The mental capacity of the American Negro

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Class Book.

I'UKSK.NTKI) liV

THE MENTAL CAPACITY OF THE AMERICAN NEGRO

CHAPTER I The Measurement of Racial Mental Differences

The numerous groups of men that people the earth present to us far from a homogeneous picture. Long before the dawn of history there was to be found on the several continents a multiplicity of physical types, languages, manners, customs, and states of social development. These various differences among men have ever constituted an interesting and fruitful field for scientific and speculative enquiry.

Students of the human species have with great diligence described in minuteness of detail the physical characteristics of the various races and tribes of men ; and the existence among them of intellectual, moral, and temperamental differences is a matter of common observation among historians and anthropologists. Institutions, arts, laws, beliefs, customs, and other direct manifestations of the mental life have presented quite as striking variations among peoples as have their physical attributes of form, feature, and color. General estimates of these mental differences may be found scattered widely through the pages of history and science. To treat of the mental capacities and traits of men has always been considered within the scope of anthropology; while recent developments of psychology have so enlarged its province as to make the comparative study of the mental activities of different human groups a legitimate field of psychological enquiry. Numerous attempts have already been made to describe and explain the differences and liknesses in the minds and characters of the various peoples.

It has always been regarded as quite obvious that, in point of view of mental capacity, some races stood distinctly higher than others. „ Civilized man, surrounded by his self-made resources of comfort and power, could hardly escape the feeling of superiority when looking upon his savage neighbor in squalor and need. It was very natural to refer differences in economic status and social development to differences in mental ability and to corresponding differences in the capacity of peoples for achievement and progress. Civilized man has ever regarded uncivilized man as inferior. Among Europeans ~- and their descendants in all parts of the globe there has always existed a feeling of the superiority of the white race. It is a feeling

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"bred in the bone," and so strong that it can hardly be eradicated, v The feeling is probably due in a large measure to the leadership which the white race has borne in civilization. But it would be wrong to suppose that this feeling is peculiar to the white race. A sense of superiority is also shared, and in an equal or even greater measure, by other races, especially where the influence of some alien people has not become predominant, or strikingly forceful, among them. Oriental peoples are said to regard Western nations with "a contempt in comparison with which our contempt for them is feeble." *\ How then, we may well ask, are we to ascertain the relative worth of races? What methods of measurement are to be employed in determining their comparative mental endowment? It must be said that for the most part the estimates that have been hitherto made have been based upon observations gained from practical experience in dealing with the races. As an example of the use of the observation method of comparing the mental worth of races, we quote as follows from a recent volume by Professor Eoss: "To forty-three men who, as educators, missionaries, and diplomats, have had good opportunity to learn the 'feel' of the Chinese mind, I put the question, 'Do you find the intellectual capacity of the yellow race equal to that of the white race?' All but five answered 'yes,' and one sinologue of varied experience as missionary, university president, and legation adviser, left me gasping with the statement, 'Most of us who have spent twenty-five years or more out here come to feel that the yellow race is- the normal human type, while the white race is a 'sport.' " x An estimate of this sort is based solely upon observation and practical experience, and the reports of different observers are likely to show great discrepancies. As Deniker points out : ' ' Each traveller, each observer, tends to judge in his own way a given people according to the nature of the relations (pacific, hostile, etc.) which he has had with it." 2 Hence while such estimates may be admitted to have a certain rough validity, they still belong to the domain of opinion, and can never have the scientific value that attaches to comparisons based upon actual measurements.

Underlying the whole discussion of comparative mental differences there has until recently been the tacit assumption that those races most advanced in civilization were superior races. The assumption of superiority was based upon the degree of attainment in the arts and sciences of civilized life. Peoples of culture were peoples of superior mental worth. Such an assumption was both natural and plausible. vEven bodily form and features came to be

1 "The Changing Chinese," p. 61. 2 "The Eaees of Men," p. 121.

MEASUREMENT OF RACIAL MENTAL DIFFERENCES 3

regarded as a stamp of racial nobility. The physical traits of civilized races thus came to be considered marks of superior racial worth; while those of savage peoples were regarded as marks of racial inferiority. Purely external characteristics have thus often come to be employed as criteria of relative mental capacity and worth.

