A Genetic Association in Italy 
45 
A Genetic Association in Italy 
Leading Italian men of science have 
united in the “Italian Society of Ge- 
netics and Eugenics,’ whose object is 
“to promote and support all researches 
and movements tending to increasing 
knowledge of the laws of heredity and 
the improvement of races, with special 
regard to the human race.” 
Dr. Ernest Pestalozza is president 
of the organization and Dr. Caesar 
Artom secretary. The headquarters 
are at the Municipal Zoological Garden, 
Villa Umberto I, Rome. 
Control of the society is placed by 
the by-laws in the hands of fifteen 
delegates, to be chosen equally from 
the biological, medical and __ social 
sciences. 
One of the society’s first efforts is to 
prevent racial hybridization. It has 
sent out a letter to various organizations 
such as the American Genetic Associa- 
tion, which reads: 
“The directing council of the Italian 
Society of Genetics and Eugenics has 
adopted the following proposal of Pro- 
fessor Dr. V. Giuffrida-Ruggieri, pro- 
fessor of anthropology in the Royal 
University at Naples. 
“With the victorious termination of 
the world war, the powers of the 
entente find themselves more closely 
than in the past, in contact with the 
African world. It would therefore be 
opportune for the various eugenic 
societies to codperate by bringing to the 
attention of the governments of their 
respective countries the desirability, 
where it has not already been done, 
of securing legislation to prevent mar- 
riage between Europeans and members 
of the African races. Marriage should 
be permitted only with Africans of the 
Mediterranean race (Berbers, Egypt- 
ians) and Arabs who are not negroes. 
Such a prohibition ought to extend to 
all the half-breed populations scattered 
over the African continent.’ 
“The intention of the proposal would 
be to prevent the increase of a mixed 
European-African race, which appears 
to be undesirable from various points 
of view.” 
The Intelligence of the Negro 
Applying a group scale of intelligence 
to the colored school children in two 
small Indiana cities, S. L. Pressey and 
G. F. Teter conclude that they show 
less intelligence than white children in 
the same cities. Their study is pub- 
lished in the Journal of Applied 
Psychology, Sept., 1919. 
Reviewing previous work in this field, 
the writers say: “Colored school chil- 
dren show a greater school retardation, 
less acceleration, and average older for 
a given grade, than do white children. 
There is some evidence to show that, 
grade for grade, they do poorer school 
work. Negro children give ratings, 
when tested by the Binet and Point 
scales, averaging below white children. 
Measurements of special abilities have 
shown the colored children to do well 
in tests of the more simple processes 
(as cancellation, rote memory) and 
most poorly with tests of the more com- 
plex abilities (as opposites, analogies, 
sentence completion). There is some 
evidence that colored children have 
more active imaginations and more 
ready associations of an uncontrolled 
type than do white children.” 
Discussing their own results, the 
writers point out that among the colored 
children “a poor average ability seems 
unmistakably indicated,’ which not 
only leads the colored children to be 
retarded in school, as compared with 
whites of the same age, but leads them 
even in the retarded classes to do poorer 
work than whites in the same classes. 
Is this not perhaps due to some 
special defect, rather than to general 
inferiority? Apparently not; “the 
colored children show poorer ability 
than the whites on every test.” There 
is the definite suggestion “of a more 
elementary and less highly developed 
ability among colored children”; but 
the writers believe “that the important 
racial difference may be, after all, 
emotional and temperamental.” 
