THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CONCLUSIONS OF THE EXPERIMENT
THE NEGLECT OF GENIUS
Schools of to-day are organized and administered so as to yield less
chance to a child to obtain as much information as is possible for him
to have in direct proportion to his mental ability. The correlation
between accomplishment and intelligence (using AccR, the average of
Reading, Vocabulary, and Completion Ratios with IQ) was -.61 in November,
1918, and -.49 in June, 1920, in the Garden City public school. The
regrading and special promotion work from November, 1918, to June,
1920, reduced the handicap of brightness, but could not obliterate the
sparsity of returns per increment of capacity in the upper reaches of the
intelligence. Further, work along this same line done by A. J. Hamilton
in the Washington School, Berkeley, California, indicates that this was
not a peculiarity of the school at Garden City.
The wide range of abilities which we know exists in pupils of any one age
makes it impossible to adjust our formal education to the extremes. Much
adjustment has been made in favor of the lower extreme, but little has
been done for our genius. Of course the work with extreme subnormals is
conceived and prosecuted more in the sense of clearing them away for the
good of those remaining than of fitting education to their own needs. We
are neglecting, however, our duty to those whom nature has endowed with
the essentials of leadership. They do not interfere quite as much with
ordinary classroom procedure, but they are greater social assets and need
special treatment to develop _them_ rather than to let others develop
better.
Neither of the extreme groups is certain of getting the normal stamina
necessary for good citizenship. Neither group forms good habits of
study nor accumulates such information as it might. Being aware of this
discrepancy between the gift and the recipient, we have made our lessons
easier and we have segregated the lower percentile. There is much more
to be done. We must adapt education to at least five varying classes
in order to reduce the spread within each to a commodious span. But the
genius is the most important and should have the greatest claim to our
immediate attention.
First, our social needs demand special attention for the genius in
order that we may better exploit our best nervous resources. Second,
our educational needs demand it since the very bright as well as the
very stupid disrupt calm and cogent classroom procedure. Third, they
themselves demand it in order that they may, even when they do function
as leaders, be happier in that function, since now they often lose much
in social contact by peculiarities which prevent an integration of their
“drives” into a harmonious economy of tendency. These peculiarities come
from their continuous maladjustment, since when they are with children
of their own mental maturity they are physically and physiologically
handicapped; when they are with children of their own size and muscular
equipment they are so far mentally superior that they are unhappily
adjusted. Only classification on a large scale will allow sufficient
numbers of them to congregate to correct this.
I am reminded of a boy ten years old whose IQ on the Terman test was 172.
He defined a nerve as the “conduction center of sensation” and, when
asked to explain, did so in terms of sensation of heat and motive to
withdraw. He explained the difference between misery and poverty thus:
“Misery is a lack of the things we want; poverty is a lack of the things
we need.” How can we expect a boy like this to grow into a normal citizen
if we do not provide the companionship of peers in mentality and in
physique?
Fourth, our eugenic needs demand it, since we are not conserving this,
our chiefest asset, genius. Unless we conserve better these rare
products, the standard deviation of the intelligence of humanity will
keep shrinking as we select against imbeciles and against genius as well.
The waste of a genius who becomes an intellectual dilettante, as many now
in fact do, is double. We lose what he might do for society; he does not
marry and we lose the potentiality of his highly endowed germ-plasm.
And they do become dilettantes when special treatment is not given. I
know of a young man who was first of his high-school class, who got all
A’s his first year in College (at Wisconsin), and all A’s his second year
(at Harvard); and then he began to read all manner of literature with
no schema of expression, no vocation, because, as he said, all college
courses are so stupidly easy. He attended no lectures and read none of
the books in one course, and then two days before the examination he was
taunted with not being able to pass this course. He spent two nights
and two days studying, and he received B in the course. But now he is a
failure because he has no organized, purposive schema of expression; he
was always in classes with people less fortunately endowed than he, and
so he never had a chance.
On these four counts then we must segregate our genius: (1) Social
exploitation of our resources. (2) Educational procedure for the sake of
other children as well as for them. (3) Happiness for them, organization
of their trends, and formation of social habits. (4) Biologic
conservation of great positive deviation from average human intelligence.
IS GENIUS SPECIALIZED?