It is true that the physical differences between the races are so striking as almost to obscure their far more fundamental likenesses. There are considerable racial variations in weight and stature, in the shape and size of the head, in the length, abundance, and texture of the hair, in the pigmentation of the skin and eyes, and in the relative dimensions of the various parts of the body. White Europeans have always regarded their type as ideal — or at least as the most nearly perfect human type — and they have not hesitated to consider wide departures therefrom as evidence of inferiority. Thus the orthognathism of the Caucasian has been believed to be an essentially human trait, while the prognathism of the Negro has been regarded as giving him an animal expression, and as approximating him in type to the ape. His long arms and receding forehead were said to be simian traits, and have been looked upon as evidences of racial inferiority.

First of all, then, as an objective standard, differences in physique, and especially in physiognomy, have been regarded as sufficient ground to infer differences in mental ability, and to justify a classification of races as lower and higher. Camper first advanced the theory that an increase in the facial angle may be taken as a sign of superior intelligence. Figguier says: "A relatively exact judgment may be formed from the size of this angle as to the value of a race from the intellectual point of view." 3 Brinton may be quoted to the same effect regarding the physical criteria of racial mental inequality : "We are accustomed familiarly to speak of higher and lower races, and we are justified in this even from merely physical considerations. These indeed bear intimate relation to mental capacity, and where the body presents many points of arrested or retarded development, we may be sure that the mind will also. ' ' 4

An obvious fault of this mode of argument is the assumption of an ideal or superior physical type, endowed by nature with a higher order of intelligence. In the first place, such a type, if there be one, should not be naively assumed, but scientifically determined. It would be necessary to know that a certain physical type is characterized by a distinct measure of mental superiority. It would be necessary to establish a definite and fixed correlation between physi-

3 "Human Bace," p. 506. 4 "Baces and Peoples," p. 47.

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cal and mental traits, before any legitimate inference could proceed from physical features to mental estimates. Hence any attempt at the arrangement of races in an order of mental ability which is based upon mere differences in physical features, without such well-established mental correlations, can give no final results. A more promising physical criterion of the mental capacity of races was found in the development of craniometry. This, with its measurement of skull form and capacity, and of cranial weight, was believed to offer a scientific means of determining the order of races in mental ability. Especially would this seem to afford evidence quite conclusive of the matter when supplemented by cranial anatomy, with favorable or unfavorable modifications in the complexity of cerebral structure.

z Modern science has shown that the brain is the most important physical organ in determining the hierarchy of animal forms and in establishing the superiority and dignity of man. The human brain has indeed attained to an extraordinary development, a fact of the highest and most far-reaching significance inlhe life order of the world. We assume that the remarkable influence played by consciousness in the evolution of the human species has been associated with, and dependent upon, this organ. Hence it was that as scien-, tific methods and interests developed, students turned with expectancy and zeal to a study of the human nervous system as a basis for a comparison of the mental capacity of the races. The determination of the comparative size and form of the skull, and the comparative weight and structure of the brain, has constituted one of the most interesting and important investigations of modern anthropology. The cephalic indices, cranial capacities and brain weights of all races were sought with enthusiasm, with the result that racial differences were found to be considerable. These differences have been made the

v basis of many speculations regarding the intellectual capacities of different races. But nothing that seems final has resulted therefrom. A full consideration of the facts as they have thus far been recorded seems to establish no reliable correlation — certainly none in individual cases — between intellectual pre-eminence and either the shape of the skull or the size of the brain.

Craniology and anthropological studies in general have therefore failed thus far to give any very definite quantitative knowledge regarding the mental differences of races. On this subject Deniker says: "We are unable to affirm anything when we have once made up our minds to escape from the commonplace generalities that savages are wanting in foresight and general ideas, that they are cruel, that their imitative faculties are highly developed, etc." 5 The Eaces of Man," p. 121.

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Yet it is an accepted postulate of modern physiological psychology that cerebral activity underlies and conditions psychical activity. And the character of cerebral activity is of course dependent upon cerebral structure. If then our knowledge of the anatomy of the brain were sufficiently refined, we might be able to discover the key to differences in race psychology, and find ample ground for an inference of real differences in mental capacity. But we are far from that at present. Our knowledge of the morphology of the brain is yet too meager for us to know anything of great value as to what racial differences actually are in the minute but highly refined structures on which the mental life may be supposed to depend. Until physiological psychology shall have completed its work, we shall probably not be able, from a comparative study of the brain, to make out either a proof or an estimate of mental differences among the races of men. v

