at 2:00 A. M. with an encyclopædia under his arm. There are many things or items to be taken into consideration when we attempt to determine this index number of adaptability. I believe that the nearer we can visualize the human in a primal state the more nearly perfect will be our measure. We never will get away from a world of sticks and stones. Every once in a while civilization goes back to that place. Witness the brickbats and bones on the arena of struggle where all the intelligence of the world, but a short time ago, was concentrated. The advancement of the race in real unlacquered civilization is a slow process. We smile at the South African tribesman who wears a ring in his nose and we turn to admire the persons on Michigan Avenue who wear rings in their ears. The moth flits about over the open flame and burns its wings despite the warnings of countless of its fellow-kind who are helplessly scattered about on the ground. A child is admonished not to touch the hot stove, but waits until the mother is out of sight and then burns its fingers anyhow. The younger generation is warned of the horrors of war by those who have been in the trenches, and forthwith in thirty or forty years has to experiment for itself. The clarion call of commerce, industry, and nature speaks so loudly that the voice of many an academic teacher is like dropping a pin in a boiler factory. Textbooks are fine but they were never intended to impart the real lessons of life. But what is intelligence? Who can say? We think that we know it when we see it. However, the older we become the more hesitant we are to express an opinion. To select one hundred or two hundred abstract language or arithmetic items, putting in none of the concrete items, and then to say that our sampling represents a valid measure of intelligence. seems on the face of it to be rather absurd. Bread and butter in the final analysis are earned by that intelligence which deals with the plow, with the spade, with the hammer, with the loom, with the lathe, with the oven, with the trowel, and with hundreds of other machines, appliances, and hand tools. The white-collar type of intelligence is helpless when the other ceases to function. Suppose that we do succeed in measuring these abstract items, there will yet remain many other qualities fully as important and quite as elusive when we attempt to measure them. For instance, it seems that industry, honesty, and oldfashioned stick-to-it-ive-ness have something to do with the degree to which a person finally adapts himself to his environment. All situations in life are not of the ten or twenty-minute intelligence-test variety. The precocious hare in an olden story may have had an I. Q. of 150. He would have ranked high in a modern intelligence test, but the plodding turtle with an I. Q. of only 75 pulled down the blue ribbon. Likewise, the bank-teller whose intelligence is such that he becomes disgusted with the slowness of an adding machine, still is soon left off the payroll if he does not observe an honesty which respects the rights and property of others. Too, it seems that a person's manner, his dress, his ability to meet and talk with people, also have a bearing on the coefficient of adaptability that one possesses in climbing the stairway of society. The risers to this stairway are not all of the same height, some of the treads are worn through, here and there a railing is somewhat shaky, and now and then a worm-eaten underprop or false standard of living must be avoided. Each new venture is a challenge to our adaptability, a challenge to every quality which we possess. We cannot say which particular virtue will be the password to the accomplishment of a certain task. There is many a Lincoln, and Edison, and Mozart, and Shakespeare who have failed in this adaptive process, not because of lack of mere brilliance, but because one or more of the other qualities were lacking. A quart of brains seasoned with a little. common-sense may be better than a gallon of high-gloss snobbish intelligence. We may find that the one unfailing criterion of adaptability will be that of living from day to day, of eking from matter, plants, and other animals that sustenance necessary to the satisfaction of our pleasures, whims, and desires. But what is intelligence? Are we born with a certain capacity which we can neither add to nor subtract from? Can this quality be accurately measured? As yet, the sun has barely risen on a heyday which we hope shall answer these questions. Like the person who could not see the forest because of the trees, so today, a large majority of the workers who have contributed most to the answering of these questions are still unable to see the world because of the stacks of intelligence tests behind which they are working. There are thousands of teachers who have never been inside a factory, let alone working in one for a while in order that they might know some of the future experiences which many of their pupils will be required to meet. A very large percentage of teachers never visited the inside of homes in which their pupils live, in order that they may become acquainted with actual living conditions and surroundings of their children. The saying is literally true right here within the confines of the United States that, "One-half of the world does not know how the other half lives." A textbook in many cases is largely a prop for the teacher who cannot see the most vital lessons in common community life. But certainly it would be unfair for any one to get the impression that intelligence tests thus far developed have been of little value. To the contrary, they have accomplished a great deal, and any one who has worked with them realizes that they are of great worth when sanely used. The workers in this field are contributing more to the scope of educational endeavor than are, perhaps, the workers of any other group. Nowhere will one find more conscientious, scientifically-minded people than in the field of intelligence testing. Their less thoughtful members have done them the most harm. Oftentimes the tests have been given for the sake of the tests, rather than for the sake of the children. The purpose of education is to produce a child who has the necessary knowledge, skills, attitudes, and ideals to meet the test of happy productive citizenship. In our zeal for an automatic, machine-processed, card-cataloging type of education, let us not forget that the ships which we are sailing are the ships of human nature. Some are freighters, some are sailing vessels, some racing yachts, and some majestic liners. The ports are numerous, the weather is changeable, many of the captains are inexperienced, and the number of courses is infinite. Christmas Bayberry candles are aglow; The lights are on the tree; Delightful seeming-Thoughts have come Which bring you near to me. A Merry, Merry Christmas, Dear friend! Fond memories throng To fill the day with Happiness, His gift-His theme-His song. MINNIE E. HAYS. Science Applied to Problems of Musical Instruction ALVHH R. LAUER, MUS.B., A.B., A.M. I AMES, IOWA ¤NSTRUMENT manufacturers have long been aggressive in the acceptance of new means of improving the mechanism of musical instruments. Phonograph and radio manufacturing companies have been especially progressive during the last few years in developing superior instruments in their respective fields. The modern electrically operated organ with its marvelous tonal possibilities, the refined action and tone qualities of the grand piano and the so nearly perfect reproducing machines have brought a new era in the possibilities of musical accomplishment. On the other hand general education has been making tremendous strides forward. There are more students in high school now than there were in college three or four decades ago. Certain standards have been set up which make instruction throughout the country nearly uniform. A child can go from a remote village to the metropolis and lose little if any time in his educational program. Various methods for the improvement and standardization of instruction have been suggested by numerous school surveys and investigations. Such accumulated data placed educational authorities in a position to recommend the general reduction in time. necessary to complete courses through the junior college from fourteen to twelve years. Musical pedagogy has not kept pace with other types of instruction, considering the high efficiency attained by music. pedagogues a century or more ago. Very little research has been done in music and too often the results which have been |