(^306) THE MIS MEASURE OF MAN
acquired as a function of advantages in home and schooling? Burt
gave four arguments for discounting environment:
- The environment of lower-middle-class boys cannot be poor
enough to make a difference since their parents can afford the
ninepence a week required to attend school: "Now in the case of
the lowest social classes, general inferiority at mental tests might be
attributable to unfortunate environmental and post-natal influ-
ences.... But such conditions could not be suspected with the boys
who, at a fee of gd a week, attended the Central Elementary
School" (1909, p. 173). In other words, environment can't make a
difference until it reduces a child to near starvation. - The "educative influences of home and social life" seem
small. In making this admittedly subjective assessment, Burt
appealed to a fine intuition honed by years of gut-level experience.
"Here, however, one must confess, such speculative arguments can
convey little conviction to those who have not witnessed the actual
manner of the respective boys." - The character of the tests themselves precludes much envi-
ronmental influence. As tests of sensation and motor performance,
they do not involve "an appreciable degree of acquired skill or
knowledge.... There is reason, therefore, to believe that the dif-
ferences revealed are mainly innate" (1909, p. 180). - A retesting of the boys eighteen months later, after several
had entered professions or new schools, produced no important
readjustment of ranks. (Did it ever occur to Burt that environment
might have its primary influence in early life, and not only in
immediate situations?)
The problem with all these points, and with the design of the
entire study, is a patent circularity in argument. Burt's claim rested
upon correlations between test performances and a ranking of
intelligence compiled by "impartial" observers. (Arguments about
the "character" of the tests themselves are secondary, for they
would count for nothing in Burt's design if the tests did not corre-
late with independent assessments of intelligence.) We must know
what the subjective rankings mean in order to interpret the corre-
lations and make any use of the tests themselves. For if the rank-
ings of teachers, headmasters, and colleagues, however sincerely
attempted, record the advantages of upbringing more than the dif-
ferential blessings of genetics, then the ranks are primarily a record