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The Uses of Intelligence Tests
Lewis M. Terman (1916)
First published in
The measurement of intelligence (chapter 1). Boston: Houghton
Mifflin.
Intelligence tests of retarded school children. Numerous studies
of the age-grade progress of school children have afforded convincing
evidence of the magnitude and seriousness of the retardation problem.
Statistics collected in hundreds of cities in the United States show that
between a third and a half of the school children fail to progress through
the grades at the expected rate; that from 10 to 15 per cent are retarded
two years or more; and that from 5 to 8 per cent are retarded at least
three years. More than 10 per cent of the $400,000,000 annually expended
in the United States for school instruction is devoted to re-teaching
children what they have already been taught but have failed to learn.
The first efforts at reform which resulted from these findings were
based on the supposition that the evils which had been discovered could be
remedied by the individualizing of instruction, by improved methods of
promotion, by increased attention to children's health, and by other
reforms in school administration. Although reforms along these lines have
been productive of much good, they have nevertheless been in a measure
disappointing. The trouble was, they were too often based upon the
assumption that under the right conditions all children would be equally,
or almost equally, capable of making satisfactory school progress.
Psychological studies of school children by means of standardized
intelligence tests have shown that this supposition is not in accord with
the facts. It has been found that children do not fall into two
well-defined groups, the "feeble-minded" and the
"normal." Instead, there are many grades of intelligence,
ranging from idiocy on the one hand to genius on the other. Among those
classed as normal, vast individual differences have been found to exist in
original mental endowment, differences which affect profoundly the
capacity to profit from school instruction.
We are beginning to realize that the school must take into account,
more seriously than it has yet done, the existence and significance of
these differences in endowment. Instead of wasting energy in the vain
attempt to hold mentally slow and defective children up to a level of
progress which is normal to the average child, it will be wiser to take
account of the inequalities of children in original endowment and to
differentiate the course of study in such a way that each child will be
allowed to progress at the rate which is normal to him, whether that rate
be rapid or slow.
While we cannot hold all children to the same standard of school
progress, we can at least prevent the kind of retardation which involves
failure and the repetition of a school grade. It is well enough recognized
that children do not enter with very much zest upon school work in which
they have once failed. Failure crushes self-confidence and destroys the
spirit of work. It is a sad fact that a large proportion of children in
the schools are acquiring the habit of failure. The remedy, of course, is
to measure out the work for each child in proportion to his mental
ability.
Before an engineer constructs a railroad bridge or trestle, he studies
the materials to be used, and learns by means of tests exactly the amount
of strain per unit of size his materials will be able to withstand. He
does not work empirically, and count upon patching up the mistakes which
may later appear under the stress of actual use. The educational engineer
should emulate this example. Tests and forethought must take the place of
failure and patchwork. Our efforts have been too long directed by
"trial and error." It is time to leave off guessing and to
acquire a scientific knowledge of the material with which we have to deal.
When instruction must be repeated, it means that the school, as well as
the pupil, has failed.
Every child who fails in his school work or is in danger of failing
should be given a mental examination. The examination takes less than one
hour, and the result will contribute more to a real understanding of the
case than anything else that could be done. It is necessary to determine
whether a given child is unsuccessful in school because of poor native
ability, or because of poor instruction, lack of interest, or some other
removable cause.
It is not sufficient to establish any number of special classes, if
they are to be made the dumping-ground for all kinds of troublesome cases
-- the feeble-minded, the physically defective, the merely backward, the
truants, the incorrigibles, etc. Without scientific diagnosis and
classification of these children the educational work of the special class
must blunder along in the dark. In such diagnosis and classification our
main reliance must always be in mental tests, properly used and properly
interpreted.
Intelligence tests of the feeble-minded. Thus far intelligence
tests have found their chief application in the identification and grading
of the feeble-minded. Their value for this purpose is twofold. In the
first place, it is necessary to ascertain the degree of defect before it
is possible to decide intelligently upon either the content or the
method of instruction suited to the training of the backward child.
