The Necessity Of Standards
In the first place, in order to judge an individual's intelligence it is necessary
to have in mind some standard as to what constitutes normal intelligence. This the
ordinary parent or teacher does not have. In the case of school children, for example,
each pupil is judged with reference to the average intelligence of the
class. But the teacher has no means of knowing whether the average for
her class is above, equal to, or below that for children in general. Her
standard may be too high, too low, vague, mechanical, or fragmentary.
The same, of course, holds in the case of parents or any one else
attempting to estimate intelligence on the basis of common observation.