This genius is of various kinds, political and business leaders,
scientists and artists. Have they then the same inherited nervous
structure with regard to abilities and capacities as distinct from
interests? We know that they must have something in common, something
that we call intelligence, power of adaptation. Calling this the nervous
chemistry, the way the nervous system acts its quality, we must still
know whether we have also an inherited nervous physics to deal with,
or a further inherited nervous chemistry which predisposes to specific
ability. Are there inherited capacities or predispositions to ability? We
are in a position to answer this question with regard to the elementary
school subjects, and are tempted here into a more general discussion of
the matter in hand.
The need to clarify our view on what is inherited and what is due to
environment can be clearly envisaged in terms of our teachers. Whatever
psychologists may mean by “predisposition to ability” it is quite certain
that teachers make no distinction between this and the inheritance
of a capacity. They feel that some children figure better than they
read, and others read better than they figure, “by nature,” and there
their obligation ends. If it is a grave matter that we shoulder the
burden of bringing a child to his optimum achievement, then it is an
immediate duty that we find how much of the failure to produce product
of one kind or another is due to unremovable factors, and how much is
due to our inadequacy. So, too, we have much loose discussion about
finding out what children can do and want to do in the way of vocational
diagnosis,—loose because it assumes that children are born with definite
vocational capacities. Certainly we can do much more in the way of
development and much more in the way of preparation for social needs if
we know just how much “predisposition to ability” means. The teacher
interprets it to mean about what was meant by the turtle that held up
Atlas who held up the world. She makes no real distinction between
predisposition to ability and specific ability, just as there was no real
causal distinction between the turtle and Atlas. She then gets at her
conception of intelligence additively,—a summation of school abilities.
The correlation of teachers’ judgment of “power of adaptation,” carefully
explained, and marks given six months previously by the same teachers
was .82. The correlation of this same average judgment with the average
of thirteen intelligence tests was only .58. These teachers obviously
reached their conclusions of the intelligence of a child in the same
way as they reached their conclusions of what marks he earned in their
subjects.
The unit characteristics which make up what we describe in terms of gross
behavior as intelligence must of course be many. No one denies that
if we knew just what these units were we could describe two possible
manifestations of what we now call intelligence, of which one person
could do one only and another person could do the other only because of
the particular combinations of the units inherited. This would constitute
inheritance of predisposition to special capacities. But it is not the
same to assume that the vocations and aptitudes desirable in a world such
as ours have specialized inherited bases. It is far more probable that
substantially the same inherited characteristics are necessary to success
in all the gross cross-sections of behavior which we call vocations and
abilities.
As the unit characteristics are certainly not so closely allied to our
social needs as “mechanical intelligence” and “social intelligence” or
even “rote memory for numbers,” we may not even distinguish presence
of any five hundred elements from presence of any other five hundred
elements in terms of what we now measure as intelligence. It is just as
likely that all the elements of intelligence are necessary for every
vocation and that all contribute to success of any one kind as it is
likely that some are necessary for one vocation and others for another.
This is a question of more or less. I believe that the amount to which
a person’s specific talents, his vocation as distinct from his general
power, are shaped by the combinations of elements which make up his
inheritance, is much less than believed by Francis Galton, who says:
“There cannot then remain a doubt but that the peculiar type of ability
that is necessary to a judge is often transmitted by descent.” And again:
“In other words, the combination of high intellectual gifts, tact in
dealing with men, power of expression in debate, and ability to endure
exceedingly hard work, is hereditary.”[19]
I believe that the amount of influence which inheritance has upon the
_kind_ of thing a man does in life has been overestimated; that the
inherited factors influence more the _way_ in which he shall do whatever
the environment influences him to do. This leaves plenty of play for the
close correlation between parents and children in both intelligence and
vocation. The former is the result of inheritance, the latter is the
result of environment. All competent psychologists would agree to-day to
less specific inheritance than a basis, for instance, for the distinction
in vocation of minister and orator; and more specific inheritance than
for such a statement as “We inherit how well we will do, we learn what we
will do.” There would be substantial agreement to the statement that the
inherited nervous bases of a very intelligent plumber are more like those
of a very intelligent statesman than like those of a stupid plumber. This
question is, _how much_ inheritance we can conceive of as being made
up of neuro-chemical elements determining us to do one kind of a thing
rather than another.
