Page:Walter Renton Ingalls - Current Economic Affairs (1924).pdf/191

Rh to his home.” That is among the tests for children of 10 years. A 10-year old child should recognize immediately the foolishness in that statement even if he had never been to school. An 11-year old child who does not perceive it is mentally deficient. A nine-year old child who does is mentally above the average. Ask that question of a bright eight-year old boy and even without the warning of something nonsensical to be expected a quizzical grin will form itself on his face and he will interrupt contemptuously with “What are you giving me?” If a man walks down hill it’ll be up hill for him on the way back.” If an eight-year old answers the other 10-year interrogatories in the same way he will have an intelligence quotient of 125.

To me the most illuminating thing that came out of the army intelligence tests was not the exhibition that the majority of American people are inferior to high school capacity, but the comparison between degrees of intelligence and previous occupations. The men who had come into the service from engineering proved in the intelligence tests to rate far above all others. Next stood those who had been in the other professions. Much lower were the mechanics. Lower still were the barbers and servants. Lowest of all were the diggers. In other words there was exhibited the evidences of a natural tendency for men to fall into occupations according to their mental fitness.

The word democracy has become a fetish, but in truth there has never been any such thing as democracy in modern times outside of the direction of local affairs in New England town meetings; and in practice the idea of it is impossible, as Mallock so ably