORGE DANIEL OLDS. Secretary-Treasurer, WALTER BALLOU JACOBS.

Executive Committee (with the preceding), Ernest Granger HAPGOOD, CLEMENT COLLESTER HYDE, WILLIAM COLVER HILL, BERTHA MAY BOODY, CLIFFORD HERSHEL MOORE.

The secretary was directed by vote of the Association to express to Caleb Thomas Winchester, First Vice-President of the Association, the deep regret of the Association that the condition of his health made it unwise, in his opinion, to hold the office of President for the ensuing year.

The report of the delegates to the College Entrance Examination Board was presented by William Gallagher.

The report of the delegates to the National Conference on College Entrance Requirements in English was presented by George H. Browne. The report was adopted by the Association.

Upon motion of Clement C. Hyde it was voted that the thanks

of the Association be extended to Boston University for the use of Jacob Sleeper Hall.

The report of the Committee on Standards for Secondary Schools was presented by the chairman, Frank W. Nicolson.

It was voted: That the Executive Committee be instructed to appoint a committee representing all elements of the Association and including representatives of the State Boards of Education, the function of the committee to be the improvement of the standard of the Secondary Schools in New England.

This committee is to report at the next annual meeting of the Association.

The Executive Committee appointed the following Committee on Standards: William C. Hill, chairman; Frank W. Ballou, Robert N. Corwin, Mabel H. Cummings, Clarence D. Kingsley, Anna J. McKeag, Guy M. Winslow.

The report of the Committee on Standards for Colleges was presented by the chairman, Alexander Meiklejohn.

In accordance with the recommendations of the committee, it was voted:

1.

That the question of standards for colleges be made an order of business for the next annual meeting.

2. That the President of the Association be directed to appoint a committee to collect and formulate information bearing upon the question and to place such information in the hands of members of the Association in advance of the meeting.

3. That the committee be also requested to report at the next meeting upon two phases of the question: (a) the educational principles involved in the procedure; (b) its probable effect in specific cases upon institutions within the territory of the Association.

4. That the membership of the committee be as follows: The president of the Association, three representatives of schools, three representatives of colleges.

Adjourned.

WALTER BALLOU JACOBS, Secretary.

1

The Purposes and Methods of Psychological

Tests in Schools and Colleges

STEPHEN SHELDON COLVIN, PROFESSOR OF EDUCATIONAL
PSYCHOLOGY, BROWN UNIVERSITY.

..............................÷LL forms of human behavior may be ultimately

A

traced to two fundamental causes, namely inheritance and environment. Each individual is born with definitely inherited mechanisms and abilities for responding to his environment and his subsequent experience acts on his original nature to inhibit, modify or develop his inheritance in various directions. Without inborn abilities and tendencies on which experience may build, there could be no learning, and without learning there could be no behavior save that of the simplest and most rudimentary type. Learning is absolutely necessary for human attainment, but learning is always conditioned on the inherited nature of the individual. It is not worth our while here to discuss which is the more important, nature or nurture. It is sufficient to say that if either of these two mainsprings of human conduct is markedly deficient in any individual that person can reach no high level of achievement.

Our inheritance provides us with numerous reflexes, instincts and capacities, some of which are very specific and some quite general in their manifestation. A few of these are capable of but slight modification through environmental influences, while others, the more complex and less specific, are dependent on experience for their development and expression. Those inborn tendencies which we call capacities (and to a less degree instincts) belong to this latter class. One may have a capacity for music, or mathematics, but no one without much specific training ever became a great musician or a famous mathematician.

Among the capacities that we inherit is the ability of act with. a certain degree of intelligence in various situations of life, pro

vided that we have had previously a certain acquaintance with these or similar situations. This ability has been termed by the psychologist, "general intelligence." It must be kept in mind that this is not general in the sense that the individual possessing it is capable of responding to all varieties of situations in an equally intelligent way, even if he has had adequate experience in all of these situations. No one is born with a capacity so general that it may manifest itself equally well in all phases of human endeavor or achievement. In some things he is by nature more capable than in others. It is possible that he may be a brilliant user of words and a clumsy user of his hands, even if he has had ample opportunity to acquire skill in both. In one situation he would be by nature bright, and in another stupid.

By general intelligence the psychologist means an inborn ability which, when joined with adequate training, enables an individual to act with a similar degree of effectiveness in a large variety of situations, though surely not in all that might arise. Through the possession of a high degree of general intelligence one individual finds it possible to achieve success in many human undertakings, while because of the lack of such intelligence another is doomed to mediocrity or failure in practically all callings that he may enter upon. It may thus be seen that general intelligence is not absolutely but only relatively general in its nature, and it must further be kept in mind that it can never manifest itself apart from the training that comes through life experience.

It is a matter of common knowledge that children and older / pupils show a wide range of achievement in their school work.. The cause of this variability in performance is now considered to be due chiefly to differences in original endowment (in general intelligence). One reason for this conclusion is that since all have had practically the same opportunities for acquiring knowledge and skill during the course of their school training, those who succeed the best do so because it was "born in them" to succeed, and those who do mediocre and poor work do so because they were given only a modicum of the capacity to become intelligent. This being the case, it is highly important for the teacher