The intelligence test which appeared at the beginning of the 20th century were used in several countries including America. The scale developed by Binet was used as an intelligence test in France and eventually spread to other countries including Belgium, Britain, America and Italy, but its most intense use and modification was carried out by the American scholars L.M. Terman, H.H. Goddard, and R.M. Yerkes. Unlike Binet, these scholars saw intellectual ability as being determined hereditarily. Intelligence tests were a means of proving the inherited nature of intelligence and measuring differences in this inherited intelligence in individuals. Based on this conception of intellectual ability intelligence tests became tied to various policies (including those of non-interference) and their intended results◆33.
"... in the near future intelligence tests will bring tens of thousands of these high-grade defectives under the surveillance and protection of society. This will ultimately result in curtailing the reproduction of feeble-mindedness and in the elimination of an enormous amount of crime, pauperism, and industrial inefficiency. It is hardly necessary to emphasize that the high-grade cases, of the type now so frequently overlooked, are precisely the ones whose guardianship it is most important for the State to assume." (the opening chapter from the Americanized "Stanford-Binet Test", Terman[1916:6-7], In Kamin [1974:6→1977:20=1977:15])
"... only recently have we begun to recognize how serious a menace it is to the social, economic and moral welfare of the state ... It is responsible ... for the majority of cases of chronic and semi-chronic pauperism. ... the feeble-minded continue to multiply ... organized charities ... often contribute to the survival of individuals who would otherwise not be able to live and reproduce...
If we would preserve our state for a class of people worthy to possess it, we must prevent, as far as possible, the propagation of mental degenerates ... curtailing the increasing spawn of degeneracy." (Terman [1917] cited in Kamin [1974:7, 1977:21=1977:17])
Crime and poverty were attributed to inherited mental defects and feeble-mindedness. Increases in crime and poverty were seen as being caused by social relief efforts and (as is stated in the quotation below) the high birth rate amongst the genetically inferior. Steps had to be taken to protect society from this crime and poverty (not so much poverty itself but the threats it posed to society), and intelligence tests became tools for discovering "currently overlooked" defective individuals. There were said to be differences in intellectual ability within "the human race" and within the different social strata. This assertion was connected to attempts to avoid the threat of increasing numbers of people in these inferior groups as well as to claims that it was natural for people to be assigned jobs and ways of life appropriate to their abilities.
'Hi-grade' or 'border-line' deficiency ; that is, I.Q.s in the 70-80 range (in terman's view, the test is particulary useful in the diagnosis of that level) "is very, very common among Spanish-Indian and Mexican families of the Southwest and also among negroes. Their dullness seems to be racial, or at least inherent in the family stocks from which they come . . . the whole question of racial differences in mental traits will have to be taken up anew and by experimental methods. The writer predicts that when this is done there will be discovered enormously significant racial differences in general intelligence, differences which cannot be wiped out by any scheme of mental culture.
Children of this group should be segregated in special classes ... They cannot master abstractions, but they can often be made efficient workers ... There is no possibility at present of convincing society that they should not be allowed to reproduce, although from a eugenic point of view they constitute a grave problem because of their unusually prolific breeding." (Terman [1916:91-92], in Kamin [1974:6, 1977:20-21=1977:17])
The current state of disparity was affirmed and policies aimed at creating greater equality were rejected◆34. There were also fears of an increase in inferior genes and people of low intellectual ability, and policies to oppose this were therefore designed and implemented. In America there were two main approaches taken in dealing with these issues.
The first approach was sterilization and laws regarding sterilization. A sterilization law was passed in 1905 in the state of Pennsylvania but was vetoed by its governor. In 1907 the first sterilization law to be fully implemented was passed in the state of Indiana, and following this many other states (including California, New Jersey, Washington, and Iowa among others) followed suit. The law passed in Iowa in 1913, for example, was provoded for "The prevention of the procreation of criminals, rapists, idiots, feeble-minded, imbeciles, lunatics, drunkards, drug fiends, epileptics, syphilitics, moral and sexual perverts, and diseased and degenerate persons" (Laughlin [1922:21-22], cited in Kamin [1974, 1977:27])◆35.
