192 



The Journal of Heredity 



the foreign-born may be impelled by 

 other reasons, such as need of earning a 

 living. 



The median scores in the alpha test 

 for those who reported that they com- 

 pleted the eighth grade, but went no 

 farther in school, are given in Table II. 



The officer group is here sharply 

 differentiated from the groups of men 

 in the ranks, although, it must be re- 

 membered, the schooling of all is the 

 same. 



A similar relation holds at the high 

 school and college levels, although here 

 the foreign-born show at greater dis- 

 advantage compared with the native- 

 born. Among college graduates, the 

 native-born man in the ranks makes 

 just about as good a showing as do 

 the officers. It is plausibly explained 

 that the intelligence necessary to 

 graduate from college is requisite in an 

 officer, but that college graduates — a 

 highly selected group, amounting to no 

 more than one in a hundred of the 

 young men of the country — who find 

 themselves, as a result of the draft, 

 in the ranks are of the same order of 

 intelligence as those of their number 

 who became officers. 



Another comparison that is decidedly 

 illuminating is that between officers 

 who got no farther than the eighth 

 grade, and native-born white recruits 

 who have a high school or college 

 education. "Every recruit in the 

 recruit group (13,943) has had more 

 schooling than any officer in the officer 

 group (660) ; the least educated recruit 



- Intellectual and Educational Status of the Medical Profession as Represented in the United 

 States Army. Bulletin National Research Council, No. 8, Washington, D. C, 1921. 



in the group has had a longer educa- 

 tion than the best educated officer 

 included"; and the men are of similar 

 racial stock. The median scores of 

 these groups are, officers 107.3, recruits 

 97.4. "It is evident, then, that the 

 examination is measuring other quali- 

 ties, in which officers stand above 

 recruits, to a greater extent than it is 

 measuring education." 



The same relation holds good within 

 the group of officers themselves. Here 

 the medical officers have had the most 

 schooling (15.8 years average), and the 

 quartermaster officers the least (aver- 

 age 12.4 years); yet the latter surpass 

 the former in average intelligence. 

 Indeed, the officers of the medical 

 department ranked, in points of intel- 

 ligence, below all other officers in the 

 army,- although they formed the group 

 which, of all represented, had had the 

 greatest amount of tuition. 



The conclusion that differences in 

 mental ability, as measured by modern 

 intelligence tests, are innate and ger- 

 minal, and that they represent not 

 differences in education or environ- 

 ment, so much as differences of hered- 

 ity, seems sound. 



This fact of inherited mental differ- 

 ences is the very foundation of eugenics. 

 Its confirmation with such a large body 

 of material is of the greatest impor- 

 tance. Henceforth, those who advocate 

 any method of permanent race better- 

 ment not based on eugenics can only 

 plead indifference to facts. 



