356 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LI. No. 1319 



results, whose practioal value would be gener- 

 ally appreciated. Tlie research problems which 

 best meet these si)ecifioations are found within 

 the field of racial differences among the people 

 of the United States. Illustrative of such a 

 project, let me quote from a memorandum by 

 Terman, who suggests securing 



Mental and physical measurements of as nearly 

 as possible unseleeted representatives of two to 

 four racial stocks represented in the United States, 

 with supplementary social and educational data. 



By ordinary methods of selection large numbers 

 would have to be measured in order to insure rep- 

 resentative results. The number it would be nec- 

 essary to measure could, however, be enormously 

 reduced by confining the measurements to children 

 of a given age, say 12-year-olds. Such a group 

 would give more nearly one hundred per cent, avail- 

 ability than any other group that could be selected. 

 Entire villages, counties, or other civil units could 

 be covered in selected parts of the country. The 

 investigations ought to involve measurements of at 

 least 3,000, and preferably 5,000 individuals of 

 each race group. The results would give a fairly 

 reliable cross-section picture in the race groups 

 chosen for study. 



Incidentally, also, the study would go beyond any 

 investigation that has been made in the direction 

 of determining the relationship between intelli- 

 gence and important physical traits within a given 

 race group. The method indicated is, I think, the 

 ideal approach to this latter problem, all previous 

 investigations of the problem having utilized faulty 

 methods of selecting subjects. 



Other projects similar in scope and promise 

 include a study of the inheritance of intellec- 

 tual ability; a study of mental and physical 

 variability in selected traits, and the correla- 

 tion of mental and physical measurements; 

 culture studies of representative community 

 groups as a basis for a rational Americaniza- 

 tion program, etc. 



Committees of the Division have just been 

 designated, to proceed with the elaboration of 

 specific proposals. One of these committees, 

 on anthropological and psychological study of 

 the people of the United States, will designate 

 subcommittees on specific projects which 

 are deemed most promising and important. 

 Another committee will determine what most 



needs to be done in order to utilize the im- 

 mense accumulations of army data which have 

 hitherto been only meagerly studied. A third 

 will formulate programs for specific researches 

 outside the United States, particularly in 

 Tropical America, and in Polynesia where the 

 effects of racial intermarriage are most read- 

 ily determinable. 



It will then be the duty of the Division to 

 see what research agencies, governmental or 

 educational, can be brought to concentrate 

 their efforts toward a concerted attack on these 

 major problems, problems which could not be 

 treated with adequacy by investigators work- 

 ing individually. 



These samples will serve to illustrate the 

 major functions of the Division of Anthropol- 

 ogy and Psychology ; but its usefulness will, I 

 trust, be demonstrated partly in the minor and 

 perhaps incidental services it can render from 

 time to time to individual workers. Requests 

 for aid are frequent and varied. For ex- 

 ample, one investigator who has been engaged 

 on plethysmographic research on stutterers has 

 succeeded through wide advertising in locating 

 in another city a trephined stutterer. Two 

 hundred dollars is needed to transport the sub- 

 ject to the laboratory, in order to secure rec- 

 ords of fluctuation of blood pressure in the 

 brain during stuttering. Another investigator, 

 studying the phenomena of memory, habit for- 

 mation and glandular activity under hypno- 

 tism, has found a senior medical student with 

 exceptional skill as a hypnotist, who can at will 

 make the hypnotized subject weep out of the 

 right or the left while the other eye remains 

 dry. A thousand dollar fellowship would make 

 it possible to retain this student for a year of 

 service in research. 



Unfortunately the council has no permanent 

 funds from which grants and subsidies can be 

 made. Such financial aid as it extends to im- 

 portant projects ordinarily takes the form of 

 an effort to interest a donor in a specific 

 undertaking which has been selected from 

 among many projects, for endorsement by the 

 division concerned. 



Nor is the council in a position always to 

 lend its official approval and moral support to 



