Leta S. Hollingworth

“ In the latter half of the nineteenth century when the hard battle for the real enlightenment of women was being fought, one of the most frequently recurring objections to admitting women to knowledge was that “the population would suffer,” “the essential nature of woman would be changed,” “the family would decay,” and “the birth rate would fall.” Those in control of society yielded up the old prescribed education of women only after a stubborn struggle, realizing that with the passing of the old training an important means of social control was slipping out of their hands. ”

“ The study of it in all its bearings is called the study of individual differences. When the traits involved are mental, we speak of the psychology of individual differences. It is one of the marvelous facts about human beings that of all the millions born, no two are just equal in possession of a given trait, except by chance; and no two are identical in their combinations of traits, for the infinite possibilities of permutation practically exclude identity by chance. These combinations, which go to make up personality, are combinations of amounts of the same traits. ”

“ Fiction is replete with happy and adoring mothers. Thousands of songs are written and sung concerning the ideal relation which exists between mother and child. In pursuing the mother-child theme through art one would not be led to suspect that society finds it necessary to make laws against contra-conception, infanticide, abortion, and infant desertion. Art holds up to view only the compensations of motherhood, leaving the other half of the theme in obscurity, and thus acting as a subtle ally of population. ”

“ To maintain every child born into the social order for fourteen to sixteen years without earnings, and to pay from public taxation for his education for eight to ten or more of those years, is an enterprise upon which few societies of any time have ventured. Nevertheless, if democracy is to survive, and especially if it is to improve, as a form of government, universal education on a large scale is basic. Self-government, in the highly complicated environment which has been evolved, depends on literacy and other knowledge, requiring long instruction, even for youth of average ability. ”

“ M. Emil Reymond has made this melancholy announcement in the Senate: “We are living in an age when women have pronounced upon themselves a judgment that is dangerous in the highest degree to the development of the population.... We have the right to do what we will with the life that is in us, say they.” ”

“ In general it is true that the provisions in the United States are for deviates so extreme in all capacities that their maladjustment to typical procedure creates a troublesome school problem on the one hand, and on the other a burden to the conscience of those who administer education. Classroom teachers demand that special attention be given to those who are chronically unpromotable and out of order, while educational psychologists insist upon the waste of ability that ensues from allowing gifted children to idle through the curriculum. ”

“ Art.—A very long paper might be written to describe the various uses to which art has been put in holding up the ideal of motherhood. The mother, with children at her breast, is the favorite theme of artists. The galleries of Europe are hung full of Madonnas of every age and degree. Poetry abounds in allusions to the sacredness and charm of motherhood, depicting the yearning of the adult for his mother’s knee. ”

“ Men of science labor to acquire the knowledge that would give power to alter, at will, the shape of the curve of distribution for mental capacities. Such knowledge might work more changes in the world than have been wrought by knowledge of chemical formulæ or of electricity, but its right use would call for a wisdom and philosophical foresight which men at present probably do not have. The conditions and the theories that confront us in education call on us at present, as a matter of fact, to provide for the whole enormous range of capacities, general and special. ”

“ They have made use of all possible social devices to insure not only child-bearing, but child-rearing. Belief, law, public opinion, illusion, education, art, and bugaboos have all been used to re-enforce maternal instinct. We shall never know just how much maternal instinct alone will do for population until all the forces and influences exemplified above have become inoperative. As soon as women become fully conscious of the fact that they have been and are controlled by these devices the latter will become useless, and we shall get a truer measure of maternal feeling. ”

“ Yet according to the customs of our country, it is usually the ability of the father that determines the social milieu and the educational tradition to which the children are subject. Thus, the son of a corporation lawyer, who has inherited the intelligence of a stupid but handsome grandmother and the educational traditions of a brilliant father, is in a sorry plight, unless the facts of human nature are expertly and sympathetically understood in his family. ”

“ In this quotation from Ross we have suggested to us an exceedingly important and interesting phase of social control, namely, the control by those in social power over those individuals who alone can bring forth the human young, and thus perpetuate society. It is necessary that at the very outset of this discussion we should consent to clear our minds of the sentimental conception of motherhood and to look at facts. ”

“ Not having mastered the mechanics of reading, his eyes move hither and yon at random, seeking, by trial and error methods, to get at the matter before him. Wrong eye-movements can be cured by teaching the child how to read. ”

“ The fact is that child-bearing is in many respects analogous to the work of soldiers: it is necessary for tribal or national existence; it means great sacrifice of personal advantage; it involves danger and suffering, and, in a certain percentage of cases, the actual loss of life. Thus we should expect that there would be a continuous social effort to insure the group-interest in respect to population, just as there is a continuous social effort to insure the defense of the nation in time of war. ”