Interpretation statistically of one thousand possible elements, simply
viewed as present or absent, and again simply viewed only as combinations
and not permutations, would mean that the less the intelligence the
more specific the inheritance. The most intelligent man alive could, by
what he is born with, do anything since he has all of the one thousand
factors, all of which help him in the prosecution of any venture. But
the fewer elements he has the less well he does most things, and when
lacking certain elements he has lost the capacity to do some things more
completely than others. (I have neglected physiological characteristics
necessary to an ability. A deaf man certainly is handicapped in music.
I speak of _possible_ mental capacities.) Such a view leaves scope for
some degree of special abilities. It accounts for the idiot-savants, it
accounts for the cases where genius is diverse as well as where it is
not though it would demand that specialized genius be very rare and that
inherited specialization be much rarer in the upper than in the lower
reaches of intelligence. It allows for such cases as Galileo, whose
father was a composer, as well as the cases cited by Galton. Heredity
need not imply the same kind of genius though it does suggest it, whereas
the environment backs up this inherited implication. We further can here
absolutely resent an inheritance of such things as ability in the common
school subjects without being involved in a view to deny the inheritance
of a predisposition to mechanical rather than musical successes.
Observation of brilliant children would corroborate this view. They can
do anything. Observation of the mentally deficient is equally encouraging
to this view. It has always been puzzling that they seem to do a few
things much better than others. According to this conception there
would be a negative correlation between intelligence and specialized
inheritance.
We will then consider each inherited element, not as music or as science,
but rather as an element of intelligence which will help in all lines of
work, but which may be a little more necessary for some than others. This
is a predisposition in a true sense. If a man had only one element out
of one thousand, he could do only a few things. If he had all thousand
he could do everything. Inheritance of ability is not in terms of units
valuable to us socially, but only in terms of undefined nervous elements;
and we may conceive of specialization, and still hold that there be less,
the more intelligent a man is.
To make the matter still more concrete, imagine two men each of whom have
900 of the hypothetical 1000 elements, this being a value of +3 S.D. from
the mean intelligence of the human race. One is a composer, the other
financier. According to this view the greatest number of their inherited
bases on which they could differ would be 100 of the 900 elements. The
other 800 must be alike. Assuming that all of the elements contribute
to all of the activities, but that some of them are more essential to
some activities than to others, we could in this case say that the 100
which are different decided in some measure the vocation of each man.
But it is much more probable that they overlap in 850 and that each has
only 50 distinct elements, and further that the 50 which are distinct in
each would not all be such as to influence one kind of ability rather
than another. Then these two men, had they interchanged environments,
would probably have interchanged vocations in that transaction. For the
purposes of this discussion we treat physiological inherited features
(such as hearing), as environment, as we are considering the mental
capacity of composer as distinct from the necessary conditions to its
development. According to this view, then, we account easily for the
versatility of genius, which is so apparent in such accounts as Terman’s
_The Intelligence of School Children_.[20] Also, though very infrequent,
we account for the genius who could not have done other things as well as
those he did.
Let us consider the case of negative deviates, say 3 S.D. from the
mean intelligence of the human race. Two men each have 100 of the 1000
hypothetical elements. It is much more probable here than not, that an
appreciable amount of the 100 elements would be distinct in each person,
though it is improbable that they would often be such as to form the
basis of an “ability.” This then would account for specific abilities
amongst morons and also for the presence but rarety of idiot-savants.
Also since there are a limited number of such combinations possible and
since many overlap for all practical purposes, we would account for
the common likenesses as well as the relatively more uncommon extreme
differences. This view is consistent with an examination of the data of
this thesis which are contrary to the common belief in special abilities
or to a view of inheritance of units which are actually the goals of
education and the uses of a civilization too recent to leave its imprint
on inheritance. We found no unremovable predispositions to one school
subject more than to the others in any of the children. We would thus
argue that such predispositions as to mathematics or to oratory are
extremely rare and cannot be used as rules by which to interpret human
nature.
