276 



DISCOVERY 



a mental age under ten years, and in this connection it 

 must be remembered that the very lowest were never 

 drafted into the army. 



The Negro ' 



" The comparison of negro with white recruits," 

 writes Major Yerkes, " reveals markedly lower mental 

 ratings for the former. A further significant difference 

 based on geographic classification has been noted in that 

 the northern negroes are mentally much superior to the 

 southern." 



The results in the case of the negro may revive the 

 discussion of a few years past as to the negro's racial 

 status. Certain anthropologists attempted to show 

 the anatomical inferiority of the negro brain and the 

 general inferiority of the race. Negro children were 

 said to be arrested in their mental development at a 

 lower level than white children, and, after the analogy 

 of the feeble-minded, this arrest was considered in- 

 herited and irremedial. Professor Franz Boas, one of 

 America's foremost ethnologists, pointed out at the 

 time the dubious nature of much of this investigation 

 and demonstrated that the status of the negro in 

 America may be quite as probably due to environmental 

 features. " It may therefore well be," he wrote, " that 

 if there is any truth in the retardation and final arrest 

 of development of the negro . . . this may be due to 

 the greater poverty and the more frequent ill-nourish- 

 ment of the negro child." " We must remember that 

 the negro race in our country has been torn away 

 from its historical surroundings, that it has been placed 

 in a new country, and that in this country it has never 

 been in a position of true independence." A confirma- 

 tion of Professor Boaz's view would seemingly be 

 indicated by the psychological census. The marked 

 mental superiority of the northern negro is certainly not 

 due to a racial difference, nor is there a greater inter- 

 mixture of white blood in the northern branch. We can 

 apparently conclude then that, given better social, 

 economic, and educational conditions, the North 

 American negro will become a very different person 

 from what he has been, or been made, in the past. 



The negro of standard low intelligence, as he came 

 into the army clinic, gave the impression of having a 

 very different mental make-up than the feeble-minded 

 white. As one examiner put it, the negro seemed 

 " normally abnormal " ; he was not peculiar but dull, 

 seemingly at home, and well able to take care of him- 

 self in spite of his low intelligence. There was also a 

 much less careful selection among the negro recruits by 

 the draft officials, who sent to the camps negro low- 

 grade imbeciles — candidates for asylums. I saw two 

 with mental ages of four years. 



• Cf. M. R. Trabue, " The Intelligence of Negro Recruits," 

 Natural History (Jour. Amcr. Museum), 1919, vol. xix, p. 680. 



The Need of Varied Types of Education 



The very varied standards of mental endowment, 

 indicated by the classification of test ratings for the 

 different occupations, would lead us to an educational 

 policy diametrically opposed to the educational levelling 

 universally practised and frequently advocated by 

 politico-educational philosophies. The greater number 

 of our youth to whom educational opportunities are 

 open never proceed beyond the eighth grade or early 

 high-school years, and the reason is probably to be 

 found in the fact that they are not capable of under- 

 taking or adapted to the traditional intellectual dis- 

 cipline. If the average man who will become a car- 

 penter differs in quantity and type of intelligence from 

 the average man who will become an accountant or a 

 clergyman, the former should be given an opportunity 

 to obtain an education beyond the three " R's " 

 adapted to his own mentality. It is particularly 

 important to recognise these differences at the present 

 time, when certain States and Governments are about 

 to make school attendance compulsory up to the age of 

 eighteen years. After a certain stage in the 'teens the 

 youth can no longer be made to conform to the educa- 

 tion ; the education must conform to its material. 



Political and Industrial Classes 



Is there any natural basis for the universal division 

 of society into classes ? If we accept the results of 

 the psychological investigation in the army at its face 

 value, assume that people for the most part marry 

 within their own class, and remember that mental 

 inferiority is hereditary and with cross-breeding cumu- 

 lative, we might draw a gloomy picture for the so-called 

 " lower classes," analogous to that drawn by the 

 Austrian economists on economic grounds. There 

 certainly is authoritative evidence — of which certain 

 " poor whites " of the southern mountains may be an 

 example — that a restricted intermarrying group of 

 low stock will maintain its inferiority and even de- 

 teriorate. However, as regards strata of society, 

 especially in a country like America, no such conclusions 

 are in the least warranted. Outside of a few would-be 

 blooded aristocrats in certain centres there are no 

 marriage groups, but, on the contrary, a constant move- 

 ment both up and dowTi. Psychological investiga- 

 tions made in several countries to determine the relative 

 intelligence of children from the different social classes 

 have given results slightly in favour of the " upper 

 classes," but not sufficiently marked to warrant any 

 conclusions respecting the next generation. 



However, this phenomenon of social " currents " as 

 well as " classes " indicates a fact which we traditionally 

 hate to face in this country since the advent of Jeffer- 



