The pitfalls of "mental tests" / by Charles S. Myers.

  • Charles Samuel Myers
Date:
[1911?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The pitfalls of "mental tests" / by Charles S. Myers. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of measurements are apt to pay too little regard to the complexity of the conditions influencing the problem and the material which they are gathering. All they desire is an enormous mass of data, and these—good, bad, com¬ parable, and non-comparable—they pour into the statis¬ tical mill with the object and result of arriving at conclusions statistically invulnerable. Into this mill, for instance, they pour all the data concerning the relative efficiency, physical and mental, of the children of drunken and sober parents, practically regardless of the question as to whether the parents are strong, robust folk who are abstemious, or, say every Saturday night, regularly indulge in intoxication, or whether they are feeble work¬ men of the sober “ good young man ” type, or weakly degenerates, inheriting and transmitting disorders of nervous instability so closely associated with tendencies to crime and to chronic alcoholism. Similarly, in dealing with the relation of mental capacity to bodily nutrition among children, a recent investigator has been content to take the verdict of school teachers on the mental capacity of their school children, with the result that some teachers classified 33 per cent., others only 1 per cent., of the children as brilliant ! On the ground that the ablest parents can provide the best nutrition and transmit their ability to their children, it might be argued a priori that dull children would not be so well nourished as bright children. And this conjecture is supported by earlier trustworthy evidence. On the other hand, its raison d'etre can only hold for the lower and lower middle classes, and we have the further com¬ plication that unwholesome food may produce a false appearance of good nutrition. Apart from food supply, exceptionally bright children are worse nourished, and exceptionally dull children are better nourished, than the average child. These complications should no doubt be taken into consideration, as should such factors as employment outside school hours and the mental and physical condition of the parents. When all these counter-
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