Woodworth says in a criticism of McDougall’s view of instincts: “What
he here overlooks is the fact of native capacities or rather, the fact
that each native capacity is at the same time a drive towards the sort
of activity in question. The native capacity for mathematics is, at the
same time, an interest in things mathematical and in dealing with such
things. This is clearly true in individuals gifted with a great capacity
for mathematics.”[21]
I do not wish to become involved here in a discussion of the original
nature of man on the instinctive side. I wish merely to rebel at
the assumption of specific inheritance of abilities that are really
sociological units. Mathematics is an ability which is useful to us,
which we have come to encourage in education. But it is a man-made unit.
There is no reason to believe that the inherited components of mentality
are in any direct way related to such talents as mathematics or music.
The units may vaguely predispose, but the units are not mathematics and
music. We may say that the inherited physical and chemical units of
the nervous system may be so distributed as to predispose one man to
mathematics, and another to music, but we must not argue for inherited
interests as correlates. The evidence is all that the inherited nervous
chemistry of the individual is what on the side of behavior, we define
as intelligence—power of adaptation. We may logically fall back on the
inheritance of predisposition to ability, meaning thereby the inheritance
of such nervous qualities as will better fit the individual to cope
with mathematical than with musical situations; but if we adopt this
cautious ground in disputation we cannot argue in another matter for
an inherited interest in mathematics, innate because of the inborn
mathematical talent. If the inherited qualities merely predispose they
merely delimit; just as a man born without arms would probably not become
a great baseball player, nor a deaf man a great musician, nor a man with
poor motor control a skilled mechanic—so we are predisposed nervously
for capacities. Hence can we argue that the inborn root of the interest
is the capacity? Is it not safer to assume that interests in success,
approval of fellowmen and general mental activity led to the development
of the capacity by virtue of a favorable environment, and led by the same
environment to interests centered about its activity?
It is far from my intention to say that inheritance is not as specific
nervously as it is in matters of blood pressure and texture of skin.
As we, in our limited knowledge, still define abilities in terms
of behaviour and not by nervous elements, my contention is that
intelligence should be regarded as the sum total of this inheritance,
much as general strength is, in terms of the body. We have still to
find the component units of this intelligence. We can then define
predisposition to ability. To split intelligence into inherited units of
mathematics, reading, composition, mechanics, etc., is as unjustifiable
as to split inherited vigor of body into baseball capacity, running
capacity, climbing capacity, etc. Mathematics and music are what we do
with intelligence, not what intelligence is made of. Of course everyone
agrees to this. The lack of emphasis upon the chance that the inherited
units are general in their application, that the same inherited elements
are involved in many of the behavior complexes which we call traits and
abilities, is what confuses the situation.
CURRENT PSYCHOLOGICAL OPINION
We must know what these elements are, and how many contribute to which
capacities. Then we can decide the question of specialized inheritance.
In all crude behavior data it is impossible to separate the influence of
nature and nurture. A theory of specialized inheritance will inevitably
infringe upon common sense in its claims. Of the following statements, it
would be easier for most of us to endorse 1 and 2 than 3 and 4, whereas
few would agree with 5 and 6.
1. “Unless one is a blind devotee to the irrepressibility and
unmodifiability of original nature, one cannot be contented with
the hypothesis that a boy’s conscientiousness or self-consciousness
is absolutely uninfluenced by the family training given to him. Of
intelligence in the sense of ability to get knowledge rather than
amount of knowledge got, this might be maintained. But to prove that
conscientiousness is irrespective of training is to prove too much.”
(Thorndike, _Educational Psychology_, III, pp. 242.)
2. “Some attempts have been made to apply these laws to behavior
complexes, but as yet psychology has provided little foundation for such
studies. The most thorough-going attempts have been made with human
mental traits and some evidence has been collected here in favor of the
view that differences in the instinctive behavior of individuals are
inherited according to Mendelian ratios. _But in the field of human
psychology too little is known of the genesis of character, of the
distinction between nature and acquired behaviour to provide a very firm
foundation for the work of the geneticist._” (Watson, _Behaviour_, p.
156. Italics are mine.)
3. “Even, however, when we omit the trades as well as the cases in
which the fathers were artists, we find a very notable predominance of
craftsmen in the parentage of painters, to such an extent indeed that
while craftsmen only constitute 9.2 per cent among the fathers of our
eminent persons generally, they constitute nearly 35 per cent among the
fathers of the painters and sculptors. It is difficult to avoid the
conclusion that there is a real connection between the father’s aptitude
for craftsmanship and the son’s aptitude for art.
