13 OCTOBER 1923, Page 15

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—It should seem that

Dr. V. Stefansson's estimate of the number of words in the vocabularies of different persons is an error, though possibly not a popular one. In the Stanford Revision of the Binet-Simon Intelligence Scale (Professor Terman) vocabularies for "different mental levels" are as follows :—

8 years—vocabulary .. .. 8,600 10 „ ss

.. 5,400 12 „

.. 7,200 14 „

ft

9,000 Average adult

99

. 11,700

Superior adult „

• • .. 13,500

(Cf. Five Years Old or Thereabouts, p. 49, by Miss Margaret Drummond, M.A.) Surely the number of even " superior " adults is much greater than that of graduates in English with