Dr. Bagley and the "Moronic I. Q."
Donnelly, Francis P.
February 2, 1927 THE COMMONWEAL 347 DR. BAGLEY AND THE "MORONIC I. Q."
By FRANCIS P. DONNELLY (The highly important subject dealt urith in the following article is that system of mental...
...The mental testers seem to hold that native capacity is initially of a definite potentiality which cannot be increased although that potentiality may be fully realized...
...Modern Catos may still start at ripe old age to master Greek without being discouraged by the prospect that their talents have already been realized to their full capacity...
...General intelligence" is a very vague term, differently defined by all authorities read during ten years by the present writer--from Binet and Simon down to Dr...
...The definition stated in the army tests is the most honest : "By intelligence we mean the ability that manifests itself quantitatively in a set of consistent scores in all types of examination upon which our data is based...
...The mental testers have reared an Ossa of statistics, but Dr...
...But we can, by taking thought, add to our mental stature...
...and if you proceed to draw inferences, you may go wrong in many different ways...
...Bagley plants firmly on the testers' bristling crest a higher and huger Pelion of statistics...
...You 348 THE COMMONWEAL February2, 1927 .'an merely say an operation is better or worse than another operation...
...Now, however, Dr...
...The teacher's ready relief has always been, "Poets, you know, are born...
...Even then, Freud would hold there was some prenatal schooling...
...He calls the initial talent or intelligence level, the vertical...
...Now besides a clear notion of what is rated---namely, an operation--testers, or better, theorizers on tests should remember what is obvious: that the more elements enter into the operation, the more unreliable is the rating, and the more uncertain is the interpreta- tion of the tested operation...
...This I. Q. may be (it has also been assumed) set to work to its fullest capacity but cannot be increased.--The Editors...
...Q.,'" is the matter which various tests in use set out to determine, it bein9 assumed that the sum-total of mental energy which any individual possesses is fixed by heredity and analogous factors...
...that Alpha, Beta, Simon-Binet or any other test, has no infallibility to predestine minds to intellectual loss of salvation...
...The dispute between great mental testers like Professors Terman and Thorndike, and Dr...
...BAGLEY AND THE "MORONIC I. Q." By FRANCIS P. DONNELLY (The highly important subject dealt urith in the following article is that system of mental testing which has come into vogue as a result of the problem of mass education...
...Graves reports that coaching improved "native intelligence...
...Bagley is triumphant over this conclusion, which proves for him that the hori- zontal growth turns into vertical--for babes, of course, are not born with up-to-date information...
...If the physiological and psy- chological factors are numerous in a simple operation like spelling, what will they be in English composition ? That is a highly complex operation, and to establish a scale of rating is extremely difficult...
...That is honest, because the only thing that is tested in any test is some operation, and that operation is rated by correlation with the ability of others to do the same operation...
...It is certain, divinely certain, that by taking thought, no one can add to his stature, be- cause the physical vertical, happily for us all, is under control of glands beyond the power of thought...
...Once a moron, always a moron," is not, after all, a very heartening slogan for a teacher...
...Clark asserts that "native intelligence" is better if informa- tion is more extensive...
...Willard agrees with Burt, estimat- ing that half of the "native intelligence" is due to schooling...
...Your horizontal, both mental and corporal, will be found to vary more freely...
...A doctor has a limited number of patients and has a large supply of reliable and well-tested excuses for failure...
...They indeed scale--but do they find Italy ? Finally, as a preliminary to decide this controversy and to estimate the initial capital, the disputants should select the children immediately upon birth, sub- ject them to exactly the same environment, and when they arrive at the Simon-Binet ages, give them the same tests, making sure that all the children are the same in everything except the one operation subject to test...
...they give up the test...
...Gordon, the English school-inspector, makes the still more astonishing assertion that the Simon-Binet-Standford-Revision "native in-telligence" actually decreases, and the members of the same family have less "native intelligence I' at twenty- two than they had at four...
...That is to say, your talents may draw Ioo percent interest, but you cannot increase your capital and you cannot compound your interest...
...Rating" is in reality a more accurate term than measuring, because an operation cannot be measured...
...and the investment or development, the horizontal...
...Is it certain, too, that control of behavior correlates always with intellectual power...
...And all true Aristotelians who hold that education is a habit formed in a power by action, will answer with Gordon in the negative...
...The tabula rasa, or clean slate, which the anti-Platonists describe as the first stage of education, is difficult to get at, and more difficult to analyze in order to determine which slate has the best qualities...
...How much more plastic is the substance of the mind, and to what marvelous levels of intelligence it can be raised...
...and as-serts against his opponents that mental levels may de- velop vertically as well as horizontally, and even that horizontal development produces vertical develop-ment...
...Even were the internal handicaps to thought as serious as was the loss of sight and hearing to Helen Keller, may not devoted teaching find a way into a resurrection and develop- ment of the mental life...
...Bagley attacks this common assumption of test- ers that initial capacity is a constant...
