Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 84.djvu/82

78 of the white children. The definitions were often not better than terms of use, and frequently stated in the language of a younger child.

In general it may be said that the colored children excel in rote memory, e. g., in counting, repeating digits (but not one was able to repeat 26 syllables), naming words, making rhymes and in time orientation. They are inferior to the whites, however, in esthetic judgment, observation, reasoning, motor control, logical memory, use of words, resistance to suggestion and in orientation or adjustment to the institutions and complexities of civilized society.

To what extent these differences are due to difference in racial intellectual ability, and how much to environmental influences, differences in physiological age, or other subtle factors, can not be dogmatically stated. They are certainly not due to difference in school training. In order, therefore, to make the comparisons as just as possible, and at the same time ascertain the extent of the influence of environment, the white children were divided into two groups—city children and mill

children. The economic, educational and environmental conditions of the cotton-mill children are but little, if any, better than those of the colored children. The results of the comparison showed that the proportion of colored children who are satisfactory is less than that of the mill children, which in turn is less than that of the city children. Less than 6 per cent, of the city children are more than a year backward, 18 per cent, of the mill children, and 26 per cent, of the colored children. None of either the mill or colored children test more than one year above age, while 10 per cent, of the city children do.

These facts and the figures upon which they are based appear more vividly in the following graphs:

Another table of statistics showed that the colored children made a better showing in the first five grades than in the first seven, but their inferiority to the whites existed throughout the school years, contrary to the widespread opinion that colored children are as well, if not better, endowed during the first school years. Again, according to the Binet scale, a larger number of white children are in a school grade below their mental ability than above, whereas the reverse is true of the