Why do they wish to avoid education? The reasons are various. Some of them avoid school because they have not enough clothing to wear; some because their parents need their earnings; some because they are ill; some because they are temperamentally unsuited to school discipline. The most important single cause of truancy is, however, that the curriculum does not provide for individual differences. The curriculum upon which all children are now required by law to attend, is that which was formulated when only a few selected children were educated. Our schools are reading schools, and they teach abstract subject matter to a very great extent, much of which has no tangible relation to the life of many children. Children of IQ over 120 take pleasure in the abstract subject matter of grammar, mathematics, geography, and history. Children of IQ under 80 are made miserable thereby. Not only is the curriculum not adapted to individual differences in general intelligence, but it is far less adapted to individual differences in special defects and aptitudes. The child who can never learn to sing is compelled nevertheless to pursue singing, even after school hours. The child who cannot learn reading by the method generally used is still treated by that method and no other. The schools were established with an undifferentiated curriculum, which they have tried to force upon intellects of an enormous range of diversity. Their purpose, so benign, has resulted in extraordinary cruelties and wastes. III. THE IMPORTANCE OF GENERAL INTELLIGENCE FOR SCHOOL PROGRESS If we examine mentally the large numbers of retardates in any public school where attendance is compulsory, we find that by far the majority of them are inferior in general intelligence. A child of superior general intelligence (IQ) is seldom found among retardates. Of children of 120 IQ and over, Terman reports that they are almost invariably at least up to grade. Whatever the vicissitudes of fate—illness, absence, special disability—a child of superior general capacity manages to hold his own, at least. It is not true, however, that the superior child is allowed, under the undifferentiated curriculum, to make full use of his power. He is compelled to slow down to the typical progress of his group, and to use only a portion of his capacity for learning. It is rare to find a superior child who is doing “a full day’s work” in school, because the tasks assigned do not call for maximum effort. Superior children could easily do much more than is allowed.