THE REAL ERROR OF CYRIL BURT 3' 3
delinquents may not reflect inherited ability because they rebel
against taking the tests:
For what to them must seem nothing but a resuscitated school exami-
nation, delinquents, as a rule, feel little inclination and much distaste.
From the outset they assume they are more likely to fail than succeed,
ore likely to be reproached than commended.... Unless, indeed, to cir-
mvent their suspicion and secure their good-will special manoeuvers be
tactfully tried, their apparent prowess with all such tests will fall much
below their veritable powers. ... In the causation of juvenile delinquency
... the share contributed by mental defect has unquestionably been mag-
nified by those who, trusting so exclusively to the Binet-Simon scale, have
gnored the factors which depreciate its results (1921, pp. 189-190).
ut why not say that poverty often entails a similar disinclination
nd sense of defeat?
Burt (1937, p. 270) regarded left-handedness as the "motor dis-
bility... whicb interferes most widely with the ordinary tasks of
the classroom." As chief psychologist of the London schools, he
therefore devoted much study to its cause. Unburdened by a priori
conviction in this case, he devised and attempted to test a wide
range of potential environmental influences. He studied medieval
and Renaissance paintings to determine if Mary usually carried the
infant Jesus on her right hip. If so, babies would wrap their left
arms about their mother's neck, leaving their right hand free for
more dextrous (literally right-handed) motion. He wondered if
greater frequency of right-handedness might record the asymme-
try of internal organs and the need for protection imposed by our
habits. If heart and stomach lie to the left of the midline, then a
warrior or worker would naturally turn his left side away from
potential danger, "trust to the more solid support of the right side
of the trunk, and so use his right hand and arm for wielding heavy
instruments and weapons" (1937, p. 270). In the end, Burt opted
for caution and concluded that he could not tell:should in the last resort contend that probably all forms of left-
handedness are only indirectly hereditary: postnatal influence seems
always to enter in. ... I must accordingly repeat that, here as elsewhere in
psychology, our present knowledge is far too meager to allow us to declare
with any assurance what is inborn and what is not (1937, pp. 303-304).Substitute "intelligence" for "left-handedness" and the statement is
a model of judicious inference. In fart, left-handedness is more