456 ROSWELL H. JOHNSON 



further test them, but it is suggested that some time be allowed before addi- 

 tional testing in order to avoid or lessen age allowances. 



What was it that made the test scores of these siblings all so unusually 

 high? We infer it was not the college or high school attended because the 

 boys tested very high in the eighth grade regular public school mental tests 

 and were then recognized as very high by the Civic Club with its preliminary 

 award. Further we have tested very many from each of the high schools 

 of the county and the particular high school attended by all four does not 

 produce an unusually large number of awardees. It was not the grammar 

 school because no one grammar school or class within the grammar school 

 furnishes us a disproportion of awardees except such as one would expect 

 from the socio-intellectual levels from certain localities. The second son 

 was able to read before he was four years old and both skipped the first 

 grade. Furthermore more than one grammar school was attended. 



Was it a particularly stimulating home environment? This is apparently 

 a minor factor for homes where the educational level of parents was higher 

 than in this family have furnished us families showing some merely modal 

 youths with superior siblings. 



The main factor, therefore, in these very high scores is inheritance. One 

 must not conclude, however, that it is common for all four children, even 

 where the inheritance is very good, to have uniformly high scores. On the 

 contrary, that is an unusual feature of this case. Ordinarily more variation 

 is found. In this case the parents were apparently homozygous in respect 

 to some important determining genes, not of course in all the genes involved. 



