GENERAL INTELLIGENCE 
131 
but maybe we can help out by giving you a few synonyms 
or brief definitions of the word. I am sure that Mr. Lam 
bert could do that. For my part, I should like to suggest 
Cental alertness, the ability to analyze a situation and 
also to follow instructions. 
Mr. L: I suppose that does cover the ground pretty 
Well, only I should say that intelligence was simply ability 
to learn—to catch on or take hold as the foremen would 
say. 
Miss N: And would you apply these definitions to all 
intelligence whatsoever? 
Mr. L: Yes, I should. Except, of course, that there 
ar e degrees of intelligence just as there are of everything 
e lse. Still I believe that all intelligence can be boiled 
down to ability to learn. 
Miss N: Then what would you say to a case like this? 
^ v ’hen I taught school, I had some children who were very 
good in arithmetic. They could learn to do a problem in 
half the time usually required by the slower pupils of the 
class. They seemed to have a special faculty for catching 
as you termed it, or for taking hold of arithmetic. And 
yet, these very same pupils, when it came to geography, 
s bowed the utmost denseness. On the other hand, I had 
Pupils who were very good in geography and very poor in 
arithmetic. Now which of these pupils would you call 
t be more intelligent, Mr. Lambert, those who could learn 
ari thrnetic best or those who could learn geography best? 
. bdR. L: I don’t think that I should call either more 
}utelligent. I should simply say that each group was 
’Utelligent, but in a different way. 
Miss N: That is exactly what I thought, and that is the 
Problem which always confronted me in my school work. 
tver y pupil seemed to have his own peculiar aptitudes.