THE WAYWARD GIRL AND THE BINET TEST
By Henry H. Goddard, Ph. D., and Helen F. Hill
[This is an abstract of a paper published in “The Training School” for June, 1911. Dr. Goddard is no theorist; his conclusions always deserve very serious thought.]
It was with a good deal of interest that we accepted the offer of a prominent probation officer to examine some fifty of her girls who had been in the girls’ reformatory, but were now out on probation.
Some little experience with similar groups had led us to feel confident that quite a percentage of these girls would be found to be distinctly feeble-minded, but we were not prepared for the results that we did find. In all, fifty-six girls were examined, ranging in age from fourteen to twenty, the average probably being eighteen and a half. The usual misgivings were had on the part of those who knew the girls, as to the effect of asking them to do the test, but as experience always shows, there was not the slightest difficulty. Indeed, the girls took hold of the tests with great earnestness and enjoyment, and, after they were through, were very proud of their achievements.
The results are summarized as follows: One of them tested eight years, that is, shows the mentality of a normal girl of eight years of age; twelve tested nine years; fourteen tested ten years; fourteen, eleven years; eleven, twelve years, and four did the tests for thirteen. As the tests for thirteen have been demonstrated to be much more difficult than that age would indicate, we may say that four out of the fifty-six are not feeble-minded, as we usually define feeble-mindedness. The rest are clearly mental defectives, and could be made, or could have been made, had they been taken early enough, happy and useful in an institution for feeble-minded. As it is, they must always be a trouble, must always be a disappointment, incapable of bearing the responsibilities that have been put upon them, and, what is worse, they will be, as many of them already are, mothers of more feeble-minded and deficient persons.
To appreciate the full force of this, one should see these girls and note their characteristics, their physical appearance, and those qualities and characteristics that go to make up the type of young woman—those things that make us instinctively feel that they are responsible persons and make so many persons even now refuse to believe that such can be feeble-minded, and yet here are the tests. And more than that, here is the test of life—they are unable to adjust themselves to their environment and will always be unable.
Perhaps the reader may be inclined to say, “But these tests show that they are ignorant and that it is because they have not been to school, or have not profited by their school experience.” But such is not the case. These are not tests of school training; they are tests of mental development. Any person who has lived in any sort of average environment for the requisite number of years is able to do these tests, even though he has never been to school, even for a day, and by failing in these they manifest their mental defectiveness.
It begins to look as though we have been attempting to solve the problem of the wayward girl by beginning at the wrong end. We have assumed that she was competent and responsible—that she was able to do differently, if she would, and we have tried by various forms of punishment to reform her. Apparently we have been grossly in error, and it is a fundamental mistake we have made. We should have begun by finding out in early age whether this child had normal mental capacity or not and, if not, we should have taken the case in hand and provided for her such environment as would have fitted her mental condition. The past is gone, the mistakes cannot be rectified; but, if we are wise, from now on we will proceed in accordance with what we are finding out about this class of persons. Instead of enlarging our reformatories we will establish colonies and schools, where these girls can be taken, as early as we can detect them, cared for and trained to do the things they can be trained to do; where they will be made happy and allowed to live a happy and measureably useful life under the care, guidance and direction of intelligent and humane people, who will make their lives happy and partially useful, but who will insist upon the one important thing, and that is that this race should end with them; they shall never become the mothers of children who are like themselves.