, 1888-07-07
AN INTERESTING MEMORY TEST.
AscertaInIng tho Receptive Powers OF
School Chldren-Tsst Sentences

80 AAAAh NaS -
School ChIldren-Tsst Sentences
Mr.. Fl. II. Ballard publishes in The
Journal of Education the result of a test
of the memories and receptive powers Of
school children. The sentence, your
redemption from the distress into which
you have fallen is in your own hands,
and in no wise depends on forms of gov
eminent or modes of election" was care
fully read to one of ten selected pupils,
who repeated it exactly as possible to the
next scholar, and this one to the third,
and so on to the tenth. The tenth pupil
wrote down what he received from the
ninth. In one case the sentence emerged
from this process as ''The redemption Of
our distress is in your own hands," In
another it was: sFThe invention which
has fallen into your hand;n and the SEN
tence had dwindled into this already at
the sixth pupil.
In another case the sentence was whis-
pered instead Of distinctly read, and the
process of calling On the imagination
when the senses give no clear impression
is illustrated in the result, which was,
1.-The attempts into which we have fallen
during the government election. are very
low" In the Pittsfeld, Mass, high
nv NlCDCLAbCLSO Odu1Co W. AbCdCLb
ton Is in your own hands, and depends
upon no formal government nor love"
In the senior class of another high school,
in which the average age Of the pupils
was IS years, the result was, sour re-
demption for our destruction has nothing
to do with u.s." In still another school
it was, your distress into which you
have fallen Is by no means the fault of
arAuarnrnnrf ~ A zaN - q ranr-NlI TT1ni1a
reduced it to, ''The redemption that lies
Of the high school In the same town made
it, your redemption into which you
have fallen is your own fault"
In one school the experiment was
modified; two pupils from each of five
grades were selected, and the sentence
clearly read aloud to them all. After a
minutes interval each Of the ten wrote
down what he could of the sentence.
The sentences written by n pupil of the
highest, one of the middle, and n OF
lowest grades were these: "Your re-
demption from the distress into which
| you nave fallen lies in your own hands,
and in nowise depends on the govern
ment or ann of election" "Your
redemption from the distress into which
you have talents In your own hands,
and depends in no wise upon the forms
OF government or the modes of election"
your redemption and distress in which
you have fallen depends on yourself,
and in no wise on the government or Its
mode of election" Although not n OF
the ten got 1t perfectly accurate, yet
many were very near it; and they all
show how much more the wear and tear
on the sentence is In passing through ten
mouths than through one. By the other
process one accumulates the combined
inaccuracies of all, and one pupil with a
very poor receptive organ In the middle
of the ten prevents the circulation of O
good repetition after him. After this
the sentence was passed through the ten
pupils arranged in order of grade, and
issued as, Your redemption from the
distress into which you have fallen de-
Ponds entirely upon yourself, and by nc
means upon the forms OF government or
helps from education"
The sentence here selected is quite q
difficult one, but an easier one from EN-
erson was hardly more successful. The
sentence was "An things are double, one
against another-tit for tat, an eye for
an eye, a tooth for a tooth, blood for
BLOOD, measure for measure, love Tor
love"-and the result, "All things are
good for one another" Although the
test, as thus applied, Is too complex to
allow valid differences to be drawn from
1t, it at any rate shows how difficult it is
to repeat accurately what has been heard,
as well as how little confidence Is to be
placed in the declarations of persons re-
porting the very few words of a CONVEX
sation held weeks or months before; II
illustrates, too, in a simple form, the
process by which a simple tale becomes
an deliberately embellished narrative by
passing through several hands; and per
haps it indicates that the powers of care
full attention and retention need more
systematic training than is devoted t.
them in the ordinary school work.
Science.