American Passage_ The History of Ellis I - Vincent J. Cannato [141]
Knox noted one case of an immigrant selected by the Goddard team as feebleminded because of a head shape that Knox classified as “simian reversion type with stigmata including malformation of helix.” To Goddard’s team, the shape of the man’s head placed him lower on the evolutionary scale and signified low intelligence. When Knox’s colleagues tested the man, they found that he had above average intelligence and spoke three languages fluently. He was admitted.
Another Ellis Island doctor, Bernard Glueck, told the story of a thirty-five-year-old southern Italian man. Based on intelligence tests similar to those used by Goddard, the immigrant was classified with a mental age of between eight and ten, a certifiable moron. Yet Glueck discovered that the man had been in the country before, working as a laborer for two years, during which time he sent back to his family in Italy some $400. He was married with two children, owned property in Italy that he had bought with money earned in the United States, and was returning to earn still more money. “I have no doubt that he will succeed in doing this,” recalled Glueck, who saw the story as a refutation of the Binet test’s ability to measure intelligence. “I am inclined to assume in this case the existence of strongly presumptive evidence that this particular individual is not feebleminded,” concluded Glueck.
Ignoring Goddard’s work, Ellis Island doctors created their own system of testing the mental capacity of immigrants. Knox began with the realization that the conditions under which immigrants arrived at Ellis Island were less than ideal. “After ten days of sea-sickness, fatigue, and excitement,” Knox wrote, such an individual “could not be expected to do himself justice.” Therefore, immigrants should have a solid meal, bath, and good night’s sleep before taking any mental tests.
The testing room should be no warmer than 70 degrees, well ventilated, and quiet, and there should be no more than three people in the room. Those administering the test should “have a pleasant and kindly manner.” To ease the mind of the person being tested, Knox argued that the room should not have “an official air,” but instead resemble a den in someone’s home. If possible, tests should be conducted over two days. Doctors should make allowances for the “fear and mental stress under which the subject may be laboring.” While these precautions may have been cold comfort for dazed and confused immigrants, they at least show that doctors were aware of the pitfalls of their assignment.
Once the conditions had been established, doctors began with a battery of questions. What day of the week is it? What is the date? Where is the immigrant? Next came questions that dealt with common knowledge, such as the number of hours in a day, months in a year, and names of flowers and animals. Immigrants were asked questions about their homeland, such as the capital of their native country and the name of their currency. Other questions were more culturally subjective, such as the significance of Easter. In a random survey of fifty uneducated Polish immigrants, Glueck found that while 98 percent knew the number of months of the year, only 66 percent knew the significance of Easter. Glueck admitted that these questions were relatively useless in judging intelligence among uneducated immigrants.
Other questions would test mathematical ability with simple addition problems. Immigrants would next be asked to repeat back a series of four to seven numbers given to them by their examiner and were then asked to count to twenty, sometimes by twos, and then count backwards from twenty. They were tested on their ability to gain new knowledge, so they were asked the name of the steamship they arrived on, what port they left from, and how the ships were powered.
This battery of questions confused Codger Nutt, a boy actor and mascot of the Drury Lane Theatre in London, who was coming to New York to appear in a play. The diminutive thespian could neither read nor