ABSTRACT

This chapter aims to devise tests of aptitude for arts and sciences respectively. American mental testers had been at work on this task for a decade at least – and with a minimum of success. With the battery of tests in hand, the prediction of boys’ choices between arts and science subjects in the Sixth Form became quite easy. In the Sixth Form, Knight specialized in history and English literature, having done outstandingly well in these subjects at ‘O’ Level, and miserably in mathematics, general science and Latin. At the other extreme from Knight, is Fleetwood, a quiet boy from the north of England, then a physical science specialist at a southern public boarding-school. Sometimes one was even able to guess which particular subjects on the arts or science side an individual boy would choose: whether, for example, a boy would choose mathematics, physics and chemistry, or chemistry, zoology and botany.