“To suppose that environment adequately accounts for this relationship
is an inadmissible theory. The association between the craft of builder,
carpenter, tanner, jeweller, watchmaker, wood-carver, rope-maker,
etc., and the painter’s art is small at the best and in the most cases
non-existent.” (Ellis, quoted in Thorndike, _Educational Psychology_,
III, p. 257.)
4. “—the statesman’s type of ability is largely transmitted or inherited.
It would be tedious to count the instances in favor. Those to the
contrary are Disraeli, Sir P. Francis (who was hardly a statesman, but
rather bitter a controversialist) and Horner. In all the other 35 or 36
cases in my Appendix, one or more statesmen will be found among their
eminent relations. In other words, the combination of high intellectual
gifts, tact in dealing with men, power of expression in debate and
ability to endure exceedingly hard work, is hereditary.” (Galton,
_Hereditary Genius_, pp. 103, 104.)
Thorndike comments on this last quotation: “Of course there is, in the
case of all of Galton’s facts the possibility that home surroundings
decided the special direction which genius took, that really original
nature is organized only along broad lines. Moreover, it is difficult to
see just what in the nervous system could correspond to a specialized
original capacity, say, to be a judge. Still the latter matter is a
question of fact, and of the former issue Galton’s studies make him the
best judge. We should note also that it is precisely in the traits the
least amenable to environmental influence such as musical ability, that
the specialization of family resemblance is most marked.”
This cautious and sagacious commentary is in marked contrast to the
following:
5. “But no training and no external influence can entirely supersede
the inborn tendencies. They are the product of _inheritance_. Not only
unusual talents like musical or mathematical or linguistic powers can be
traced through family histories, but the subtlest shades of temperament,
character and intelligence can often be recognized as an ancestral gift.”
(Munsterberg: _Psychology, General and Applied_, p. 230.)
6. “Statistical studies which covered many characteristic opposites like
industrious and lazy, emotional and cool, resolute and undecided, gay
and depressed, fickle and constant, cautious and reckless, brilliant
and stupid, independent and imitative, loquacious and silent, greedy
and lavish, egoistic and altruistic and so on, have indicated clearly
the influence of inheritance on every such mental trait.” (Munsterberg,
_Psychology, General and Applied_, p. 237.)
Undoubtedly Munsterberg here refers to the data accumulated by Heymans
and Wiersma since they used such opposites as these, and also used what
might be called statistical methods. Speaking of the same data Thorndike
says:
“In view of the insecurity of their original data it seems best not to
enter upon an explanation of their somewhat awkward method of measuring
the force of heredity, and not to repeat the figures which are got by
this method. Also they do not attempt to estimate an allowance for the
influence of similarity in home training, though they state that some
such allowance must be made.” (_Educational Psychology_, III, p. 262.)
Hollingworth and Poffenberger, commenting on the data of Galton and Ellis
mentioned in the quotation above, say:
“Francis Galton has made a statistical study of the inheritance of
_specified_ mental abilities and found that the abilities required
for success as a judge, statesman, minister, commander, poet, artist,
and scientific man, are inherited. But the nature of his data makes
him unable to make exact allowances for influences of training and
environmental influences. Consequently, his figures might really show
general intelligence to be inherited and the form of its expression to be
dependent upon environment.
“Other investigators, among them F. A. Woods and Havelock Ellis, have
made similar statistical studies and conclude that there is inheritance
of even such qualities as temper, common sense, and the like, but
these reports are also subject to the same complicating influence of
environment.” (_Applied Psychology_, p. 43.)
It can readily be seen, from these quotations, that there is fundamental
disagreement among psychologists with regard to the inheritance
of specific ability,—fundamental disagreement in three ways: (1)
Interpretation of Galton’s and Ellis’s data. (2) Opinion on the matter.
(3) Degree of precision possible in giving judgment.
We have noted that it is very difficult to understand what the neural
bases for such special abilities as Galton speaks of could be; that
they are social, not neural or psychological units. A view of a large
number of inherited elements all of which contribute to what we call
general intelligence and each of which is slightly more necessary to
some vocation than others, would account for all the observed facts, is
neurally imaginable, and does not need to view ability to be a “judge”
or “artistic talents” as biological entities. It further explains the
differences in their limited abilities of mentally deficient children.
