324 THE MISMEASURE OF MAN
reports of 1926 and 1931, the Spens report of 1938, the Norwood
report of 1943, and the Board of Education's White Paper on
Educational Reconstruction—all leading to the Butler Education
Act of 1944, which set policy until the mid-1960s when the Labour
party vowed to end selection at 11 plus). In the flak surrounding
the initial revelation of Burt's fraudulent work, he was often iden-
tified as the architect of the 11 + examination. This is not accurate;
Burt was not even a member of the various reporting committees,
though he did consult frequently with them and he did write
extensively for their reports.* Yet it hardly matters whether or not
Burt's hand actually moved the pen. The reports embody a partic-
ular view of education, clearly identified with the British school of
factor analysis, and evidently linked most closely with Cyril Burt's
version.
The 11 + examination was an embodiment of Spearmen's hier-
archical theory of intelligence, with its innate general factor per-
vading all cognitive activity. One critic referred to the series of
reports as "hymns of praise to the 'g' factor" (in Hearnshaw, 1979,
p. 112). The first Hadow report defined intellectual capacity mea-
sured by tests in Burt's favored terms as i.g.c. (innate, general, cog-
nitive) ability: "During childhood, intellectual development
progresses as if it were governed largely by a single, central factor,
usually known as 'general intelligence,' which may be broadly
defined as innate, all round, intellectual [my italics for i.g.c] ability,
and appears to enter into everything the child attempts to think,
say, or do: this seems the most important factor in determining his
work in the classroom."
The 11+ owed its general rationale to the British factorists; in
addition, several of its details can also be traced to Burt's school.
Why, for example, testing and separation at age eleven? There
were practical and historical reasons to be sure; eleven was about
the traditional age for transition between primary and secondary
schools. But the factorists supplied two important theoretical sup-
ports. First, studies on the growth of children showed that g varied•Hearnshaw (1979) reports that Burt had greatest influence over the 1938 Spens
report, which recommended sorting at 11 plus and explicitly rejected comprehen-
sive schooling under a single roof thereafter. Burt was piqued at the Norwood
report because it downgraded psychological evidence; but, as Hearnshaw notes, this
annoyance "masked a basic agreement with the recommendations, which in princi-
ple did not differ so much from those of the Spens committee, which he had earlier
approved."