...William C. Bagley has taken a vigorous stand against all Galtonians and mental Mendelians who assert that every student's native capacity is as definitely hereditary as the red in the hair...
...A preacher has not his audience daily before him and can easily excuse lack of results...
...You will then realize the Alps which mental testers must scale with the courage of Hannibal...
...Vischer, studying the contents of Who's Who, devised a who's- who test, which ascribes environment, especially that of the clergyman's home, as the best producer of "native intelligence...
...or in the more scientific terminology of our time, "If you are born with a moronic I. Q., a poor persecuted teacher cannot be blamed...
...it is decreased...
...T. F. Foran examines all this evidence adduced so far to establish this corollary, and brings in a verdict of not proven...
...by training it approximates in ability a better intelligence...
...Bagley, in his hopeful pronouncements, would seem to assume so...
...Dr...
...Bagley does well to hearten all teachers and to inspire them with the hope of better- ing even morons...
...You rate what you rate, and determine nothing directly but your rating...
...Now go further with the testers and rate not only the operation, but the various known and unknown elements combining in the operation ; and go still further beyond those ele- ments to their causes in heredity, in environment, in formal schooling...
...In the Catholic Educational Review for May, I926, Dr...
...Spelling and simple mathematical operations have an indeterminable amount of constituent elements, co6perating for their performance...
...Gordon asks the very sensi- ble question: "Is there any mental development apart from mental effort...
...When a test goes against the testers, they don't change their theory...
...Is the tabula rasa of child A of the same nature and excellence as the tabula rasa of child B ? Despite all these handicaps, the measuring of in-tellects has been carried on, and the intelligence quo- tient, or the ratio between years and intelligence, has been confidently announced for thousands of children...
...Bagley's authorities have been examining into this so-called native intelligence, and have been telling us strange stories about it...
...They were praised or blamed on auditing-day, not for the amount of their capital, but for the yield on their in- vestments...
...Bagley, as they undoubtedly are trying to do, it would help to have both sides define their terms and search into their assumed first principles...
...Those not familiar with pedagogical language may note that the "'intel-ligence quotient," or "I...
...The edu- cational world needs his insistent declaration that intellectual levels may be lifted...
...And so there goes by the board one fine excuse of long-established efficacy to the teacher...
...A natural corollary to this position is that intellectual development ceases at a certain period...
...One had five talents, another two, another but one talent...
...White found the "silent reading intelli- gence" improved by training, and concluded on the determinist hypothesis that silent reading does not measure native intelligence--and it does not, of course, if native intelligence is a fixed quantity...
...Wooley as- serts that, when placed in a superior environment, the "native intelligence" is decidedly uplifted...
...The servants in the parable were endowed by their master with different initial capital...
...A TEACHER needs optimism more than does any other person in the world...
...The opponents then have locked horns, and while the hereditarians are amassing statistics and carrying on tests to overcome Dr...
...Yet even if that flattering unc- tion can no more be laid to magisterial souls, who knows but what they shall be all the more optimistic, even after the loss of one good excuse...
...It has no halves or quarters, and is therefore not subject to measurement irt its strict sense...
...It is possible now to have your I. Q., marked on the frame of your door, and have your intellectual verti- cal lead-penciled on the line of your physical vertical...
...The vertical, if you wish to be accurate, will be your Simon-Binet-Standford-Revision intelligence, or your Alpha intelligence or your Beta intelligence...
...Bagley, whose definition, "the ability to control behavior in the light of experience," is not very definite and introduces moral elements which are of the highest value but are not commonly styled intellectual...
...Bagley who opposes them, has to do with the question whether the initial talents of the human mind are limited and unchangeable...
...No analysis of the issuing voice will reveal the countless links in the radio chain...
...But a teacher has present every day and for the larger part of the year, a varied assortment of human natures, intellectually ill and mostly rebellious to mental hygiene and to doses of knowledgehand a teacher's already slender supply of excuses now threatens to grow more slender...
...Living substance is more plastic than dead matter, and the very texture of muscle and flesh can be im- proved by use and care...
...It is now clear," he says, arguing from half- a-dozen different investigations, "that horizontal growth may bring about a significant access of vertical growth...
...The expert physicist may tell us all the factors that intervene in radio-transmission, between the voice that leaves the lips for the microphone, and the sound that issues from the amplifying horn...
...Dr...
...it is increased...
...In his Determinism in Education, Dr...
...it is changed by information to formation...
...No one measures intelligence in any literal sense, but in reality he rates operations and infers to intelligence...
...Native in- telligence" is therefore variable in every way...
...Bagley intervenes and holds that the I. Q. is not a constant...
...Assuming that these several investigations are ac-curate and true, Dr...
...Burr finds that the Simon- Binet "native intelligence" is only one-third real native intelligence, and the rest trained intelligence--mostly trained in school...
...you cannot say that it is half or quarter of an operation...
...February 2, 1927 THE COMMONWEAL 347 DR...
...It is shown not to be wholly native...
Vol. 5 • February 1927 • No. 13