Burt says in this connection: “Among children of special (M.D.) schools,
the evidence for a general factor underlying educational abilities and
disabilities of every kind is not so clear. In administrative practice,
‘mental deficiency’ implies among different children deficiencies in
very different capacities, both general and specific.” (Cyril Burt: _The
Distribution and Relation of Educational Abilities_, p. 83.)
For these reasons it is justifiable to attempt to present evidence
of the inheritance of school abilities with a view to showing that
school abilities are not dependent upon special inherited aptitudes,
as teachers so often assume, but that general intelligence is the only
inherited cause of disparity in product. Investigations where the
correlation between educational product and intelligence, irrespective
of chronological age, was less than around .75, used data where many
removable causes were not removed, and consequently measured results of
the environment as well as heredity. A case such as this follows:
“The influence of inheritance upon a _very specific_ mental quality,
namely, spelling ability, has been tested experimentally, although here
there is some difficulty in separating the influence of heredity from
that of environment. Earle studied the spelling ability of 180 pairs
of brothers and sisters who had uniform school training and found a
correlation of .50. This means that if one child deviated by a certain
amount from the average child in spelling ability, his brother or sister
would deviate from the average child just half as much; that is, he
would resemble his brother or sister to that extent.” (Hollingworth and
Poffenberger: _Applied Psychology_, p. 44.)
The data presented in this thesis indicate that that correlation could
have been pushed as high as the _r_ between the intelligence of the
pairs of brothers. In other words, a child could be made to resemble
his brother as nearly in spelling ability as he did in intelligence.
All disparity could be reduced to that of general intelligence. Then
intelligence alone is inherited as far as the data here presented have
any bearing on the matter in hand. The influence of environment is in
this case a matter of no consequence, since the subjects all had the same
schooling, and home influence does not as a rule teach children to spell;
but the data are not irrespective of the influence of intelligence.
INDICATIONS OF THE GARDEN CITY DATA
Table 3 presents intercorrelations between IQ and quotients in the
various subjects. The correlations are in each instance irrespective
of chronological age since all quantitative indices are expressed as
quotients. We have seen that they go up from September, 1918, to June,
1920. Every possible means was used to push these correlations to their
limit, to remove all removable factors. We have seen that the data show
here, as in Tables 7 and 8, that there is little association between
traits which is not a result of differences in intelligence. Table 3
shows the same 48 children throughout. The _r_’s are not corrected
for attenuation. Though the _r_’s are high throughout and go higher
under special treatment, the association can still be more accurately
registered by some attention to relation of the means and the S.D.’s. Two
traits to be identical must have _r_ = 1.00 S.D._{_x_} = S.D._{_y_} and
M_{_x_} = M_{_y_}. We have seen that the _r_ increases, M-M decreases and
S.D.-S.D. regardless of sign decreases. (Tables 9, 10 and 11.)
But as the S.D.’s of the Subject Quotients (though they do approach S.D.
of IQ) sometimes go below the S.D. of IQ, we must know why. It is because
the low IQ’s do better per their intelligence than the high IQ’s. We have
seen above that the correlation between IQ and average of the Vocabulary,
Reading, and Completion Subject Ratios is -.61 in November, 1918, and
-.49 in June, 1920.
Then the ratio of achievement to intelligence is in definite relation
to intelligence—a negative relation. It is this same tendency to adapt
our education to a low level which has prevented a perfect association
between intelligence and the various subjects. The relation of one
subject to another, irrespective of intelligence, would be zero if there
were no other factors except intelligence responsible for the product.
After two years of such attempts as an ordinary public school will
allow, we have removed many of the causes of disparity and increased
the association between potential progress and progress in arithmetic,
reading and language. The correlations, correspondence of S.D.’s, and
Σ(IQ-EQ)⁄_n_ registered in Tables 9, 10, and 11 give evidence of this
as does also the increase in the AccR, an average of the Arithmetic,
Reading, Vocabulary and Completion Ratios. (Table 13.)
