MENTAL TESTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 114, 15 May 1924, Page 8

MENTAL TESTS.

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —The last letters you have published on this subject illustrate the disabilities of the scientific mind in approaching questions of policy, though in vastly different degrees. In -fact, I am somewhat reluctant to tjay this about Mr. Coddington at all, in view of J his readiness to see the other side of the question. (He seems, 'however, still :to consider, that the scientific results of mental te3ting are definite, while the ' social and ethical dingers arising out of its reactions are remote and "futuristic," and that therefore we ought to proceed with it. I think this shows some neglect of history. Are not the evil effects of encouraging the human j tendency to praise oneself on what one j has done nothing to deserve a matter j of well-established fact in the 'past as | well as of present experience? His main point is that the results of mental testing, just as much as examinations, are based upon actual performances. No one will deny that this ia the only possible basis- But now it is claimed that the standardised mental tests enable us to make a different sort of inference on that basis from that made on the strength of the traditional examination; namely to the existence and amount of a definite hereditary quality. Now it is here that the question: "What is being measured?" is in order. I have not found on the part of the advocates of the system the [ slightest appreciation of what critics j mean by asking that question. Mr. i Coddington has, in an earlier letter, used, like others, the analogy of the electric current; we do not need, for-1 sooth, to know what electricity is in! j order to measure its consumption. The | I analogy is unfortunate, in a number of I ways, but at any rate it should be clear that if I have reason to, suspect ! that my meter is measuring a short I circuit instead of the lighting or heating I have to pay for, it will much concern mc to know what is being measured. The enthusiasts for this "new method" take it as admitted that "intelligence," an innate quality of mind, is being measured, and that all that remains over is the "academic" (that is, I suppose, idle) question of what intelligence is. But this is not admitted. This interpretation of the results of the tests is derived, in fact, from that part of the method which consists in the initial assumptions and simplifications of the problem which arc the penalty that must always l>c paid for getting conclusions in the form required I by natural science. Education has first to be doctored into the shape of the mere interaction of abstract "heredity" with abstract "environment." But the question of what is being measured, with which "scientists" profess to dispense (while telling us most dogmatically that it is an inherited quality of the organism) is the very one on whose decision educational policy dependsSome exponents of mental testing indicate possible alternative answers to the question, without finding it necessary to decide between them. Intelligence may be the power of giving a rational account of facts, or it may be an aptitude for getting out of tight places with a whole skin. But the decision between these would have the most important educational and social consequences and would affect the value of the tests ' "Experimenter" displays the outlook of the real hidebound specialist. Social questions, it appears, will look after themselves. Now in this case the rlaim to experiment includes the claim to dictate policy. Is it so easy to withdraw later on? The analogous case of chemical warfare, that other triumph! of modern science, does not surest i an affirmative answer. It is writers"like I •Experimenter" who make one wonder' f the educationalist is the master or the ■ servant of the public. When we .Ire told by 'educationists" that "mental tests have come v to stay," we are srompted to ask "Where?" "and "Why?" < VVe should have to consider the national ideals, the economic circumstances of the moment (war economy?), etc etc Wβ M ro r°L T^ p: ' n " the eonse q«cnces of alii the light-hearted talk that has been so : Prevalent, to the effect that education has now become a science, and can >reak with the past. This thes£ Sβ I

authors of such statements as tt* tbo are deeply committed to The fact remains that we need not hi "mental tests" if we do not want Fundamentally public education n . l science but policy.— l am, etc.» • W. ANDERSOK.