But will the criterion of the comparative achievement of the races in civilization serve to measure their relative mental ability! Are those peoples who have developed art, science, and invention, and have gained such a mastery over man and over the forces of nature, to be judged as in any way superior in actual mental endowment to peoples who have remained hitherto in a primitive state? The presumption may be in their favor, but it is not conclusive. Environment, opportunity, external circumstance, outward stimulus, play such a part in the development of men and nations, that only after a most thorough trying-out could any one feel sure of a judgment as to what are, or what are not, the possibilities of a people. Achievement in civilization can not be considered a sufficient test of capacity for civilization. History shows such achievement as a criterion of race capacity, or race superiority, to be untenable. The Chinese were civilized long before the peoples of Europe. Within the course of a few generations ancient Athens passed from a state of barbarism to a state of culture that has in many respects never been surpassed. The proud Eoman looked with contempt upon the barbarous Germans roaming over the plains and through the forests of Central Europe. Yet from these wild hunters and fishermen of the time of Tacitus have come the leaders and promoters of modern civilization. The Germans were at that time an undeveloped people. Nevertheless they have shown that they were capable of the highest development. We can not therefore say that because a people is uncivilized, it can not attain to civilization. We must distinguish between the attainments and the possibilities of a people. The progress of the Japanese in the last half century, their capacity not only to imitate and absorb the civilization developed by other nations, but to keep their own counsel and to do things in their own way, has been such as would cause any careful student of race problems to hesitate to set them down now as being only an "average" people.

It must be evident that ultimately we have no way of judging of the capacity of individuals or races except by what they can do. Achievement must be the final measure of capacity. Capacity, however, must be tested under favorable conditions. It may indeed create a presumption against a people's aptitude for civilization that they have lived from time immemorial with little or no independent progress; but until the matter is subjected to reasonable test under favorable circumstances, we can not fix boundaries to the progress to which that people may attain. If they have lived hitherto without progress under a certain set of circumstances, we are not in a position to infer that they are incapable of progress, even equal to that of the most advanced nations, under circumstances more favorable.

We have seen that we can not rightly infer a difference in the mental capacity of races from differences in physical characteristics ; that the size or shape of the head can not be taken as an index of intellectual ability ; and that the culture of a race at a given time can not be regarded as a measure of its capabilities for advancement. The measuring of racial differences in mental traits is evidently a complex and difficult problem. Nor do these differences now appear so striking or obvious as they were formerly supposed to be. There is indeed a strong tendency among students of racial problems to regard the races, not only as not having been proved unequal in mental endowment, but as being, so far as mental inheritance is concerned, upon a basis of substantial equality. In discussing this problem, G-. Spiller says: "We are under the necessity of concluding that an impartial investigation would be inclined to look upon the various important peoples of the world as to all intents and purposes, essentially equal in intellect, enterprise, morality, and physique." 6 In a comparative study of races, Jean Finot says : ' ' The conclusion forces itself upon us that there are no inferior and superior races, but only races and peoples living outside or within the influence of culture. The appearance of civilization and its evolution among certain white peoples and within a certain geographical latitude is only the effect of circumstances." 7 It must be said, however, that these are but instances of an expression of opinion contrary to that which is ordinarily received. They are by no means statements of carefully tested knowledge.

6 ' ' Papers on Inter-Eacial Problems, ' ' p. 35. T "Kace Prejudice," p. 308.

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The estimates hitherto made of racial differences in mental traits have always proceeded npon a very slender basis of relevant and ■carefully ascertained fact. It seems necessary to find some new method of attack before any satisfactory solution of the problem can be made. We should, if possible, find some way of making actual mental measurements, and base our study and estimate of mental differences between races on the facts thus obtained. There seem to t)e two reliable sources of such quantitative data: first, the direct measurement of mental traits by means of carefully devised mental tests; and, secondly, the comparison of the relative attainment and efficiency of different racial groups in the same kind of mental work, wherever such work is performed under like conditions, and is measured by the same standard, or by such standards as are easily reducible to a common measure.

