t always receive the same score.
When the children responded incorrectly or incompletely, they were often
given help, but not always to the same extent. In other words, says
Binet, it was evident that "the teachers employed very awkwardly a very
excellent method."

The above remark is as pertinent as it is expressive. As the statement
implies, the test method is but a refinement and standardization of the
common-sense approach. Binet remarks that most people who inquire into
his method of measuring intelligence do so expecting to find something
very surprising and mysterious; and on seeing how much it resembles the
methods which common sense employs in ordinary life, they heave a sigh
of disappointment and say, "Is that all?" Binet reminds us that the
difference between the scientific and unscientific way of doing a thing
is not necessarily a difference in the _nature_ of the method; it is
often merely a difference in _exactness_. Science does the thing better,
because it does it more accurately.

It was of course not the purpose of Binet to cast a slur upon the good
sense and judgment of teachers. The teachers who took part in the little
experiment described above were Binet's personal friends. The errors he
points out in his entertaining and good-humored account of the
experiment are inherent in the situation. They are the kind of errors
which any person, however discriminating and observant, is likely to
make in estimating the intelligence of a subject without the use of
standardized tests.

It is the writer's experience that the teacher's estimate of a child's
intelligence is much more reliable than that of the average parent; more
accurate even than that of the physician who has not had psychological
training.

Indeed, it is an exceptional school physician who is able to give any
very valuable assistance to teachers in the classification of mentally
exceptional children for special pedagogical treatment.

This is only to be expected, for the physician has ordinarily had much
less instruction in psychology than the teacher, and of course
infinitely less experience in judging the mental performances of
children. Even if graduated from a first-rank medical school, the
instruction he has received in the important subject of mental
deficiency has probably been less adequate than that given to the
students of a standard normal school. As a rule, the doctor has no
equipment or special fitness which gives him any adv