46 



The Journal of Heredity 



take a large number of very young 

 children of the lower classes and, after 

 placing them in the most favorable 

 environment obtainable, to compare 

 their later mental development with 

 that of children born into the best homes 

 No extensive study of this kind has 

 ever been made, but the writer has 

 tested twenty orphanage children who, 

 for the most part, had come from very 

 inferior homes. They had been in a 

 well-conducted orphanage for from two 

 to several years, and had enjoyed during 

 that time the advantages of an excellent 

 village school. Nevertheless all but 

 three tested below average." 



"The importance of school instruc- 

 tion to neutralize individual differences 

 in native endowment will be evident 

 to any one who follows the school career 

 of backward children. The children who 

 are seriously retarded in school are not 

 normal, and cannot be made nonnal by 

 any refinement in educational method. 

 As a rule, the longer the inferior child 

 attends school, the more evident his 

 inferiority becomes. It would hardly 

 be reasonable, therefore, to expect 

 that a little instruction in the home 

 would weigh very heavily against these 

 same native differences in endowment. 

 Cases like the following show conclu- 

 sively that it does not : 



X is the son of unusually intelligent and 

 well-educated parents. The home is every- 

 thing one would expect of people of 

 scholarly pursuits and cultivated tastes. 

 But X has always been irresponsible, 

 troublesome, childish and queer. He 

 learned to walk at two years, to talk at 

 three, and has always been delicate and 

 nervous. When brought for examination 

 he was 8 years old. He had twice at- 

 tempted school work, but had accom- 

 plished nothing and was withdrawn. His 

 play-life was not normal, and other chil- 

 dren, younger than himself, abused him 

 and tormented him. The Binet tests gave 

 an IQ of approximately 75; that is, the re- 

 tardation amoimted to about 2 years. The 

 child was examined again three years later. 

 At that time, after attending school 2 

 years, he liad recently comi)lctcd the first 

 grade. 'J'his time the IQ was 73. Strange 

 to say, the motjicr is encouraged and hope- 

 ful because she sees that her boy is learn- 

 ing to read. She docs not seem to realize 

 that at his age he ought to be within 3 

 years of entering high school. 



The 40-minute test had told more about 

 the mental abilitv of this bov than the in- 



telligent mother had been able to learn in 

 eleven years of daily and hourly observa- 

 tion. For X is feebleminded : he' will never 

 complete the grammar school ; he will never 

 be an efficient worker or a responsible 

 citizen. 



Let us change the picture. Z is a bright- 

 eyed, dark-skinned girl of 9 years. She is 

 dark-skinned because her father is a mix- 

 ture of Indian and Spanish. The mother 

 is of Irish descent. With her strangely 

 mated parents and two brothers she lives in 

 a dirty, cramped, and poorly furnished 

 house in the country. The parents are il- 

 literate, and the brothers are retarded and 

 dull, tliough not feebleminded. 



It is Z's turn to be tested. I inquire the 

 name. It is familiar, for I have already 

 tested the two stupid brothers. I also 

 know her ignorant parents and the miser- 

 able cabin in which she lives. The exam- 

 ination begins with the 8-year tests. The 

 responses are quick and accurate. We 

 proceed to the 9-year group. There is no 

 failure, and there is but one minor error. 

 Successes and failures alternate for a while 

 until the latter prevail. Z has tested at 11 

 years. In spite of her wretched home, she 

 is mentally advanced nearly 25%. By 

 the vocabulary test she is credited with a 

 knowledge of nearh' 6,000 words, or nearly 

 four times as many as X, the boy of cul- 

 tured home and scholarly parents, had 

 learned by the age of 8 years. 



Five years have passed. When given the 

 test Z was in the fourth grade and, as we 

 have already stated, 9 years of age. As a 

 result of the test she was transferred to the 

 fifth grade. Later she skipped again 

 and at the age of 14 is a successful student 

 in the second year of high school. To as- 

 say her intelligence and determine its 

 quality was a task of 45 minutes. 



In the light of these facts, there is no 

 difficulty in understanding the conclu- 

 sions at which Miss Lundberg arrived, 

 after her survey of New Castle county: 



FEW PROPERLY CARED FOR 



"A total of 175, or 82.5% of the 

 cases studied were in need of public 

 supervision or institutional care. Nine- 

 t>'-five of these were at large in the com- 

 munity in immediate need of special 

 care and protection, sixty-eight were in 

 institutions not designed for their care, 

 and twelve were provided for only tem- 

 porarily in an institution for the feeble- 

 minded. 



"A study of individual cases of mental 

 defectives reveals in a striking way the 

 coincidence of mental defect and pov- 

 erty, abnormal home conditions, neglect, 

 and dependency. A majority of the 