' Little effort has until recently been made to work out and apply «xact and reliable methods for mental measurements and the quantitative determination of mental differences. Some advance has now been made in this direction by the aid of experimental psychology. Series of mental tests have been formulated for measuring mental development and capacity, but the intricacy of the quantitative study of psychic phenomena makes progress in this field of investigation slow. The matter of devising satisfactory mental tests is far from being simple or easy ; and the application of a test once devised is of great practical difficulty, especially in the case of alien peoples whose language, habits, manners, and customs are widely different from our own. The understanding of the test, the control of attention, and the introspection of the subjects tested, are all sources of doubt and error. Satisfactory introspection in uncivilized subjects is very difficult to obtain. Though it still be far off in achievement, a direct measurement of mental phenomena seems to offer the most hopeful means of a final solution of the problem of racial differences in mental traits. J^ movement was fairly begun in this direction when the Cambridge Anthropological Society sent out an expedition in 1898 to study in a scientific manner the mental life of the inhabitants of the Torres Straits. "For the first time trained experimental psychologists investigated by means of an adequate laboratory equipment a people in a low stage of culture under their ordinary conditions of life. The foundations of ethnical experimental psychology were thus laid. ' ' 8 With the results of this expedition and a few similar studies, we have what may be called the beginnings of a new era in race psychology.

8 Alfred C. Haddon, "History of Anthropology," p. 104.

The measurements so far made have been in the main of psychophysical processes. The tests have served to dispel many formerly widespread errors and exaggerations as to the acuity of the senses of primitive peoples. The extraordinary power of sight which savage tribes are reputed to possess seems to be due more to the training and experience incident to their modes of life than to native visual acuity. The same may be said of their power to perceive and interpret sound. ' ' The general conclusion which may be drawn from the available evidence is that pure sense-acuity is much the same in all races, . . . and that the frequent superiority of the savage over civilized man in his recognition of what is going on around him in nature is due to his trained powers of observation, powers usually limited in scope, but very highly developed in special directions." 9

When we come to measure and compare the higher psychical functions of individuals or races the problem is at once vastly more difficult. No completely satisfactory tests have yet been devised for measuring the higher mental processes. Yet the most substantial and convincing work in the determination of the relative mental capacity of races will, in all probability, come chiefly from a direct measurement on a large scale of mental capacity by the methods of experimental psychology. The devising of a satisfactory series of mental tests, and of methods for so standardizing the conditions of the tests as to make results reasonably comparable, is a problem of extraordinary difficulty, but hardly one that will baffle the painstaking spirit and subtile ingenuity of modern research. Our methods of conducting such investigations, though still defective and inadequate, are being improved and enlarged ; and our results, despite the complexity and elusiveness of the facts to be studied, will gradually attain to requisite accuracy and reliability. In this way it is confidently to be expected that racial differences in mental traits will eventually submit themselves to exact description and measurement.

The second method above mentioned of obtaining quantitative mental measurements which may be used for a comparative study of the mental ability of racial groups is more dependent upon circumstances; but on account of the large number of measurements that are sometimes readily accessible, it may, with comparatively little labor, lead to results quite as important and reliable as those obtained by mental tests. If two racial groups in considerable numbers are engaged in like mental work, and if the conditions under which the work is done are practically the same, then, if we can determine the amount of work done by each group we may regard this as a measure

9 W. H. Rivers, ' ' Observation on the Senses of the Todas, ' ' British Journal of Psychology, December, 1905.

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of its capacity for the work. The work done is a function of the capacity applied, and varies directly therewith. Hence a measure of the amount of work performed by a group under these conditions may be regarded as a measure of the group's capacity for this work. Material for this sort of investigation may be found in all educational institutions in which the student-body is made up of different racial groups. Anthropologists have not failed to note the value of this source of measurement in estimating and testing racial capacity. The marks of teachers made for determining the relative standing of pupils, their monthly progress, and their fitness for promotion, furnish quantitative data for comparative study. "We have availed ourselves of such data in connection with the high schools of the City of New York for determining the relative scholastic ability of white and colored pupils. The pupils of each group are here pursuing the same kind of work; this work is measured at frequent intervals by the same standards; and measurements of the work actually done by each pupil are indicated by the teachers' marks. By a statistical treatment of these marks we have determined the comparative scholarship of the white and the colored pupils, which, under the existing conditions, may be regarded as also an index of their relative scholastic ability. Such investigation should contribute something of definite value, not only to educational theory and practise, but also to the study of the comparative psychology of races.

It may be pointed out here that the conclusions derived from this study are, for the most part, coincident with views that have long been of general acceptance. They differ widely from these views, however, in the way in which they have been obtained. It is the method of their derivation which gives chief value to these conclusions. They are more definite and more reliable than mere observations or opinions could ever be. They are based upon numerical data — upon measured facts. It is true that these measurements were made for a different purpose than the one here employed. But this does not detract from their value or reliability, as the practical end which they were designed to meet necessitated as great accuracy and care in their determination as could be obtained by the rather crude methods of measuring mental attainments which are still in general use.

