Dr. Hutchinson: But getting back to the real point of our inquiry, whether the failure to spell and write correctly is a sign of mental feebleness—
Professor Münsterberg: On that point I believe I can speak with authority. Psychological tests in the laboratory show that the average freshman is as quick-witted to-day as his predecessor of fifty or a hundred years ago. We examined three hundred first-year men from eleven colleges and universities. Each man was required to peep into a dark box, shaped like a camera, through an eye-hole sixteen millimetres in diameter. By pressing a button, light was flashed upon a slip of paper inside the box, on which was printed, in letters nine millimetres high, the following question: "What is your favourite breakfast food?" The candidate was required to signify his answer by tapping with his finger on the table, one tap for Farinetta, two taps for Dried Husks, three taps for Atlas Crumbs, and so forth. The average time for three hundred answers was six and seven-tenths seconds. Thereupon the candidates were asked to think over the question at their leisure and to hand in a written answer sworn to before a notary public. On comparing the written answers with the laboratory results, it appeared that only thirty-seven out of the three hundred had tapped the wrong answer. Need I say more?
Professor Lounsbury: May I ask how the written answers showed up from the point of view of spelling and grammar?
Professor Münsterberg: They were impressively defective.
Professor Lounsbury: I'm tickled to death. When you cut out bad spelling and grammar, you queer the evolution of the English language. There's nothing to it.
Professor Münsterberg: But take the case of the freshman squad whom we kept in a hermetically sealed room for twenty-four hours at a temperature of eighty-nine degrees—
Professor Lounsbury: May I ask what their language was when they were released at the end of twenty-four hours?
Professor Münsterberg: Truth compels me to say it was something awful.
Professor Lounsbury: But how about the grammar?
Professor Münsterberg: There was no grammar to speak of. They used mostly interjections.