In the second place, intelligence tests are rapidly extending our
conception of "feeble-mindedness" to include milder degrees of
defect than have generally been associated with this term. The earlier
methods of diagnosis caused a majority of the higher grade defectives to
be overlooked. Previous to the development of psychological methods the
low-grade moron was about as high a type of defective as most physicians
or even psychologists were able to identify as feeble-minded.
Wherever intelligence tests have been made in any considerable number
in the schools, they have shown that not far from 2 per cent of the
children enrolled have a grade of intelligence which, however long they
live, will never develop beyond the level which is normal to the average
child of 11 or 12 years. The large majority of these belong to the moron
grade; that is, their mental development will stop somewhere between the
7-year and 12-year level of intelligence, more often between 9 and 12.
The more we learn about such children, the clearer it becomes that they
must be looked upon as real defectives. They may be able to drag along to
the fourth, fifth, or sixth grades, but even by the age of 16 or 18 years
they are never able to cope successfully with the more abstract and
difficult parts of the common-school course of study. They may master a
certain amount of rote learning, such as that involved in reading and in
the manipulation of number combinations, but they cannot be taught to meet
new conditions effectively or to think, reason, and judge as normal
persons do.
It is safe to predict that in the near future intelligence tests will
bring tens of thousands of these high-grade defectives under the
surveillance and protection of society. This will ultimately result in
curtailing the reproduction of feeble-mindedness and in the elimination of
an enormous amount of crime, pauperism, and industrial inefficiency. It is
hardly necessary to emphasize that the high-grade cases, of the type now
so frequently overlooked, are precisely the ones whose guardianship it is
most important for the State to assume.
Intelligence tests of delinquents. One of the most important
facts brought to light by the use of intelligence tests is the frequent
association of delinquency and mental deficiency. Although it has long
been recognized that the proportion of feeble-mindedness among offenders
is rather large, the real amount has, until recently, been underestimated
even by the most competent students of criminology.
The criminologists have been accustomed to give more attention to the
physical than to the mental correlates of crime. Thus, Lombroso and his
followers subjected thousands of criminals to observation and measurement
with regard to such physical traits as size and shape of the skull,
bilateral asymmetries, anomalies of the ear, eye, nose, palate, teeth,
hands, fingers, hair, dermal sensitivity, etc. The search was for physical
"stigmata" characteristic of the "criminal type."
Although such studies performed an important service in creating a
scientific interest in criminology, the theories of Lombroso have been
wholly discredited by the results of intelligence tests. Such tests have
demonstrated, beyond any possibility of doubt, that the most important
trait of at least 25 per cent of our criminals is mental weakness. The
physical abnormalities which have been found so, common among prisoners
are not the stigmata of criminality, but the physical accompaniments of
feeble-mindedness. They have no diagnostic significance except in so far
as they are indications of mental deficiency. Without exception, every
study which has been made of the intelligence level of delinquents has
furnished convincing testimony as to the close relation existing between
mental weakness and moral abnormality. Some of these findings are as
follows:--
Miss Renz tested 100 girls of the Ohio State Reformatory and reported
36 per cent as certainly feeble-minded. In every one of these cases the
commitment papers had given the pronouncement "intellect sound."
Under the direction of Dr. Goddard the Binet tests were given to 100
juvenile court cases, chosen at random, in Newark, New Jersey. Nearly half
were classified as feeble-minded. One boy 17 years old had 9-year
intelligence; another of l5˝ had 8-year intelligence.
Of 56 delinquent girls 14 to 20 years of age tested by Hill and
Goddard, almost half belonged either to the 9- or the 10-year level of
intelligence.
Dr. G. G. Fernald's tests of 100 prisoners at the Massachusetts State
Reformatory showed that at least 95 per cent were feebleminded.
Of 1186 girls tested by Miss Dewson at the State Industrial School for
Girls at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 28 per cent were found to have subnormal
intelligence.
Dr. Katherine Bement Davis's report on 1000 cases entered in the
Bedford Home for Women, New York, stated that there was no doubt but that
at least 157 were feeble-minded. Recently there has been established at
this institution one of the most important research laboratories of the
kind in the United States, with a trained psychologist, Dr. Mabel Feniald,
in charge.