CHAPTER II Data and Methods

The precise problem whose solution is attempted in this study is a determination by a comparison of school marks of the relative efficiency in scholarship of the white and colored pupils in the high schools of the City of New York. Working under as nearly identical conditions as are anywhere existent, pursuing the same branches of study, being measured by the same standards of scholarship, and having previously received like elementary and grammar school training, it is obvious that a valuable opportunity is here afforded for a comparative study of these two groups of pupils, and for the ascertainment of whatever differences in scholastic ability there may exist between them. It seems safe to infer under these circumstances, where opportunities for improvement have been so largely identical, that any marked differences that may appear between the groups i are to be attributed, in the main at least, to the influence of race] heredity rather than to that of the physical or social environment./ The main advantage of the study lies in the fact that the cases considered have been freed to a very great extent from disturbing external influences so that such differences as appear may be legitimately attributed to original differences in mental constitution.

The fundamental interest in the study has been to find out the differences in mental capacity between the two groups so far as this capacity is exercised in school work. While the quantity actually measured in the data presented is scholastic efficiency, we assume that, when considered in the aggregate, there is a close correspondence between scholastic efficiency and intellectual capacity, so that the measure of one may at the same time be regarded as a measure of the other. A direct measurement of mental capacity is obviously out of the question. But the results are not to be regarded with less confidence on this account ; for indirect measurements are of common use in physical as well as in mental science.

Mental efficiency then being a function of mental ability, we assume that, in work so largely intellectual as that required for the pursuit of the studies of our secondary educational curricula, a difference in scholastic standing is due in the long run to a difference in general mental ability. We have sought to determine by an extensive study of the work actually done in the high school what this dif-

DATA AND METHODS 11

ference in standing is. It ought to be of value to find out just what per cent, of a group of colored pupils, under such conditions as prevail in the high schools of the City of New York, will reach the mean or average attainment of a group of white pupils in any subject of study. Such information, if reliably determined, may be of service to the educator and publicist, and should be of interest to the student of psychology and anthropology.

The study is based upon a statistical treatment of school marks. We are aware that there may be misgivings regarding the reliability of conclusions derived from investigations based on such data. The significance, or lack of significance, of school marks, and their arbitrary and unscientific character, are often subjects of comment and unfavorable criticism. It must be admitted that most of the objections that can be made against the unreliability of school marks in general apply in the case of the marks here considered. Still we insist that a school mark is not a fancy but a real measure of the pupil's ability; and, if carefully made out, it gives a decidedly more reliable determination of the pupil's intellectual capacity than would a mere impression or guess. Of course school marks are intended to meet the practical needs of instruction and educational administration, and have no relation in themselves to the interests or demands of science.

Just what do we mean by a school mark ? The ratings of teachers are generally made out quite definitely, as 60, 75, 90. As ordinarily used, numbers like these are obtained in the first place, either from counting individual objects, or from applying to some quantity a definite unit of measurement. But certainly no process of counting is made use of by the teacher in obtaining his ratings ; and obviously he has no definite unit of measurement with which to determine a pupil's mental capacity or attainment. When a pupil's mark in a certain subject is 80, we do not mean, as we do in the case of his weight or height, that we have applied some objective unit of measure to the pupil's attainment in that subject, and found thereby this measurement. No such units of measure are here available. What the teacher ordinarily means, when on some test he gives the pupil a rating of 80, is that the pupil has solved 4 out of 5 examples, composed correctly 8 out of 10 sentences, or written correctly 16 out of 20 words, no regard as a rule being given to their relative difficulty. Or it may mean that the pupil has treated some assigned topic in written discourse with a fair degree of fullness, intelligence, and formal accuracy.

It may be noted then that school ratings are without reference to fixed standards. We deliberately give equal credits for performances

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of obviously unequal difficulty. We set a paper, say, of five exercises as a test in some subject. The fourth exercise is distinctly more difficult than any one of the three preceding, while the fifth may require a greater power of thought than all the others combined. Yet in rating the pupils the exercises are often given equal weight. This meets the practical end of separating the pupils into groups of poor, average, and high attainment, and aids materially in carrying out the work of instruction and promotion. /