Are the unremoved causes other than intelligence unremovable? These
causes might be, besides the unreliability of tests and the common
elements in the tests, the specialized inheritance we have considered,
ethical qualities of endurance, ambition, initiative and industry or a
general factor. The correlations between Arithmetic Ratios and Reading
Ratios and the other intercorrelations of Subject Ratios will yield us
an index of how much of this remaining disparity is due to specialized
inheritance. These intercorrelations for all years are embodied in Table
13. The partial correlations of quotients when intelligence is rendered
constant will be found in Table 6. These intercorrelations, and the
partials as well, give an indication of some general factor other than
intelligence since the _r_’s irrespective of intelligence are uniform and
all are positive. Only the correlation of arithmetic with vocabulary,
intelligence being rendered constant, goes to zero. Though this might be
due in part to common elements in the tests, it is more likely that there
is another factor in operation. Inheritance of specific abilities could
not have this uniform effect on the correlations.
These correlations all being positive and the _r_’s being very uniform,
both correlation of ratios and the partials, makes the interpretation of
specialized inheritance of ability extremely unlikely. The correlation
of Arithmetic Ratios with Reading Ratios is higher in 1920 than that of
Vocabulary Ratios with Reading Ratios. It leaves the possibility that
the unremoved factors are inherited ethical differences or that they
are a “general educational factor.” The negative correlation of AccR
with intelligence, however, being as high as these positive remnants of
interrelation, would tend to make more probable an interpretation of this
as a remnant of disparity, intelligence accounted for, which is entirely
due to the organization of our schools.
All disparity not due to intelligence was worked on as far as it was
possible. Thereupon the association of intelligence and educational
product increased markedly and the negative association of intelligence
with achievement in terms of intelligence decreased somewhat. However,
some association of abilities not due to intelligence remains. Exactly
as much negative association of achievement in terms of intelligence,
with intelligence, remains. So, when some of the disparities due to the
environment have been removed and therefore the correlation of Arithmetic
Ratio with Vocabulary Ratio and Reading Ratio has been decreased, the
causes which contributed to a correlation such as lack of interest having
been removed, there still remains some relation of school qualities.
But there also still remains a negative association between this
accomplishment and intelligence which means that we still have a remnant
of such removable influence as is due to badly adjusted curricula.
This enables us to interpret our partials. The partials are not nearer
zero because although we have partialed out the effect of intelligence,
we have not partialed out the factor which controls the negative relation
to intelligence of these very partial resultants, since that is the
effect of the methods and curricula. Though we did advance bright pupils
and give them more chance, we have not given them a chance proportionate
to the stupid children. And that is true since we often wanted to advance
pupils and were not allowed to; whereas we were never allowed to demote
pupils except in particular subject matter. The stupid children were
always at the frontier of their intelligence at the educational cost of
the others.
It is this remnant which has usually been interpreted as “general factor”
or as inherited factors basic to initiative, ambition, and industry.
The fact of importance is that these remnants, these marks of children
independent of their intelligence, are associated negatively with
intelligence to the same degree that they are associated positively to
each other. Unless we wish to assume that the “general factor” or the
inherited bases of initiative and industry are associated negatively
with intelligence we must account for the remnant in some other way. It
seems far more reasonable to attribute this remaining association to the
educational handicaps of intelligence which we were unable to remove.
The original tendencies of man, as distinct from his original
equipment, have not been considered in this study. If the quantitative
differences in endowment of this kind were added to the denominator of
our accomplishment ratio formula, we would have a better measure and
better results. We share in this investigation a general limitation of
educational psychology—the requisite technique to measure individual
differences of instincts and the ethical traits of which they are the
predisposition. Industry, ambition, and initiative are not inherited
units. They are, however, the rules of an economy of expression and as
such are dependent upon individual differences in strength of instinct.
CONCLUSIONS
1. IQ can be used as a limit of school achievement expressed as SQ.
_a_ Progress in Σ(IQ-SQ)⁄_n_ may be used as a measure of school
efficiency.
_b_ SQ⁄IQ may be used as a measure of individual efficiency.
2. Correlations between intelligence and achievement are very different
before and after the abilities are pushed.
_a_ Many _r_’s are reported where conclusions are drawn as
though they had been pushed. These conclusions should be
restated.
_b_ Intelligence and achievement are far more closely
associated than has been assumed to date.
