wice as much time as the
reading of connected matter. This is true for the reason that out of
thousands of associations possible with each word, no particular
association is favored. The apperceptive expectancy, practically _nil_
in the reading of nonsense material, must be decidedly deficient in all
poor reading.

Furthermore, in the case of the ordinary reader there is a feeling of
rightness or wrongness about the thought sequences. That less
intelligent subjects have this sense of fitness to a much less degree is
evidenced by their passing over words so mutilated in pronunciation as
to deprive them of all meaning. The transposition of letters and words,
and the failure to observe marks of punctuation, point to the same
thing. In other words, all the reading of the stupid subject is with
material which to him is more or less nonsensical.[66]

[66] See "Genius and Stupidity," by Lewis M. Terman, in _Pedagogical
Seminary_, September, 1906, p. 340 _ff._

A little observation will convince one that mentally retarded subjects,
even when they possess a reasonable degree of fluency in recognizing
printed words, do not sense shades of meaning. Their reading is by small
units. Words and phrases do not fuse into one mental content, but remain
relatively unconnected. The expression is monotonous and the voice has
more of the unnatural "schoolroom" pitch. They read more slowly, more
often misplace the emphasis, and miscall more words. In short, one who
has psychological insight and is acquainted with reading standards can
easily detect the symptoms of intellectual inferiority by hearing a dull
subject read a brief selection.

The giving of memories is also significant. Feeble-minded adults who
have been well schooled are sometimes able to read the words of the text
fairly fluently, but are usually unable to give more than a scanty
report of what has been read. The scope of attention has been exhausted
in the mere recognition and pronouncing of words. In general, the
greater the mechanical difficulties which a subject encounters, the less
adequate is his report of memories.

The test has, however, one real fault. School children have a certain
advantage in it over older persons _of the same mental age_ whose school
experience is less recent. Adult subjects tend to give their report in
less literal form. It is necessary, therefore, to give credit for the
reproduction of the ideas of the passage rather than for strictly
litera