TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION I. 697 



FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10. 

 The following Papers were read : — 



1. The Use of Menial Tcs/.s for Meafiuriihi Menial Defect. 

 By A. R. Abelson. 



There is every reason to believe that in the future problems of race efficdency 

 and of race superiority will receive paramount attention. It will be necessary 

 to devise the most effective schemes for the weeding out (by segregation) of the 

 unfit and for the securing of the highest s'tandard possible of race culture. 



The view expressed in Dr. Myers' ' Pitfalls of Mental Tests ' has been 

 coi-roborated. The evidence is strongly opposed to the opinion often tacitly and 

 even avowedly accepted that no special training is necessary for carrying out 

 examinations into mental defect. Satisfactory measurement of mind is 

 impossible without scientific knowledge of the mind. 



The Binet system possesses serious disadvantages which render it inade- 

 quate for the examination of defective children. Before any system of tests 

 can hope to be satisfactory, the general principles must be determined for 

 their scientific construction and use. The tests should be short, reliable, and 

 straightforward. They should be within the range of the general experience 

 of the child, but should not depend on scholastic training. It is of vital 

 importance that the child should be made to feel perfectly at ease during the 

 examination, and the conditions should be such as to evoke the gi-eatest effort 

 possible from the child. 



Evidence has been obtained with regard to the essential nature of mental 

 ability. All tends to confirm the belief in a ' general factor ' ; every mental 

 activity depends partly on this general factor and partly on a particular 

 nervous struc-ture specially subserving the mental activity. This general factor, 

 known as ' general ability ' is best conceived as the individual's fund of ' intel- 

 lective energy ' free for use in any direction. 



Mental Deficiency consists of a general lowering of all intellectual func- 

 tions ; in no case was it found to be distinctly localised. It appears to het a 

 degradation of the above-mentioned intellective energy. 



Some cMIdren show abnormal brilliance at scholastic work and yet do not 

 do correspondingly well at 'mental tests.' On the other hand, many children 

 who are not good in the school work show signs of high general intelligence. It 

 is evident from this that a child's scholaslic ability is not always a fair 

 criterion of his ' general ability.' 



2. Notes on the Family Histories of Fifty Cases of Menially Defective 

 Childre7i. By Miss Agnes Kelley. 



These cases were taken without selection from the register of a Special School 

 for Mentally Defective Children in the Haggerston district of the East end of 

 London. The inquiry was made with a view of observing the relative amount 

 of insanity, mental deficiency, epilepsy, alcoholism, and tuberculosis in the 

 family histories, and also the occupation of the parents and the condition of the 

 homes. 



Ocm/pat!on of the Parents. — Of the fathers, 17 were in regular trades, and 

 of these only 5 in full-time iregular work throughout the year. The greater 

 number of the remainder were casuals and hawkers. Regular employment among 

 the mothers only occurred in one or two cases. 



Home Conditions. — Out of the fifty cases, in only about half-a-dozen could 

 the home conditions be described as good, even in comparison with the average 

 home of the neighbourhood. A certain number were rendered poor by indus- 

 trial conditions, but in by far the greater number, probably in at least three- 

 quarters of the homes, the poverty was not only ' industrial,' ijut also ' degraded.' 



Total Number of Family. — In some of the worst cases — those having two or 

 more mental defectives in the same fraternity — the total number in family was 



