HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT 165 



plausible to speculate that if the children had been measured at an earlier 

 age they might have reached perfect normality. This is, if the intelligence 

 rating of these children decreased as rapidly from age six to sixteen, what 

 did it do before age six? If we assume that the IQ of an unselected group 

 remains fairly constant, this decrease among mountain children might indi- 

 cate the influence of a poor environment acting upon innate abilities, or that 

 the tests are measuring environmental influences rather than hereditary 

 potentialities. A careful study of the results of Hirsch's investigation of 

 East Kentucky mountain children with the same test indicates a similar 

 trend although Hirsch gives a different interpretation. 



In an attempt to measure the special abilities of mountain children, the 

 Seashore Test of Musical Talent was given to 450 children in grades V- 

 VIII. We realize that there are many discrepancies and criticisms of the 

 Seashore Test. No attempt will be made to defend the validity and relia- 

 bility of the test, but we feel that for our purpose it is the best music test 

 available. Its results at least give us data for comparison in the six phases : 

 pitch, intensity, time, consonance, tonal memory, and rhythm. As to how 

 great a part these six factors play in musical talent we do not know. 



When comparing the scores of the mountain children with Larson's revision 

 of Seashore's norms, the reliability of the differences shows the mountain 

 children to be slightly below the norms in time, consonance, rhythm and in- 

 tensity, and considerably below in pitch and tonal memory. Another com- 

 parison was made between mountain children and Larson's fifth grade class 

 in beginning music. Here there is a significant statistical difference in favor 

 of the mountain children in all measures, and a marked difference in time, 

 intensity and consonance. The mountain children appear superior when 

 compared with Larson's figures for an eighth grade group of non-musicians, 

 but lack of reliability measures force us to read this comparison with reser- 

 vations. In comparing mountain children with full blood Indian children 

 as measured by Garth, the reliability of the differences shows mountain 

 children are superior in practically all measures for grades V-VIII. 



We have made several other comparisons between mountain children and 

 other groups which did not have adequate reliability measures. Gray and 

 Bingham report a study on the comparison of music ability of colored and white 

 children. The mountain children are superior to the colored in all measures 

 except time and pitch, and in these two measures the differences appear 

 small. The mountain children are above the white children in consonance 

 and tonal memory, and the differences in the other measures are not marked. 

 Johnson made a study of 3350 negro children. Comparison with this group 

 seems to show that the negroes are superior to mountain children in all meas- 



