INTELLIGENCE AND RACE 



A REVIEW OF SOME OF THE RESULTS OF THE ARMY 



INTELLIGENCE TESTS 



I. Foreign-born 



Paul Popenoe 



Coachella, California 



OF THE American army raised 

 during the Great War, some- 

 thing like one-sixth was foreign- 

 born. Mental tests, given to nearly 

 2,000,000 soldiers,^ bring out some 

 highh' interesting and significant dif- 

 ferences between these foreign-born 

 and the nati\'e-born Americans; and 

 also between \'arious parts of the 

 foreign-born contingent. A few of 

 these findings of particular eugenic 

 interest are noted in the present paper. 



For statistical analysis, the psycho- 

 logical members of the Surgeon Gener- 

 al's staff who had the work in charge, 

 took a sample of about 94,000 men 

 of the white draft, this being as large 

 a number of records as could be suc- 

 cessfully handled with the means at 

 their disposal. Of these 94,000, ap- 

 proximately 13,200 reported that they 

 had been born in a foreign country. 

 Different nations were represented in 

 widely varying degrees, many coun- 

 tries ha\ing only a few hundred men 

 in the list, while Russia was responsible 

 for over 2,300 and Italv for more than 

 4,000. 



Figure 11 shows the average mental 

 age of the representatives of each 

 country which had more than 100 men 

 in the sample. For comparison, the 

 graph includes the a^•erage of the white 

 officers (who with few exceptions were 

 native-born Americans ) ; the average 

 of the white draft, including the foreign- 

 born section; and, finally, the average 

 of the negro draft, which is almost 

 wholly native-born American. 



If a mental age of 20 years be taken 

 as the point attained by a very intelli- 

 gent adult, and 16 years as the average 

 normal adult of white American stock, - 



the relative standing of the various 

 groups is at once apparent. The 

 officers form a group better than the 

 average, as one would expect, since 

 some mental superiority is necessary 

 to enable one to discharge the duties 

 and responsibilities attached to a 

 commission. 



The Canadian contingent probably 

 differs little in racial antecedents from 

 the bulk of the old white American 

 stock; and its average age of 13.29 

 years is not greatly different from that 

 which the whole white draft would 

 show, if the foreign-born elements 

 were subtracted from it. For the 

 present purpose, it would perhaps 

 not be far from right to class the 

 Canadians as also native-born white 

 Americans — as many of them in fact 

 are. 



Passing this group, the average soon 

 begins to decline. Great Britain stands 

 at 13 years — and the inclusion of the 

 Irish in this classification tends to 

 pull down this average, as will appear 

 later. If Ireland were excluded, Eng- 

 land and Scotland together would 

 make much the same sort of showing 

 that Canada does. 



After the Scandinavian countries 

 and the former "Central Empires," 

 which are but little below the American 

 average, the drop becomes rapid. 

 The young men of Grecian birth 

 measured below the average men- 

 tality of a 12-year-old American school- 

 boy; the larger contingents of Russia 

 and Italy fall still farther, until the 

 Italians are not far above the level 

 (10.37 years) of the American negro, 

 or of a white adult who is of "dull 

 mentality." 



1 Mem. Nat. Acad. Sci. vol. XV, "Psychological Examining in the U. S. Army," ed. bv 

 Robert IVl. Verkes. Pt. Ill, Chap, vi and vii. Washington. D. C, 1921. 



- No particular dependence is placed on these standards, the validity of which has been 

 challenged by various psychologists. They are taken merely for convenience of comparison, 

 since the problem of the foreign born is essentially one of relative values. 



265 



