THE EXAMINATION AT ELEVEN PLUS.

This article reports that the allocation of pupils to different types of secondary school by means of what is known as the 11 plus examination has of late become the target of heated controversy and vigorous attack in Great Britain. However, most of the attack on the 11 plus examination has centred on the concept of "intelligence," and particularly on the assertion that differences in intelligence are innate and more or less permanent. Recent work has shown that the localization of functions in the brain is much less sharply defined than was formerly supposed. In practically every activity, the whole brain participates. Moreover, the latest microscopical research with unusually refined techniques has demonstrated that the differences between one individual's brain and another's are quite as conspicuous as those between different areas in the brain of the same individual. During recent years the direction of the main attack has shifted. Today the object of the fiercest criticism is not the assumption of general ability, but the claim that individual differences in this ability are largely innate.