Alfred Binet
French psychologist and inventor of the first usable intelligence test (1857-1911) · France · Educators · Died at 54
Alfred Binet is read about 253 times a day, in 49 languages.
A typical day, 30 days to 15 October 2026
The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 390 days, one point a day.
Something wrong?He built the first working intelligence test - not to label children, but to prove they could be taught. The scale he and Théodore Simon published in 1908 became the scaffold for every IQ test that followed.
A life in dates
Also in Deutsch
Photos 8
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In their own words 10
, I have often observed, to my regret, that a widespread prejudice exists with regard to the educability of intelligence.
This observation might be repeated with regard to all objects of the outer world which enter into relation with us.
When we attempt to understand the inmost nature of the outer world, we stand before it as before absolute darkness.
In their orbit
About this person
Alfred Binet was born Alfredo Binetti on 8 July 1857. In 1904, the French Ministry of Education convened a commission to settle a sharp question: should children with learning difficulties be sent to special boarding schools attached to asylums, as psychiatrist Désiré-Magloire Bourneville insisted, or educated in classes within regular schools? Binet, a member of the Société libre pour l'étude psychologique de l'enfant, believed the decision should rest on objective evidence, not medical opinion. He and Théodore Simon developed a test to measure it. A preliminary version appeared in 1905; the full Binet-Simon test in 1908, revised once more in 1911. Binet died on 18 October 1911, months after the final edition.
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