The second approach was to limit immigration. The federal immigration law of 1875 barred coolies, convicts, and prostitutes and in 1882 lunatics and idiots were added to the list of banned immigrants, 1903 law added epileptics and insane persons. By 1907, a differentiation had been made between "imbeciles" and "feeble-minded persons", both of which classes were excluded. And the "persons of constitutional psychopathic inferiority" were added in 1917. At the beginning of the 20th century the ratio of immigrants from south-eastern Europe increased and there began to be calls for "quality control". It was first demanded that prospective immigrants take a literacy test. In 1912 Goddard was invited to visit the immigrant receiving station on Ellis Island in New York harbour by the Public Health Service. He administered Binet test along with other supplementary test of intellectual aptitude and "proved" that 83% of Jews, 80% of Hungarians, 79% of Italians, and 87% of Russians were feeble minded. His work led to an increase in the number of foreigners being deported.
During the World War I the American Psychological Association, headed by Yerkes, applied for and was granted permission to carry out a battery of intelligence tests on large numbers of assembled soldiers and an army hygiene group was put together composed of Yerkes and other psychologists. The tests conducted on roughly two hundred thousand soldiers did not directly affect the war effort, but the data which had been collected remained and was published and analyzed. It was learned that the average mental age of the assembled white soldiers was thirteen. Results were divided according to country of origin, and it was shown that those of Scandinavian and British descent were intellectually superior and those of Latin and Slavic descent intellectually inferior. There were fears of an influx of inferior blood and intermixing which were then expressed in immigration law.
In 1921, as a temporary measure, the number of people from a given country allowed entry by the government in a single year was limited to 3 percent of the number of citizens from that country currently residing in the United States according to the citizenship census of 1910. The Johnson-Lodge Act of 1924 established a permanent immigration policy of limiting the number of immigrants from a given country to 2 percent of the number of American citizens from that country according to the 1890 census. This was intended to limit immigration from southern and eastern Europe which had largely begun after 1890◆36.
The "nature versus nurture" debate regarding intellectual development was set off by a paper written by Arthur Jensen at the University of California in 1968. At the start of this paper Jensen states "compensatory education has been tried and apparently it has failed "(Jensen [1969→1972:69=1978:85])", and regarding the cause of this failure develops a criticism based on the assertion that there are problems with two mutually reinforcing aspects of the theory which led to this program being implemented, namely the "average-child concept " according to which "all children are viewed as basically more or less homogenous" (Jensen [1969→1972:71]) and "social deprivation hypothesis" (see note 3). The conclusions drawn from this approach are as follows.
"(1) Roughly 80% of the distribution of I.Q. within the population is determined by genetic distribution. The influence of genetic factors on I.Q. is significantly greater than the influence of environmental factors. / (2) It is clear that the large differences in average intellectual development between groups based on class and race is due to genetic differences between these groups rather than differences in the good and bad qualities of the environments in which they live. / (3) Among environmental factors, those which have the biggest influence involve the environment of the fetus before birth. / (4) Because of the differences in the pattern of abilities found in different races and classes it is necessary to develop different methods of education for each of these groups" (Inoue[1979:35]).
A paper presented by Herrnstein in 1971 asserting that differences in I.Q. were determined more by genetic than by environmental factors was also a source of controversy (the content of this paper was further developed and later published as a book with a preface entitled "True Tales from the Annals of Orthodoxy" which described the debate between Herrnstein and some of his critics (Herrnstein [1973]).
Doubts and criticisms have been voiced regarding the conclusions drawn in both of these papers and the methods they implied should be taken. For example, regarding assertion 1) above Jencks et al. assert that genetic regulation (h2) is 45% (Jencks et al. [1972]). Karmin examines research carried out involving identical twins and points to a contradiction between these data and those cited in the papers he criticizes, asserting that upon inspection of this data it cannot be said that genetic factors play a significant role in determining intellectual ability and alleging (see Karmin [1974]) that in their writings Jensen, Herrstein and Vandenberg intentionally distort the content of some of the texts they cite in making their claims (see Karmin [1974]). In the same text Karmin also alleges that no basis is provided for assertion 4). For other criticisms and questions regarding assertions 3) and 4) see Inoue [1979:39-44]. This text examines also the question of whether it is valid to use I.Q. as an expression of intellectual ability and whether it is in fact clear that compensatory education was a failure. See also Williams [1974] and Gould [1977]. On developments in the reform of the educational system in America see Kurosaki [1989].