THE REAL ERROR OF CYRIL BURT"changes in the relative fertility of its leading members or its lead-
ing classes" (1962, p. 49).
Tests may have been the vehicle by which a few children
escaped from the strictures of a fairly inflexible class structure. But
what was their effect on the vast majority of lower-class children
whom Burt unfairly branded as unable, by inheritance, ever to
develop much intelligence—and therefore undeserving, by reason,
of higher social standing?
Any recent attempt to base our educational policy for the future on the
assumption that there are no real differences, or at any rate no important
differences, between the average intelligence of the different social classes,
is not only bound to fail; it is likely to be fraught with disastrous conse-
quences for the welfare of the nation as a whole, and at the same time to
result in needless disappointments for the pupils concerned. The facts of
genetic inequality, whether or not they conform to our personal wishes
and ideals, are something that we cannot escape (1959, p. 28). ... A defi-
nite limit to what children can achieve is inexorably set by the limitations
of their innate capacity (1969).Burt's extension of Spearman's theory
Cyril Burt may be known best to the public as a hereditarian in
the field of mental testing, but his reputation as a theoretical psy-
chologist rested primarily upon his work in factor analysis. He did
not invent the technique, as he later claimed; but he was Spear-
man's successor, both literally and figuratively, and he became the
leading British factorist of his generation.
Burt's genuine achievements in factor analysis were substantial.
His complex and densely reasoned book on the subject (1940) was
the crowning achievement of Spearman's school. Burt wrote that it
"may prove to be a more lasting contribution to psychology than
anything else I have yet written" (letter to his sister quoted in
Hearnshaw, 1979, p. 154). Burt also pioneered (though he did not
invent) two important extensions of Spearman's approach—an
inverted technique (discussed on pp. 322-323) that Burt called
correlation between persons" (now known to aficionados as "Q-
mode factor analysis"), and an expansion of Spearman's two-factor
theory to add "group factors" at a level between g and 5.
Burt toed Spearman's line in his first paper of 1909. Spearman
had insisted that each test recorded only two properties of mind—