CHANGE IN STUDENTS' OPINIONS CONCERNING RACIAL
PROBLEMS AT THE UNIVERSITY

All investigations indicate that the brain of the Negro is somewhat smaller and lighter than that of the white, the brains of the mixed bloods occupying an intermediate position. The first study was that of Hunt on the brains of Union soldiers during the Civil War.

The findings of Bean (1906) confirm Hunt, though

ABILITY AS A RESULT OF COURSE IN AMERICAN RACE
OF PENNSYLVANIA, 1926-19279

Bean's averages on 103 Negroes and 49 whites are distinctly lower, the Negroes ranging from 1,010 to 1,560 grams, the whites from 1,040 to 1,560 grams. The average for the Negroes was 1,292, for whites 1,341 grams.10 Karl Pearson says: "I think we may say provisionally that for the Negro skull the capacity is about 1350 c.c. for males and 1230 c.c. for females. Clearly the capacity of the Negro skull is for males about 140 c.c. and for females 100 c.c. less than that of modern Europeans. These are significant differences." 11 There is general agreement that the brains of whites average about 1,400 grams for males and 1,250 grams for females. If actual brain weight is important the Negro males are more competent than white females. Just in passing let us notice

that the brain weight of the male Chinese is said to average 1,428 grams.

In the light of present knowledge the claims of Bean that there are marked structural differences in the brains of whites and blacks may be much more significant. He found the chief difference to lie in the frontal lobes, the whites having a 20 per cent advantage. Todd also found that the posterior centers were relatively more developed in the Negro.18 It may well be that observable differences in the proportion of structure of the brain are important. The difficulty is that we do not know, as yet, how to correlate brain structure and achievement. As we have noted elsewhere, some great men have had small brains and some idiots large brains. Final conclusions are not in order.

The army mental tests were devised to give a quick answer to the question of what work could best be done by the men in service. They proved quite satisfactory. Unfortunately the results have been applied, uncritically, to the question of

race differences. Our confusion has been increased rather than our knowledge. The median score of the drafted whites in the combined scale (Bingham) was 13.54 ± 2.92; that of the drafted Negroes was 10.41 ± 2.79. Color is given to a belief in Negro inferiority. But does this follow? How shall we explain the fact that the median scores of the Negroes in some states surpassed that of the whites in others? Are the whites of Georgia mentally inferior to the Negroes of Illinois? Furthermore, shall we ignore the fact, officially admitted, that the tests were not equally applied to the two groups? At Camp Sherman all Negroes who had not completed the seventh grade in school were forced to take the beta tests (for illiterates) whereas the whites who had completed the fifth grade took the alpha tests but the beta tests were "limited at the top so that high grade individuals do not have the opportunity to earn all they are capable of earning." The beta test given to most of the Negroes according to the "general consensus" of examiners, "is not as satisfactory a test for illiterate Negro recruits as it is for illiterate whites." 14

Ignoring for the moment all criticism of the intelligence tests now so generally applied in this country to school children, the Negro children do not show up as well as the white, but the difference is not as striking as are the very uneven findings of various observers. In Los Angeles in 1922-1923 some 510 Negro children from five schools and 4,326 white children from fifteen schools were examined, the children being considered representative of the grammar-school population. The median I.Q. of the Negroes was 104.7, only 1.3 points below that of the whites. This may be compared to a median I.Q. of 101.8 for unselected children in forty schools. 15

The extremely conflicting results of various observers must indicate great unevenness of achievement in different parts of the country, reveal striking defects in the tests themselves, or show that they are being applied by incompetent students. No wonder the Negroes wax sarcastic in their comments.

If significant results can be obtained for Negroes as a group, they should reasonably show at least a constant trend in findings, as well as conclusions. Dr. E. L. Thorndike in tests of selection and rational thinking, generalization, and organization, for Negro and white high school students, found that four per cent of the Negroes passed the median of the whites for the corresponding grade; W. H. Pyle of the University of Missouri found in Negro and white high school students throughout the full course, a difference of a year and a half in average learning capacity; Presser and Teter of Indiana University found that they measured one grade below whites, and Ferguson in Virginia found them three fourths as efficient as whites. Ada Hart Artlett of Bryn Mawr found Negroes nearer to Italians in intelligence than Italians are to native white Americans, but along with this a larger gap between white children of different social status than between Negroes and whites; Terman of California fixed the average mental age of adults at sixteen, Trabue of Columbia fixed the Negro mental age at ten, Doll of Princeton, using the Army tests, fixed the average mental age of whites at thirteen, Dr. G. Stanley Hall fixed the Negro mental age at twelve.

Pyle, again, in a study of 408 Negro children in Missouri schools, found Negroes two-thirds as capable as whites and that the differences diminished with age; a study by a psychiatrist of the Federal Bureau of Health made in Atlanta, Georgia, found that the differences increased with age; Dr. Peterson of Peabody College again, found that the difference diminished with age.