790 



MEMOIRS NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



Table 333. — Percentage comparison of mental age of groups from the draft. 



[Vol. XV, 



Since grade of intelligence furnished a basis for rejection, discharge, or assignment to special 

 organizations, such as labor battalions or development battalions, it was necessary in the 

 psychological service to make some practical decision as to the various levels at which recom- 

 mendation for such disposition should be made. No suggestion could be made until the actual 

 operation of psychological examining in the camps had been established. In the very first period 

 of examining there was no official rule ; later it was suggested that men whose mental age was 

 less than 10 years could not be utilized to advantage in the Army, for at that time the development 

 battalions and labor battalions did not exist and the only alternative to regular service was dis- 

 charge. It was soon found, however, that the 10-year standard was too high, less presumably 

 because of the fitness of men just under 10 years mental age for regular service than because 

 of the fact that an impracticably large number would have been discharged on this basis (from 

 10 to 13 per cent; cf. table 333). At Camp Devens nine years was adopted as a working basis 

 and later, with the establishment of labor battalions and development battalions, the follow- 

 ing rule was laid down : 



In general, subjects whose mental age is below eight should be seriously considered for discharge or development 

 battalion. Those whose mental ages range from eight to ten should be considered for use in special service organizations 

 or for assignment to development battalions. 



The question of different standards for negroes was raised (half of the negro draft was 

 rated by the examination system as below 10 years mental age, table 333) but never answered. 

 The camps were in general obliged to determine their own procedure in accordance with local 

 conditions. 



Table 333 and figure 51 give the best summary of the intelligence of the draft that is avail- 

 able. It will be noted that there are two sets of figures; one a set derived from Groups I, II, 

 and III, of the principal sample as laid down on the combined scale, and the other the actual 

 percentages obtained in the Stanford-Bine t examinations of the 653 native-born white recruits 

 of Group X. The former group is large and representative but involves an error dependent on 

 the fact that these men were examined by alpha and beta and not by a mental-age scale. The 

 second group suffers from the fact that it is small and can not be demonstrated to be represent- 

 ative. If the two distributions are taken together the results can undoubtedly be considered 

 accurate within the limits of discrepancy between them. It will be seen that a level of eight 



