Psychological Test, Measuring Scale for Handwriting
date: label: date made
content: ca. 1925
name: label: maker
content: Ayres, L. P.
label: maker
content: Russell Sage Foundation
notes: label: Description
content: Leonard P. Ayres (1879-1946) was a Connecticut-born statistician who graduated from Boston University in 1902 and went to Puerto Rico (then an American colony) to teach. By 1906 he was superintendent of schools for the whole island, as well as chief of the division of statistics. Returning to the United States in 1907, he went to work for the Russell Sage Foundation, while earning a Bachelor of Education at Columbia University (1908?), and his master’s degree (1909) and PhD. (1910) from Boston University.
label: Description
content: In 1912, Ayres became director of a separate Statistics Division at the Russell Sage Foundation. The institution also published the first version of his “Measuring Scale for Handwriting.” This object is the second edition, first published in 1917. This particular copy is a 1925 printing of the second edition. Over 400,000 copies of the two scales had been printed by that time.
label: Description
content: Ayres believed that the quality of handwriting should be evaluated by its legibility, that is to say the number of words that could be read accurately per minute. He based his evaluation of various forms of cursive writing on the time required for his testers to read large numbers of samples. In this form of the scale, subjects were asked to write the last two sentences of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Across the sheet are various example of this text written in script that is ranked from 20 (poorest) on the left to 90 on the right. Matching samples of student writing from grades five to eight to this measure of quality produced a series of graphs of differences in quality of writing shown on the lower part of the chart. Ayres and his colleagues also measured the time required to write the two sentences and produced a second series of graphs of rate of writing for students in these grades.
label: Description
content: During World War I Ayres and his staff moved to Washington where helped establish and came to head the Statistics Branch of the General Staff of the United States Army. This unit, and statisticians more generally, sought to bring order with such tools as organization charts, central files on contracts awarded, and statistical predictions of future Army needs. After the war he briefly returned to the Russell Sage Foundation before pursuing statistical work relating to banking, publishing his prognostications. Throughout this period he was often known in the popular press by his wartime title of “Colonel Ayres.” He would be recalled to government service in 1940 at the rank of brigadier general, and thenceforth be referred to as General Ayres.
label: Description
content: Compare 1990.0034.088 and 1990.0034.089.
label: Description
content: References:
label: Description
content: Ayres, L.P., “The Binet-Simon Measuring Scale for Intelligence: Some Criticisms and Suggestions,” <I>The Psychological Clinic</I>, 1911, 5 #6, pp.187–196.
label: Description
content: Ayres, L. P., <I>Mental Retardation among School Children in New York City</I>, M.A. Thesis, Boston University, 1909.
label: Description
content: Ayres, L.P., “The Evaluation of the Elements of the Elementary School Curriculum: an Attempt to Outline the Problem and to Demonstrate the Possibility of its Solution.” According to Paula Carey, librarian at Boston University, this is one of two papers by Ayres for which he received credit toward his PhD. dissertation. Ayres may also have received credit for the published form of his M.A. dissertation, which was entitled <I>Laggards in Our Schools</I>.
label: Description
content: Ayres, L.P., Open Air Schools: Account of the Development of Open Air Schools in Germany, England, and America, 1910. According to Paula Carey, librarian at Boston University, this is one of two papers by Ayres for which he received credit toward his PhD. dissertation. The pamphlet was published in New York in 1910 by Doubleday, Pare & Company.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
topic: label: Subject
content: Mathematics
label: Subject
content: Psychological Tests
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Mathematics
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content: Giving in America
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content: Science & Mathematics
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Samuel Kavruck
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1990.0034.088
label: catalog number
content: 1990.0034.088
label: accession number
content: 1990.0034
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Psychological Test
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: paper (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 91.5 cm x 22.8 cm; 36 1/32 in x 8 31/32 in