“ Measurement more or less adequate can now be made of ability to read, spell, draw, write, put mechanical contrivances together, and calculate. This list does not by any means exhaust the possibilities of measurement in particular functions at present, but exemplifies them. Slowly we are approaching the point of being in position to tell not only how a child stands in general intelligence, but also to indicate his status in regard to special abilities. The “picture” of the total relationship among a person’s abilities is called a psychograph. ”

“ But demonstration of the probability of obtaining a hierarchy of correlations simply from the tossing together by chance of independent factors, as with dice, adds new data for consideration. It might be that non-biological principles of probability are sufficient to explain the hierarchical order of correlations, among many tests administered to a given group, just as they are apparently sufficient to account for the particular form in which ability in any single test is distributed through the human species. ”

“ In the absence of all verifiable data, however, it is only common-sense to guard against accepting as a fact of human nature a doctrine which we might well expect to find in use as a means of social control. Since we possess no scientific data at all on this phase of human psychology, the most reasonable assumption is that if it were possible to obtain a quantitative measurement of maternal instinct, we should find this trait distributed among women, just as we have found all other traits distributed which have yielded to quantitative measurement. ”

“ Is it possible for education to prepare the lower half of the distribution curve for self-government? Considering recent discoveries as to the mental capacity which characterizes the lower half of the population when adult, is it possible that education will ever be able to nullify the charlatan influence of demagogues, whose appeal is to prejudice and cupidity? ”

“ But once the young are brought into the world they still must be reared, if society’s ends are to be served, and here again the need for and exercise of social control may be seen. Since the period of helpless infancy is very prolonged in the human species, and since the care of infants is an onerous and exacting labor, it would be natural for all persons not biologically attached to infants to use all possible devices for fastening the whole burden of infant-tending upon those who are so attached. ”

“ The inheritance of intellect does not, therefore, follow the simple formula of unit characters, as does the shape of peas, the color of rabbits’ coats, or eye-color in man. The trait we measure and name as general intelligence is a complex, resulting from the incidence of a great number of functions, acting together in a great number of ways, yet cohering in respect to amounts found in given individuals. ”

“ The great diversity of sensitivity to pitch may, perhaps, be regarded as a token of the range of individual differences in musical sensitivity, especially since pitch is a fundamental capacity. It is probably no exaggeration to say that, in an ordinary class in the elementary school, children are being taught together, some of whom are at least a hundred times as musical as others. If children of the same age differed as much from each other in height as they do in sense of pitch, it would be impossible to teach them in unassorted groups, for some would be two hundred times as tall as others. ”

“ When we consider that school marks in singing, as in drawing, are given not only for musical capacity, but for a heterogeneity of factors, including effort, attendance, ability to comprehend directions, and so forth, we should at once expect from these figures that by actual test, musical ability would be likely to show marked independence of general intelligence. ”

“ Does it not seem certain that general intelligence is, as indicated by the high coefficients of correlation obtained between reading and intelligence, the chief consideration, in predicting whether or not a child will learn to read? Would it not appear that children of adequate general intelligence, and of normal sensory capacity, learn to read when given intensive training, whatever avenue of approach may be particularly stressed? ”

“ Not only is the curriculum not adapted to individual differences in general intelligence, but it is far less adapted to individual differences in special defects and aptitudes. The child who can never learn to sing is compelled nevertheless to pursue singing, even after school hours. The child who cannot learn reading by the method generally used is still treated by that method and no other. The schools were established with an undifferentiated curriculum, which they have tried to force upon intellects of an enormous range of diversity. ”

“ However, education in the sense of several years of devotion to learning what men have previously done, thought, and devised, was formerly a private matter. The educated, who could communicate by writing, calculate in large numbers, see the present to some extent in the light of the past, and engage in even more complicated intellectual work, formed a small and highly selected group. They were individuals who loved learning, and their median IQ was doubtless far above 100. ”

“ Rogers decided as a result of experimental tests of mathematical ability, that “a marked degree of the power to analyze a complex and abstract situation, and to seize upon its implications, is the most indispensable element in mathematical proficiency.” This is the power that makes for proficiency in all life’s difficulties, and he who has it has unusual general intelligence—not mathematical proficiency only. There is certainly slight possibility that a generally stupid individual can ever deal with “higher mathematics.” ”

“ Or should the welfare of the majority give way as a social ideal to the welfare of the best—the most capable, the most upright, the most enduring? Is it possible to evolve a social order in which the greatest good of all can be well served, since biological inequalities are so very great? ”

“ The problems of the son of an eminent man, who fails to inherit superior endowment and is but average in capacity, are especially acute, for he is usually expected to undertake tasks for which he is unqualified by original nature. The miseries of a boy of average ability, expected from babyhood to pass through Harvard or Yale, the distresses of a girl of ordinary intelligence, destined openly from childhood for a college of very high standards, are peculiarly poignant to the person who sees human nature 178in the light of all the facts which we have been recounting. ”