All of these tests involve the demand for the quick and accurate perception of and reaction to the relations of things or ideas to each other. Everything indicates that this ability is most important and determining in the composition of that characteristic which we vaguely call "general intelligence," especially if we are dealing with people with school experience.
Furthermore, the academic marks of scholarship assigned to these twenty-five students by their instructors in different college branches during three terms of college work were secured from the official records. Judgments of the degree to which the different students had been prominent in extra-academic activities during their college career were made by officers of the college who had known them during this time. Photographs of the twenty-five persons, of the same general style and size, were secured also, as well as characteristic specimens of their handwriting.
This experiment having been completed, a similar investigation was undertaken with twenty-five members of the senior class. The same method of procedure was followed as in the first case, the same traits judged, the same tests administered, etc. This second investigation thus affords a check on the results of the first study. When the results from the two investigations are averaged we have figures of considerable reliability, and fairly accurate data on numerous interesting questions.
Probably never before have such diverse ways been employed in attempting to get intensive measurements of the individuality. The material enables us to throw preliminary and suggestive light on many of the questions we have already raised. It should of course be fully recognized that the results of this little investigation cannot be generalized into final conclusions which will be true in other cases, without further verification of them. The results show only what happened in this case, and only to that degree do they suggest what we may expect to be generally true. Many similar studies must be made, under all sorts of conditions and by a variety of methods, before we shall have the final answers to our questions. But the results are no less valuable because of their lack of finality. Tentative as they may be, they nevertheless show what happened in the only recorded attempt to find answers to the questions we have been considering. If the reader will now turn back to page 124 he will note how numerous, important, and complex these questions are, and how little is at present known about them.