American Passage_ The History of Ellis I - Vincent J. Cannato [260]
247 Neither Congress: H. H. Goddard, “The Binet Tests in Relation to Immigration,” Journal of Psycho-Asthenics 18 (1913); Henry H. Goddard, “The Feeble Minded Immigrant,” The Training School, November/December 1912; and Steven A. Gelb, “Henry H. Goddard and the Immigrants, 1910–1917: The Studies and Their Social Context,” Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 22 (October 1986). For more general background on Goddard and intelligence testing, see Zenderland, Measuring Minds; Franz Samelson, “Putting Psychology on the Map: Ideology and Intelligence Testing,” in Allan R. Buss, ed., Psychology in Social Context (New York: Irvington Publishers, 1979); and Gould, The Mismeasure of Man, 188–204.
248 Believing this was proof: Goddard’s own mathematical abilities were less than stellar. He translated his assistants’ success rate of nine out of eleven into a rate of “seven-eighths.” Goddard, “The Feeble Minded Immigrant.”
249 Goddard magnanimously said: Goddard, “The Feeble Minded Immigrant”; Goddard, “The Binet Test in Relation to Immigration.”
249 Goddard’s test did not go: Goddard, “The Binet Test in Relation to Immigration.”
249 Goddard’s staff chose: Henry H. Goddard, “Mental Tests and the Immigrant,” Journal of Delinquency, September 1917. For some unknown reason, perhaps owing to his sloppiness as a researcher, Goddard claims to have tested “about 165 immigrants.” Other scholars have used that figure as well, but a count of the figures from Goddard’s own article comes up with 191: 54 Jews, 70 Italians, 45 Russians, and 22 Hungarians. Even the numbers on Goddard’s chart (252) don’t add up to 191, and there is an error of arithmetic in one of the columns.
250 The results, wrote Goddard: Gelb, “Henry H. Goddard and the Immigrants, 1910–1917: The Studies and their Social Context”; Gould, The Mismeasure of Man, 194–198.
251 As for whether: Zenderland, Measuring Minds, 274.
251 Even a nonscientist: The debate over Goddard’s legacy is contentious. On one side, Leon Kamin and Stephen Jay Gould have been harshly critical of Goddard’s work, methods, and intentions. On the other side, Franz Samelson, Leila Zenderland, and Steven Gelb have been more measured in their interpretations, placing the psychologist within the context of his times. Gelb’s description is the most helpful: “Goddard’s writings about Ellis Island immigrants, when placed in their proper context, do not provide evidence of the virulent type of racism with which his name has become associated. Goddard is more accurately described as a ‘decent’ man, pursuing questions and conclusions—in the name of disinterested ‘science’—that were, in fact, driven by the engines of an institutionalized, pernicious social ideology.” Gelb, “Henry H. Goddard and the Immigrants, 1910–1917: The Studies and Their Social Context.” For a harsher view of Goddard, see Leon Kamin, “The Science and Politics of IQ,” Social Research 41 (1974).
251 The Survey, the nation’s leading: Survey, September 15, 1917.
252 Goddard had been: C. P. Knight, “The Detection of the Mentally Defective Among Immigrants,” JAMA, January 11, 1913.
252 For immigrants suffering: E. H. Mullan, “Mental Examination of Immigrants: Administration and Line Inspection at Ellis Island,” Public Health Reports, U.S. Public Health Service, May 18, 1917, 737, 746.
253 Ellis Island doctors: Knight, “The Detection of the Mentally Defective Among Immigrants”; E. H. Mullan, “Mental Examination of Immigrants: Administration and Line Inspection at Ellis Island,” 738.
253 Howard Knox: For background on Knox, see John T. E. Richardson, “Howard Andrew Knox and the Origins of Performance Testing on Ellis Island, 1912– 1916,” History of Psychology 6, no. 2 (May 2003); John T. E. Richardson, “A Physician with the Coast Artillery Corps: The Military Career of Dr. Howard Andrew Knox,