The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould

THE HEREDITARIAN THEORY OF IQ 225

intent and launched three independent investigations of the testing

program. One concluded that it should be controlled so that "no

theorist may... ride it as a hobby for the purpose of obtaining

data for research work and the future benefit of the human race"

(quoted in Kevles, 1968, p. 577).

Still, the tests did have a strong impact in some areas, particu-

larly in screening men for officer training. At the start of the war,

the army and national guard maintained nine thousand officers.

By the end, two hundred thousand officers presided, and two-

thirds of them had started their careers in training camps where

the tests were applied. In some camps, no man scoring below C

could be considered for officer training.

But the major impact of Yerkes's tests did not fall upon the

army. Yerkes may not have brought the army its victory, but he

certainly won his battle. He now had uniform data on 1.75 million

men, and he had devised, in the Alpha and Beta exams, the first

mass-produced written tests of intelligence. Inquiries flooded in

from schools and businesses. In his massive monograph (Yerkes,

1921) on Psychological Examining in the United States Army, Yerkes

buried a statement of great social significance in an aside on page

96. He spoke of "the steady stream of requests from commercial
    concerns, educational institutions, and individuals for the use of
    army methods of psychological examining or for the adaptation of
    such methods to special needs." Binet's purpose could now be cir-
    cumvented because a technology had been developed for testing
    all pupils. Tests could now rank and stream everybody; the era of
    mass testing had begun.

Results of the army tests

The primary impact of the tests arose not from the army's lack-

adaisical use of scores for individuals, but from general propa-

ganda that accompanied Yerkes's report of the summary statistics

(Yerkes, 1921, pp. 553-875). E. G. Boring, later a famous psychol-

upstaging America in their proper use and encouragement of mental testing for

military personnel. "Germany has a long lead in the development of military psy-

chology.... The Nazis have achieved something that is entirely without parallel in

military history.... What has happened in Germany is the logical sequel to the

psychological and personnel services in our own Army during 1917-1918" (Yerkes,

•94^1. p- 209).