The use of the family history chart and the "Binet-Simon Scale" to study mental retardation in the early 20th century are considered, along with the implications of this practice. With the thesis that mental retardation was primarily familial and hereditary, limiting reproduction and segregation were viewed as appropriate approaches.…

This reviewer finds that Lewis M. Terman's five-volume "Genetic Studies of Genius," published between 1925 and 1959, makes exaggerated claims for IQ scores as measures of natural ability. (Editor/SJL)

This article reviews positions of scientists, educators and publicists who resisted eugenics and determinism. The nature nurture controversy is discussed, as well as the impact of eugenics on American classrooms. Specific attention is given to four resisters: Dewey, Bagley, Jennings, and Lippmann. (IAH)

This article disputes psychological test results from the 1920s that indicated low performance by Blacks. Inaccurate experimental research procedures and conclusions of tests are observed. Cultural determinants, heredity, and influence of test instruments on data are examined. (DF)

Ethnic, racial, and religious discrimination in selective college admissions was commonplace in the 1920's, but it is doubtful that the College Board's 1926 innovation, the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), was developed to be used as an instrument of prejudice. By 1926, the use of quotas by elite colleges had made discrimination in admissions…

The history of the study of human mental ability is an example of the dialectic in social science between those who interpret data within the framework of existing social inequities and those who look for perspectives that might eventually dissolve inequities. The dedication of Henry Herbert Goddard to a belief in the scientific proof of…