Devoted to the Science, Art, Philosophy and Literature VOL. XLV. S of Education FEBRUARY, 1925 Salvage of the Non-Nordic WALTER SCOTT MCNUTT, PH.D. No. 6 FLORIDA STATE COLLEGE FOR WOMEN, TALLAHASSEE, FLA. OME American sociologists and psychologists maintain that the Nordic people are the supermen of humanity and an effort is being made by these advocates to establish the conception that the richest gems of civilization have been given to human society through the Nordic blood. But there is another side to this issue and it is this latter side that has called forth this investigation. Such men as Professor Bagley of Columbia University and his confrères are meeting these extravagant claims by a scientific study of the actual facts in the case and they have been and are now demonstrating that such a conception does not maintain. Taking the Caucasian and Mongolian races as a whole, in their several great historical scopes, one has just about as much native intelligence as the other. Along with this super-Nordic tendency a type of superficial psychologists has developed whose sole possession of knowledge seems to be in an intelligence test. They are meeting some of the youth of our nation in institutions maintained by the people and founded for the people and after a thirty minutes' intelligence test saying to them this: "You do not have enough intelligence to make good in life and we will not have you in this institution." These freaks are unconscious of the fact that the so-called intelligence tests do not measure native ability but that they measure the complicated product of a social environment. Professor Bagley's scholarly study of American intelligence based upon the army intelligence tests demonstrates that the men in the American Army were not a class of morons but that they were the product of an educational system and its social environment that had as its median a twelve-year mind. This splendid study of Professor Bagley's speaks for itself. We are giving it under Tables I and II. These tables were formulated by Professor Bagley as the basis for his discussion of this problem at the Ohio State Teachers' Association, Columbus, Ohio, 1923. The western states of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho in Table I give a high rank in intelligence and 26, 12, and 29 in school efficiency. Professor Bagley accounted for this discrepancy when he showed that many of the inhabitants of these states were of a very high percentage of college trained men and women from other states. I shall never forget the effect upon that great body of teachers when Professor Bagley said: "Fellow teachers, we should not despair over the American moron, but rather over an inefficient American school system." TABLE I. Comparison of Forty-one States as to Median Scores Made by White Recruits in "Army Alpha," with the Ranks of the Same States in School Efficiency in 1900 (Ayres' Ratings, all 10 Components). TABLE II. 26 states with 55% or more of its population native to the state 1910, ranked according to school efficiency ('80, '90, '00, '10) and according to certain measures of present intelligence and efficiency. Adult Per cent Median Literary Birth- Average Median Median ratings .94) .83 .74 .81 .78 .74 .82 .81 Notes: (a) Proportioned to total population averaged for '50, '60, '70, "70, '80. (b) Proportioned to total population 1920. (c) 1st, 2d, 3d, 4th and 7th components of Ayres "index." (d) Value agricultural and manufactured products, 1919, divided by number people in agricultural and manufacturing pursuits, 1920. Another stimulating study of this problem of measuring intelligence is being carried out by Prof. B. B. Breese of the University of Cincinnati. Professor Breese is America's pioneer in the use of intelligence tests and he seems to be the only American psychologist who has succeeded in writing an unprejudiced text-book in psychology. The jazz tendency was expressed at the University of Cincinnati and Professor Breese gave the faculty his rich experience with intelligence tests and an exceedingly interesting story of some twenty years of follow-up records of students whom he had tested. Professor Breese gives every student in his department a number of the various intelligence tests spread out through |