Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 82.djvu/583

Rh is that no attempt is made to establish this opinion on a scientific basis, and to definitely determine that limit of mental development beyond which the law of diminishing returns dictates cessation of effort; and furthermore, that in flat contradiction to this common opinion education is planned in apparent utter disregard of it.

We are now in possession of a fairly precise and very simple method of determining innate mental capacity in the Binet-Simon series of mental tests. These tests ought at once to be applied to several thousand each of negro and colored school children. The results should yield a fairly accurate idea as to the relative capacity for education and the limits for each. This is of very practical importance. If it can be shown that the negro brain has definite, relatively low limits of flexibility and development, money should not be spent in attempting the impossible. This is the more serious in view of the common inadequacy of educational facilities. The limit of economical educative return being determined, the negro should be given the best possible opportunities for reaching the uppermost range. This would be to the best interest of white and negro alike. If the returns indicated, as is commonly assumed, that mulattoes are endowed with a higher educable limit, national interests again demand that they be given means of attaining the maximum capacity.

The point is that our activities along educational lines, seeing that the financial resources of the states most intimately concerned are relatively meager, should follow clearly indicated paths as determined by scientific facts. Even with our present knowledge it would seem that wisdom and foresight should take more practical heed of Booker Washington's keen suggestion and example, namely, that the education of the negro be for the present chiefly along industrial, and secondly moral lines. The Binet tests would also early detect the feeble-minded and mentally defective, an especially serious menace in an already naturally handicapped race. Very rigid safeguards should be provided against the reproductive liberty of these unfortunates, so that the race suffer no internal contamination. A first step in the scientific approach of this fundamental aspect of the "problem" would certainly seem to be the very extensive study of colored mentality by the Binet measuring scale. We shall work largely in the dark until we have this information.

With respect to the second point: Until recently it was believed that mulattoes generally bred true and became progressively lighter