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Institute of Child Welfare of the University of Minnesota issues a monograph series of which the present contribution is XIII. Dr. Deutsche is the psychologist of the Delinquency Division of the Children's Bureau. Here in this 100 octavo page monograph Mrs. Deutsche followed Piaget's original groupings but soon came to independent arrangements. She carried out a simple technique of having children write down answers to questions arising out of a “simple” scientific demonstration. Seven hundred thirty-two children between eight and twelve years of age were studied. Of Piaget's 17 types only 4 were found in large enough frequency to warrant further analysis. These were phenomenistic, dynamic, mechanical and logical groups.
According to her no evidence was found that children's reasoning develops by stages. All kinds of answers are found spread over a wide age range.
When we read that the adequacy of the answers appears to be determined more by the tuitional or experiential factors related to schooling than by intelligence or socio-economic status it sounds very learned but we suspect a few of Mr. Stuart Chase's—blab-blab—words make the enterprise not very enlightening in spite of the sincerity of the effort.