PAPERS OX PSYCHOLOGY AND EDUCATION 481 



say, these variations in performance from the fixed nor- 

 mals are faithfully recorded, since a record of an 

 examination which records only failures and suc- 

 cesses according to the fixed standard is of little 

 value in the analysis and diagnosis of most cases. 

 Apropos of this point I may remind you that one re- 

 viewer of the Stanford Eevision stated as the highest 

 form of praise of it that it had been made "fool proof". 

 In my opinion this is a very dubious praise. To the 

 thoughtful observer the complexities of mental growth, 

 the interrelation of its various factors, to say nothing 

 of the effect of emotions, attitudes and the various phases 

 included in the Freudian type of psychology, are too 

 great to be intrusted to the judgment of a person me- 

 chanically trained in the administration of a scale of 

 averages. These facts are being admitted constantly by 

 psychologists and psychiatrists, but in actual practice 

 much of their diagnoses are derived from a mathematic- 

 ally and mechanically derived I. Q. obtained through the 

 testing made by relatively untrained persons. 



Another factor in mental development is the effect of 

 a foreign language or an illiterate cultural environment 

 which cannot be evaluated from an I. Q. rating. I wish 

 to define the term illiteracy in this sense as a depriva- 

 tion of the products of culture, rather than a lack of 

 ability with the mechanics of reading. The home which 

 does not possess books or access to books of the sort 

 current in modern life, or does not take a newspaper or 

 magazines, provides what I wish to call an illiterate en- 

 vironment. There are thousands of such homes in our 

 cities and in many country districts. This condition of 

 illiteracy is extreme in the remote country districts of the 

 South from which so many negroes are coming to our 

 northern cities, bringing with them the great problem 

 of adjustment to our city school system. In connec- 

 tion with this problem I do not wish to be interpreted 

 as considering lightly a test which makes use of lan- 

 guage or thinking through language mediums. The high- 

 est form of mental activity, namely abstract reasoning, 

 can be carried on only through this medium. However, 

 in order to use it for such a purpose one must have 



