MENTAL CAPACITIES.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17882, 1 October 1923, Page 13

MENTAL CAPACITIES.

RELATION TO CRIMINALITY.

LONDON, September 15. Dr. Cyril Burt, lecturing before the Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science on "The Psychology of a Country Holiday," said this was sometimes the best cure for criminal tendency. The provision of spectacles, and the extraction of teeth, tonsils, and adenoids, often converted alleged mental defectives into normal children. A bio-chemist might soon bo able, ty examining the secretions of the pitiiitary, adrenal and sex glands, to discover whether a patient were easily fatigued, timorous,, excitable, of blessed with high vitality. It was imperative to decide whether a child's backward ness was an incurable legacy from big ancestors, or due to conditions subsequent to his birth and "remediable. A famous clause in the American Declaration of Independence, said Dr. Burt, laid it down that all men were created equal; but psychologically their inequality surpassed anything previously cqiijectured. Tests made with 30,000 London school children showed mental capacities ranging from 50. to 150 per cent, —this meaning that the brightest child of 10 yearfi of age possessed tbe mental power of the average child of, 15, and that the dullest possessed the mental capacity of the average child of five. Berlin educationists discovered the brightest children by psychological tests, and brought them.together at a special centre for individual supervision and training. It was important,, Tor treatment purposes,to know whether an erring girl was constitutionally oversexed, ot was merely putting into practice what she learned from corrupt companions. An interesting test waa to give.a child a set of picture post-cards, artistic, humorous, arid inrormatjfve, to arrange in order He would thus disclose his special interests and give his mental profile. A school teacher, Dr. Burt' stated, took 10 minutes to decide whether a child was mentally deficient, and a magistrate . took a few minutes to award punishment to a first, offender. A psychologist considered himself a miracle of swiftness if he measured a child's intelligence in an hour, and a psychoanalyst patiently devoted six months to weekly sittings for the unravelling of a single mental problem.