ABSTRACT
Psychological examinations or tests are of use to gain knowledge of the individual child. The knowledge takes the form of a diagnosis when the mental state and power is determined at the moment of the examination, of a prognosis when it gives a picture of inborn capabilities and of the possible development to be expected. A more sceptical attitude is advisable with regard to the abundant material offered in adults' childhood's recollections which has of late years been collected and used by the school of psychoanalysts. The fact that we adults, studying child-psychology, already have a very complicated psychic life makes it difficult for us to come to a right understanding of this primitive psychic life, mainly because of its simplicity and consequent dissimilarity from our own. The real methods of psychological experiment were slow to win a place in the study of early childhood.
