PART III

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.