Of 564 prostitutes investigated by Dr. Anna Dwyer in connection with
the Municipal Court of Chicago, only 3 per cent had gone beyond the fifth
grade in school. Mental tests were not made, but from the data given it is
reasonably certain that half or more were feeble-minded.
Tests, by Dr. George Ordahl and Dr. Louise Ellison Ordahl, of cases in
the Geneva School for Girls, Geneva, Illinois, showed that, on a
conservative basis of classification, at least 18 per cent were
feeble-minded. At the Joliet Prison, Illinois, the same authors found 50
per cent of the female prisoners feeble-minded, and 26 per cent of
the male prisoners. At the St. Charles School for Boys 26 per cent were
feeble-minded.
Tests, by Dr. J. Harold Williams, of 150 delinquents in the Whittier
State School for Boys, Whittier, California, gave 28 per cent
feeble-minded and 25 per cent at or near the border-line. About 300 other
juvenile delinquents tested by Mr. Williams gave approximately the same
figures. As a result of these findings a research laboratory has been
established at the Whittier School, with Dr. Williams in charge. In the
girls' division of the Whittier School, Dr. Grace Fernald collected a
large amount of psychological data on more than 100 delinquent girls. The
findings of this investigation agree closely with those of Dr. Williams
for the boys.
At the State Reformatory, Jeffersonville, Indiana, Dr. von Klein-Schmid,
in an unusually thorough psychological study of 1000 young adult
prisoners, finds the proportion of feeble-mindedness not far from 50 per
cent.
But it is needless to multiply statistics. Those given are but samples.
Tests are at present being made in most of the progressive prisons, reform
schools, and juvenile courts throughout the country, and while there are
minor discrepancies in regard to the actual percentage who are
feebleminded, there is no investigator who denies the fearful role played
by mental deficiency in the production of vice, crime, and delinquency.[1]
Heredity studies of "degenerate" families have confirmed, in
a striking way, the testimony secured by intelligence tests. Among the
best known of such families are the "Kallikaks," the
"Jukes," the "Hiu Folk,"the Nams," the Zeros,"
and the "Ishmaelites."
The Kallikak family. Martin Kallikak was a youthful soldier in
the Revolutionary War. At a tavern frequented by the militia he met a
feeble-minded girl, by whom he became the father of a feeble-minded son.
In 1912, there were 480 known direct descendants of this temporary union.
It is known that 36 of these were illegitimates, that 33 were sexually
immoral, that 24 were confirmed alcoholics, and that 8 kept houses of
ill-fame. The explanation of so much immorality will be obvious when it is
stated that of the 480 descendants, 143 were known to be feeble-minded,
and that many of the others were of questionable mentality.
A few years after returning from the war this same Martin Kallikak
married a respectable girl of good family. From this union 496 individuals
have been traced in direct descent, and in this branch of the family there
were no illegitimate children, no immoral women, and only one man who was
sexually loose. There were no criminals, no keepers of houses of ill-fame,
and only two confirmed alcoholics. Again the explanation is clear when it
is stated that this branch of the family did not contain a single
feeble-minded individual. It was made up of doctors, lawyers, judges,
educators, traders, and landholders.[2]
The Hill Folk. The Hill Folk are a New England family of which
709 persons have been traced. Of the married women, 24 per cent had given
birth to illegitimate offspring, and 10 per cent were prostitutes.
