HUMAN INTELLIGENCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19736, 8 September 1927, Page 11

HUMAN INTELLIGENCE.

STUDY OF SOCIAL STATUS.

EFFECT OF ENVIRONMENT.

CONCLUSIONS OF SCIENTISTS.

By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. (Received September 7, 5.55 p.m.) Sun. LONDON, Sept. 6. In a paper on "Social Status," given by the Reader in Sociology in tho University of London, Dr. Morris Ginsberg, at the Science Congress at Leeds, he said:— "Small families mean more intelligent children." Tho upper classes generally had much larger heads. It was, ho said, the general impression that broad heads had more capacity for thought than long heads, but the evidence forced the definite conclusion that there was no relation between intelligence and the size of the head. Curiously, a larger brain did no't correspond with the degree of -civilisation. The civilised Chinese had smaller brains than the Chinese barbarians. The children of the professional classes were from two to five inches taller between the ages of six and thirteen than were the children of the labouring classes, for which Dr. Ginsberg said he blamed the environment of the latter. Europeans were now a much taller race than in 1827, as a result- of proper hygiene and better social conditions. An investigator had discovered that although the labouring class provided a small percentage of distinguished people, it produced 35 per cent, of the sculptors and painters. Dr. Godfrey Thomson, professor of education at Edinburgh University, said it had been ascertained that the intelligence of 15 per cent, of the children of the Northumberland miners exceeded that of the average of the sons of professional men. Dr. E. C. Bartlett, director of the psychological laboratory, Cambridge University, said social status war* determined by temperament more than by intelligence. Many people who went to the Dominions had succeeded by tact and resourcefulness, not by learning and wisdom.