Binet

BINET, be'-ni, Alfred, director of the laboratory of research at the Sorbonne, Paris: b. Nice, 4 July 1857; d. 1911. He went to Paris in 1871, where he made a study of medicine and law. For a time he was uncertain which career he should follow; but his deep interest in research work won the day for medicine. He became a frequent and noted contributor to the medical and other journals of Paris inter ested in the special line of work to which he had decided to devote himself. He attracted attention by a book on the psychology of thought as applied to hypnotism (1886). This was followed by (1905) ; 'Revelations made by writing under Scientific Control' (1906) (Abnormal Children' (1907). In several of these works Binet was aided by V. Henri, Courtier, Philippe, H. Beaunis, Th. Ribot and Simon, and in some of them one or other of these writers is acknowledged as joint author, in some others as helper or adviser. Beaunis and Ribot were joint editors with Th. Ribot of L'annee psychologique, a yearly publication de voted, as its name implies, to the progress of psychology. In 1906 this journal confined its efforts to the study of practical and social questions along the lines of Binet's favorite studies. Previous to this, Binet had been mak ing deep researches, together with Simon, into the working of the human intelligence. In 1905 the joint authors published the first series of the Binet-Simon tests, an attempt to find some exact standard by which to measure de grees of intelligence. This was followed by a

second series along the same line in 1908. Binet and his co-workers taught, contrary to the Ger man thinkers along the same lines, that the higher functions of mankind, such as intelli gence, comprehension, imagination, sentiment and suggestion, varied more in the individual than other functions which had, until then, been depended upon for the judgment of mental capacity. So he and his fellow-workers set to work to invent and develop new tests such as would make it possible to make use of these higher functions in the tests for mentality. He and Simon constructed a series of graded tests based upon continuous experiments under dif ferent conditions and surroundings. By these tests it is possible to determine the degree of intelligence of a child and to classify his nor mality or abnormality with considerable exact ness. These tests, as issued in 1908, are 56 in number and cover the ages from three to 12. They are simple tasks such as the child might be expected to perform and they are graded and grouped to suit the age of the child. A subject who performs the tests assigned to his age in a satisfactory manner is classed as nor mal; if he can perform only tasks of a child several years younger than his age, he is looked upon as sub-normal; but if he can perform those of a child several years older than his age he is classified as supernormal. Under the title (A Method of Measuring the Development of Young Children,' the Binet-Simon work of most importance was published in Chicago in 1913, and the Method of Test ing Intelligence' appeared in Boston the fol lowing year.