Criminal tendencies were clearly shown in 24 members of the family, while
alcoholism was still more common. The proportion of feeble-minded was 48
per cent. It was estimated that the Hill Folk have in the last sixty years
cost the State of Massachusetts, in charitable relief, care of
feeble-minded, epileptic, and insane, conviction and punishment for crime,
prostitution, pauperism, etc., at least $500,000. [3]
The Nam family and the Jukes give equally dark pictures as regards
criminality, licentiousness, and alcoholism, and although
feeble-mindedness was not as fully investigated in these families as in
the Kallikaks and the Hill Folk, the evidence is strong that it was a
leading trait. The 784 Nams who were traced included 187 alcoholics, 232
women and 199 men known to be licentious, and 40 who became
prisoners. It is estimated that the Nams have already cost the State
nearly $1,500,000. [4]
Of 540 Jukes, practically one fifth were born out of wedlock, 37 were
known to be syphilitic, 53 had been in the poorhouse, 76 had been
sentenced to prison, and of 229 women of marriageable age 128 were
prostitutes. The economic damage inflicted upon the State of New York by
the Jukes in seventy-five years was estimated at more than $1,300,000, to
say nothing of diseases and other evil influences which they helped to
spread.[5]
But why do the feeble-minded tend so strongly to become delinquent? The
answer may be stated in simple terms. Morality depends upon two things:
(a) the ability to foresee and to weigh the possible consequences for self
and others of different kinds of behavior; and (b) upon the willingness
and capacity to exercise self-restraint. That there are many intelligent
criminals is due to the fact that (a) may exist without (b). On the other
hand, (b) presupposes (a). In other words, not all criminals are
feeble-minded, but all feeble-minded are at least potential criminals.
That every feeble-minded woman is a potential prostitute would hardly be
disputed by any one. Moral judgment, like business judgment, social
judgment, or any other kind of higher thought process, is a function of
intelligence. Morality cannot flower and fruit if intelligence remains
infantile.
All of us in early childhood lacked moral responsibility. We were as
rank egoists as any criminal. Respect for the feelings, the property
rights, or any other kind of rights, of others had to be laboriously
acquired under the whip of discipline. But by degrees we learned that only
when instincts are curbed, and conduct is made to conform to principles
established formally or accepted tacitly by our neighbors, does this
become a livable world for any of us. Without the intelligence to
generalize the particular, to foresee distant consequences of present
acts, to weigh these foreseen consequences in the nice balance of
imagination, morality cannot be learned. When the adult body, with its
adult instincts, is coupled with the undeveloped intelligence and weak
inhibitory powers of a 10-year-old child, the only possible outcome,
except in those cases where constant guardianship is exercised by
relatives or friends, is some form of delinquency.
Considering the tremendous cost of vice and crime, which in all
probability amounts to not less than $500,000,000 per year in the United
States alone, it is evident that psychological testing has found here one
of its richest applications. Before offenders can be subjected to rational
treatment a mental diagnosis is necessary, and while intelligence tests do
not constitute a complete psychological diagnosis, they are, nevertheless,
its most indispensable part.
Intelligence tests of superior children. The number of children
with very superior ability is approximately as great as the number of
feeble-minded. The future welfare of the country hinges, in no small
degree, upon the right education of these superior children. Whether
civilization moves on and up depends most on the advances made by creative
thinkers and leaders in science, polities, art, morality, and religion.
Moderate ability can follow, or imitate, but genius must show the way.
Through the leveling influences of the educational lockstep such
children at present are often lost in the masses. It is a rare child who
is able to break this lockstep by extra promotions. Taking the country
over, the ratio of "accelerates" to "retardates" in
the school is approximately 1 to 10. Through the handicapping influences
of poverty, social neglect, physical defects, or educational
maladjustments, many potential leaders in science, art, government, and
industry are denied the opportunity of a normal development. The use we
have made of exceptional ability one of the primitive methods of surface
mining.
It is necessary to explore the nation's hidden resources of
intelligence. The common saying that "genius will out" is one of
those dangerous half-truths with which too many people rest content.
Psychological tests show that children of superior ability are very
likely to be misunderstood in school. The writer has tested more than a
hundred children who were as much above average intelligence as moron
defectives are below. The large majority of these were found located below
the school grade warranted by their intellectual level. One third had
failed to reap any advantage whatever, in terms of promotion, from their
very superior intelligence. Even genius languishes when kept over-long at
tasks that are too easy.
