It is now clear also that the important factor of education enters so heavily into the first figures cited that they can mean little if anything as to inherent capacity. Of the Englishmen tested, nine-tenths fell in the literate group; of the Poles, a fifth; of the Italians, a seventh. In the draft generally, nearly three-fourths of the whites were literate; of the negroes, less than a third.
In short, in spite of the fact that the Beta test was intended to equalize conditions for the illiterate and semi-illiterate, the outstanding conclusion of the army examinations seems to be that education—cultural advantage—enormously develops faculty.
Is there anything left that can positively be assigned to race causation? It may be alleged that within the same section the white recruits regularly surpass the colored. Alabama whites may rate disappointingly, but they do better than Alabama negroes; New York negroes show surprisingly well, but they are inferior to New York whites; illiterate whites from the whole country definitely surpass illiterate negroes; and still more so among literates. But is this residuum of difference surely racial? As long as the color-line remains drawn, a differential factor of cultural advantage is included; and how strong this is there is no present means of knowing. It is possible that some of the difference between sectionally and educationally equalized groups of whites and negroes is really innate and racial. But it is also possible that most or all of it is environmental. Neither possibility can be demonstrated from the unrefined data at present available.
43. Status of Hybrids
In nearly all tests of the American Negro, full bloods and mixed bloods are not discriminated. Evidently if races have distinctive endowments, the nature of these endowments is not cleared up so long as individuals who biologically are seven-eighths Caucasian are included with pure Negroes merely because in this country we have the social habitude of reckoning them all as “colored.”
On the other hand, an excellent opportunity to probe deeper is being lost through the failure to classify tested colored people according to the approximate proportion of Negro blood. Suppose for instance that on a given examination whites scored an average of 100 and Negroes of 60. Then, if this difference were really due to race, if it were wholly a matter of superior or inferior blood, mulattos should average 80 and quadroons 90; unless intelligence were due to simple Mendelian factors, in which case its inheritance would tend to segregate, and of this there is no evidence. Suppose, however, that instead of the theoretically expectable 80 and 90, the mulattos and quadroons scored 65 and 68. In that event it would be clear that the major part of the Negro’s inferiority of record was due to environment; that the white man’s points from about 70 up to 100 were clearly the result of his superior social opportunities, whereas the range between 60 and 70 approximately represented the innate difference between Negro and Caucasian. This is a hypothetical example, but it may serve to illustrate a possible method of attacking the problem.
There are however almost no data of this kind; and when they are obtained, they will be subject to certain cautions upon interpretation. For instance, in the army examinations one attempt was made to separate a small group of colored recruits into a darker-skinned group, comprising full blooded Negroes and those appearing to be preponderantly of Negro blood; and a lighter complexioned group, estimated to contain the mulattos and individuals in whom white ancestry was in excess. The light group made the better scores. In the Alpha test for literates it attained a median score of 50, the dark Negroes only 30; in the Beta tests for illiterates, the respective figures were 36 and 29.
The caution is this. Is the mulatto subject to any more advantageous environment than the full blooded Negro? So far as voting and office-holding, riding in Pullman cars and occupying orchestra seats in theatre are concerned, there is no difference: both are colored, and therefore beyond the barrier. But the mulattos of slavery days were likely to be house servants, brought up with the master’s family, absorbing manners, information, perhaps education; their black half-brothers and half-sisters stayed out in the plantation shacks. Several generations have elapsed since those days, but it is possible, even probable, that the descendants of mulattos have kept a step or two ahead of the descendants of the blacks in literacy, range of experience, and the like.
It is impossible to predict what the social effect of miscegenation will be. The effect undoubtedly varies and must be examined in each case. Thus, Indian half-breeds in one tribe may usually be the result of wholly transient or mercenary unions between inferior whites and debauched native women and may therefore grow up in an atmosphere of demoralization to which the full blooded Indian is less exposed. This demoralization would, to be sure, affect character and not intelligence as such; but it might stand in the way of schooling, and otherwise indirectly react on measurable traits of mind. In another tribe or section of a tribe, to the contrary, the half-breed might normally grow up in the house of a permanently settled white father, a squaw man, and in that event would learn English better, go to school earlier, and in case of a test therefore achieve a higher rating than the full blood.