3. Disparity of school product can be reduced to individual differences
in intelligence.
_a_ Little specific inheritance of school abilities.
_b_ Little unremovable difference in industry,
conscientiousness and concentration.
_c_ Intelligence is the only inherited general factor.
4. Negative association between AccR and IQ.
_a_ To-day’s educational procedure involves a handicap to
intelligence.
_b_ The genius has been neglected.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES
[1] Part of this section is reprinted with revisions from TEACHERS
COLLEGE RECORD, Vol. XXI, No. 5 (November, 1920).
[2] For scientific purposes we want year-month means and standard
deviations, that we may say that Charlie Jones is 2.1 S.D. above the mean
for his age level, while Harold Smith is .1 S.D. below that mean. It is
in terms such as these that we may be able to compare accomplishment
in one function with accomplishment in another, progress in one
with progress in another. For many of our problems we need a common
denominator of measurement so that we may compare progress between tests
and age-groups. The best common denominator is, I believe, S.D. in an
age-group. Thus we may locate a child in any age-group in any test and
compare that location with the position of any other child in any other
test in his age-group.
For practical purposes, however, it is for many reasons more convenient
to use quotients in elementary schools. Principals would rather deal with
quotients since it is easier to explain them in terms of attainment and
capacity. It is the use of such quotients that this thesis discusses.
[3] Judd, C. H., “A Look Forward,” in _Seventeenth Yearbook_, Pt. II, of
the N.S.S.E., 1918.
[4] When the disadvantages of “pushing” children are discussed, the
disadvantages of keeping children at their chronological age levels
should be considered as well. Although it is true that a supernormal
child placed in that grade for which he is mentally equipped loses
much in social contact, it is also true that he loses a great deal
by remaining in the grade where he physiologically belongs. There he
develops habits of conceit, indolence, and carelessness. It is in all
cases much better to group intelligent children and enrich the curriculum
than to “push” them; but pushing may be better than leaving them where
they belong by age. It is a possibility worth considering that the
explanation of the “peculiarities” of genius lies in the fact that he has
never associated with equals. When his fellows are mentally his equals
they are physically far older and when they are physically his equals
they are mentally inferior.
[5] Whether only the Accomplishment Ratio as a percentage should be given
the parents, or whether they should know both the IQ and all the SQ’s,
is a question on which I am not prepared to give an opinion. I incline
to believe that the parents should know only the final marks and am sure
that I advise telling the children these only.
[6] There will be reported elsewhere a fuller consideration of this
aspect of the technique of derivation of norms, together with a complete
presentation of the data used to obtain the age norms herein used.
[7] “The Accomplishment Quotient,” _Teachers College Record_, November,
1920.
[8] Or the ratio of the Subject Quotient to the Intelligence Quotient,
which is the same as the ratio of the Subject Age to the Mental Age.
[9] This table is too bulky for complete publication but may be found on
file in Teachers College Library, Columbia University.
[10] The remainder of this table is filed in Teachers College Library,
Columbia University. Decimals are dropped in this table.
[11] Decimals are dropped in this table.
[12] Truman L. Kelley: _Statistics_, The Macmillan Co.
[13] This correlation was obtained by correlating one half of the Binet
against the other one half and then using Brown’s Formula to determine
the correlation of a whole Binet against another whole Binet.
[14] These quantities do not decrease because a perfect score on the
arithmetic test was too easy to obtain at this time. The children had
reached the limits of this test.
[15] Table 12 is too bulky for complete publication. The first page is
reproduced here and the complete table is filed at the library, Teachers
College, Columbia University.
[16] No arithmetic was given in 1918, therefore arithmetic was not used
in these averages.
[17] William Anderson McCall: _Correlations of Some Psychological and
Educational Measurements_, Teachers College Contributions to Education,
No. 79.
[18] Cyril Burt: _The Distribution and Relations of Educational
Abilities_, pp. 53-56.
[19] Quotations from Galton: _Hereditary Genius_, ’92, pp. 61-62 and pp.
103-104.
[20] Terman, Lewis: _The Intelligence of School Children_. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1919.
[21] Woodworth, R. S.: _Dynamic Psychology_, p. 200. New York: Columbia
University Press, 1918.