Our data show that teachers sometimes fail entirely to recognize
exceptional superiority in a pupil, and that the degree of such
superiority is rarely estimated with anything like the accuracy which is
possible to the psychologist after a one-hour examination. B. F., for
example, was a little over 7˝ years old when tested. He was in the third
grade, and was therefore thought by his teacher to be accelerated in
school. This boy's intelligence, however, was found to be above the
12-year level. There is no doubt that his mental ability would have
enabled him, with a few months of individual instruction, to carry fifth
or even sixth-grade work as easily as third, and without injury to body or
mind. Nevertheless, the teacher and both the parents of this child had
found nothing remarkable about him. In reality he belongs to a grade of
genius not found oftener than once in several thousand cases.
Another illustration is that of a boy of 10˝ years who tested at the
"average adult" level. He was doing superior work in the sixth
grade, but according to the testimony of the teacher had "no
unusual ability." It was ascertained from the parents that this boy,
at an age when most children, are reading fairy stories, had a passion for
standard medical literature and textbooks in physical science. Yet, after
more than a year of daily contact with this young genius (who is a
relative of Meyerbeer, the composer), the teacher had discovered no
symptoms of unusual ability.[6]
Teachers should be better trained in detecting the signs of superior
ability. Every child who consistently gets high marks in his school work
with apparent ease should be given a mental examination, and if his
intelligence level warrants it he should either be given extra promotions,
or placed in a special class for superior children where faster progress
can be made. The latter is the better plan, because it obviates the
necessity of skipping grades; it permits rapid but continuous progress.
The usual reluctance of teachers to give extra promotions probably
rests upon three factors: (1) mere inertia; (2) a natural unwillingness to
part with exceptionally satisfactory pupils; and (3) the traditional
belief that precocious children should be held back for fear of dire
physical or mental consequences.
In order to throw light on the question whether exceptionally bright
children are specially likely to be one-sided, nervous, delicate, morally
abnormal, socially unadaptable, or otherwise peculiar, the writer has
secured rather extensive information regarding 31 children whose mental
age was found by intelligence tests to be 25 per cent above the actual
age. This degree of intelligence is possessed by about 2 children out of
100, and is nearly as far above average intelligence as high-grade
feeble-mindedness is below. The supplementary information, which was
furnished in most cases by the teachers, may be summarized as follows: --
- Ability special or general. In the case of 20 out of 31 the
ability is decidedly general, and with 2 it is mainly general. The
talents of 5 are described as more or less special, but only in one
case is it remarkably so. Doubtful 4.
- Health. 15 are said to be perfectly healthy; 13 have one or
more physical defects; 4 of the 13 are described as delicate; 4 have
adenoids; 4 have eye-defects; 1 lisps; and 1 stutters. These figures
are about the same as one finds in any group of ordinary children.
- Studiousness. "Extremely studious," 15;
"usually studious" or "fairly studious," 11;
"not particularly studious," 5; "lazy," 0.
- Moral traits. Favorable traits only, 19; one or more
unfavorable traits, 8; no answer, 4. The eight with unfavorable moral
traits are described as follows: 2 are "very self-willed"; 1
"needs close watching"; 1 is "cruel to animals"; 1
is "untruthful"; 1 is "unreliable"; 1 is "a
bluffer"; 1 is "sexually abnormal," perverted,"
and "vicious."
It will be noted that with the exception of the last child, the moral
irregularities mentioned can hardly be regarded, from the
psychological point of view, as essentially abnormal. It is perhaps a
good rather than a bad sign for a child to be self-willed; most
children "need close watching"; and a certain amount of
untruthfulness in children is the rule and not the exception.
- Social adaptability. Socially adaptable, 25; not adaptable,
2; doubtful, 4.
- Attitude of other children. "Favorable,"
"friendly," "liked by everybody," "much
admired," "popular," etc., 26; "not liked,"
1; "inspires repugnance," 1; no answer, 1.
- Is child a leader? "Yes," 14; "no," or
"not particularly," 12; doubtful, 5.
- Is play life normal? "Yes," 26; "no," 1;
"hardly," 1; doubtful, 3.
- 1s child spoiled or vain? "No," 22;
"yes," 5; "somewhat," 2; no answer, 2.
According to the above data, exceptionally intelligent children are
fully as likely to be healthy as ordinary children; their ability is far
more often general than special, they are studious above the average,
really serious faults are not common among them, they are nearly always
socially adaptable, are sought after as playmates and companions, their
play life is usually normal, they are leaders far oftener than other
children, and notwithstanding their many really superior qualities they
are seldom vain or spoiled.
It would be greatly to the advantage of such children if their superior
ability were more promptly and fully recognized, and if (under proper
medical supervision, of course) they were promoted as rapidly as their
mental development would warrant. Unless they are given the grade of work
which calls forth their best efforts, they run the risk of falling into
lifelong habits of submaximum efficiency. The danger in the case of such
children is not over-pressure, but under-pressure.
Intelligence tests as a basis for grading. Not only in the case
of retarded or exceptionally bright children, but with many others also,
intelligence tests can aid in correctly placing the child in school.
The pupil who enters one school system from another is a case in point.
Such a pupil nearly always suffers a loss of time. The indefensible custom
is to grade the newcomer down a little, because, forsooth, the textbooks
he has studied may have differed somewhat from those he is about to take
up, or because the school system from which he comes may be looked upon as
inferior. Teachers are too often suspicious of all other educational
methods besides their own. The present treatment accorded such children,
which so often does them injustice and injury, should be replaced by an
intelligence test. The hour of time required for the test is a small
matter in comparison with the loss of a school term by the pupils.
Indeed, it would be desirable to make all promotions on the basis
chiefly of intellectual ability. Hitherto the school has had to rely on
tests of information because reliable tests of intelligence have not until
recently been available. As trained Binet examiners become more plentiful,
the information standard will have to give way to the criterion which asks
merely that the child shall be able to do the work of the next higher
grade. The brief intelligence test is not only more enlightening than the
examination; it is also more hygienic. The school examination is often for
the child a source of worry and anxiety; the mental test is an interesting
and pleasant experience.
Intelligence tests for vocational fitness. The time is probably
not far distant when intelligence tests will become a recognized and
widely used instrument for determining vocational fitness. Of course, it
is not claimed that tests are available which will tell us unerringly
exactly what one of a thousand or more occupations a given individual is
best fitted to pursue. But when thousands of children who have been tested
by the Binet scale have been followed out into the industrial world, and
their success in various occupations noted, we shall know fairly
definitely the vocational significance of any given degree of mental
inferiority or superiority. Researches of this kind will ultimately
determine the minimum "intelligence quotient" necessary for
success in each leading occupation.
Industrial concerns doubtless suffer enormous losses from the
employment of persons whose mental ability is not equal to the tasks they
are expected to perform. The present methods of trying out new employees,
transferring them to simpler and simpler jobs as their inefficiency
becomes apparent, is wasteful and to a great extent unnecessary. A cheaper
and more satisfactory method would be to employ a psychologist to examine
applicants for positions and to weed out the unfit. Any business employing
as many as five hundred or a thousand workers, as, for example, a large
department store, could save in this way several times the salary of a
well-trained psychologist.
That the industrially inefficient are often of subnormal intelligence
has already been demonstrated in a number of psychological investigations.
Of 150 "hoboes" tested under the direction of the writer by Mr.
Knollin, at least 15 per cent belonged to the moron grade of mental
deficiency, and almost as many more were border-line cases. To be sure, a
large proportion were found perfectly normal, and a few even
decidedly superior in mental ability, but the ratio of mental deficiency
was ten or fifteen times as high as that holding for the general
population. Several had as low as 9- or 10-year intelligence, and one had
a mental level of 7 years. The industrial history of such subjects, as
given by themselves, was always about what the mental level would lead us
to expect -- unskilled work, lack of interest in accomplishment, frequent
discharge from jobs, discouragement, and finally the "road."
The above findings have been fully paralleled by Mr. Glenn Johnson and
Professor Eleanor Rowland, of Reed College, who tested 108 unemployed
charity cases in Portland, Oregon. Both of these investigators made use of
the Stanford revision of the Binet scale, which is especially serviceable
in distinguishing the upper-grade defectives from normals.
It hardly needs to be emphasized that when charity organizations help
the feeble-minded to float along in the social and industrial world, and
to produce and rear children after their kind, a doubtful service is
rendered. A little psychological research would aid the united charities
of any city to direct their expenditures into more profitable channels
than would otherwise be possible.
Other uses of intelligence tests. Another important use of
intelligence tests is in the study of the factors which influence mental
development. It is desirable that we should be able to guard the child
against influences which affect mental development unfavorably; but as
long as these influences have not been sifted, weighed, and measured, we
have nothing but conjecture on which to base our efforts in this
direction.
When we search the literature of child hygiene for reliable evidence as
to the injurious effects upon mental ability of malnutrition, decayed
teeth, obstructed breathing, reduced sleep, bad ventilation, insufficient
exercise, etc., we are met by endless assertion painfully unsupported by
demonstrated fact. We have, indeed, very little exact knowledge regarding
the mental effects of any of the factors just mentioned. When standardized
mental tests have come into more general use, such influences will be easy
to detect wherever they are really present.
Again, the most important question of heredity is that regarding the
inheritance of intelligence; but this is a problem which cannot be
attacked at all without some accurate means of identifying the thing which
is the object of study. Without the use of scales for measuring
intelligence we can give no better answer as to the essential difference
between a genius and a fool than is to be found in legend and fiction.
Applying this to school children, it means that without such tests we
cannot know to what extent a child's mental performances are determined by
environment and to what extent by heredity. Is the place of the so-called
lower classes in the social and industrial scale the result of their
inferior native endowment, or is their apparent inferiority merely a
result of their inferior home and school training? Is genius more common
among children of the educated classes than among the children of the
ignorant and poor?
Are the inferior races really inferior, or are they merely unfortunate
in their lack of opportunity to learn?
Only intelligence tests can answer these questions and grade the raw
material with which education works. Without them we can never distinguish
the results of our educational efforts with a given child from the
influence of the child's original endowment. Such tests would have told
us, for example, whether the much-discussed "wonder children,"
such as the Sidis and Wiener boys and the Stoner girl, owe their
precocious intellectual prowess to superior training (as their parents
believe) or to superior native ability. The supposed effects upon mental
development of new methods of mind training, which are exploited so
confidently from time to time (e.g., the Montessori method and the various
systems of sensory and motor training for the feeble-minded), will have to
be checked up by the same kind of scientific measurement.
In all these fields intelligence tests are certain to play an
ever-increasing rôle. With the exception of moral character, there is
nothing as significant for a child's future as his grade of intelligence.
Even health itself is likely to have less influence in determining success
in life. Although strength and swiftness have always had great survival
value among the lower animals, these characteristics have long since lost
their supremacy in man's struggle for existence. For us the rule of brawn
has been broken, and intelligence has become the decisive factor in
success. Schools, railroads, factories, and the largest commercial
concerns may be successfully managed by persons who are physically weak or
even sickly. One who has intelligence constantly measures opportunities
against his own strength or weakness and adjusts himself to conditions by
following those leads which promise most toward the realization of his
individual possibilities.
All classes of intellects, the weakest as well as the strongest, will
profit by the application of their talents to tasks which are consonant
with their ability. When we have learned the lessons which intelligence
tests have to teach, we shall no longer blame mentally defective workmen
for their industrial inefficiency, punish weak-minded children because of
their inability to learn, or imprison and hang mentally defective
criminals because they lacked the intelligence to appreciate the ordinary
codes of social conduct.
Footnotes
[1] See References at end of volume.
[2] H. H. Goddard: The Kallikak Family. (1914.)
141 pp.
[3] Danielson and Davenport: The Hill Folk. Eugenics
Record Office, Memoir No. 1. 1912. 56 pp.
[4] Estabrook and Davenport: The Nam Family.
Eugenics Record Office. Memoir No. 2. (1912). 85 pp.
[5] R. L. Dugdale: The Jukes. (Fourth
edition, 1910.) 120 pp. G. P. Putuam's Sons.
[6] See p. 26 ff. for further
illustrations of this kind. This article believed to be in the public
domain.
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