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Measuring Minds: Henry Herbert Goddard and the Origins of American Intelligence Testing
This book offers the first complete study of the origins of American intelligence testing. It follows the life and work of Henry Herbert Goddard, America's first intelligence tester and author of the famous American eugenics tract, The Kallikak Family. The book traces the controversies surrounding Goddard's efforts to bring Alfred Binet's tests of intelligence from France to America and to introduce them into the basic institutions of American life--from hospitals to classrooms to courtrooms. It shows how testers used their findings to address the most pressing social and political questions of their day, including povery, crime, prostitution, alcoholism, immigration restriction, and military preparedness. It also explores the broader legacies of the testing movement by showing how Goddard's ideas helped to reshape the very meaning of mental retardation, special education, clinical psychology, and the "normal" mind in ways that would be felt for the rest of the century.
478 pages, Paperback
First published March 13, 1998
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November 28, 2008Popular passages:
It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. . . . Three generations of imbeciles are enough. - Page 324
Appears in 571 books from 1896-2008
I HAVE no patience with the hypothesis occasionally expressed, and often implied, especially in tales written to teach .children to be good, that babies are born pretty much alike, and that the sole agencies in creating differences between boy and boy, and man and man, are steady application and moral effort. It is in the most unqualified manner that I object to pretensions of natural equality. - Page 149
Appears in 70 books from 1869-2007
History,' says Teufelsdrockh, 'is not the Diet of Worms, still less the Battle of Austerlitz, Waterloo, Peterloo, or any other Battle; but an incident passed carelessly over by most Historians, and treated with some degree of ridicule by others: namely, George Fox's making to himself a suit of Leather. This man, the first of the Quakers, and by trade a Shoemaker, was one of those, to whom, under ruder or purer form, the Divine Idea of the Universe is pleased to manifest itself... - Page 70
Appears in 67 books from 1831-2007
WHEREAS, Psychological diagnosis requires thorough technical training in all phases of mental testing, thorough acquaintance with the facts of mental development and with... - Page 247
Appears in 15 books from 1917-1998
Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground, The emptiness of ages in his face, And on his back the burden of the world. - Page 295
Appears in 505 books from 1856-2008
Feeblemindedness generally to include all degrees of mental defect due to arrested or imperfect mental development, as a result of which the person so affected is incapable of competing on equal terms with his normal fellows or of managing himself or his affairs with ordinary prudence. - Page 83
Appears in 63 books from 1870-2007
... the new immigration . . . contained a large and increasing number of the weak, the broken and the mentally crippled of all races drawn from the lowest stratum of the Mediterranean basin and the Balkans, together with hordes of the wretched, submerged populations of the Polish Ghettos. Our jails, insane asylums and almshouses are filled with this human flotsam and the whole tone of American life, social, moral and political has been lowered and vulgarized by them. - Page 264
Appears in 48 books from 1944-2006
All of the legitimate children of Martin, Sr., married into the best families in their state, the descendants of colonial governors, signers of the Declaration of Independence, soldiers and even the founders of a great university. Indeed, in this family and its collateral branches, we find nothing but good representative citizenship. There are doctors, lawyers, judges, educators, traders, landholders, in short, respectable citizens, men and women prominent in every phase of social life. - Page 173
Appears in 34 books from 1901-2003
... the literature of eugenics has largely become a mingled mess of ill-grounded and uncritical sociology, economics, anthropology, and politics, full of emotional appeals to class and race prejudices, solemnly put forth as science, and unfortunately accepted as such by the general public. - Page 321
Appears in 21 books from 1928-2003
My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds- That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God... - Page 337
Appears in 128 books from 1900-2008
It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. . . . Three generations of imbeciles are enough. - Page 324
Appears in 571 books from 1896-2008
I HAVE no patience with the hypothesis occasionally expressed, and often implied, especially in tales written to teach .children to be good, that babies are born pretty much alike, and that the sole agencies in creating differences between boy and boy, and man and man, are steady application and moral effort. It is in the most unqualified manner that I object to pretensions of natural equality. - Page 149
Appears in 70 books from 1869-2007
History,' says Teufelsdrockh, 'is not the Diet of Worms, still less the Battle of Austerlitz, Waterloo, Peterloo, or any other Battle; but an incident passed carelessly over by most Historians, and treated with some degree of ridicule by others: namely, George Fox's making to himself a suit of Leather. This man, the first of the Quakers, and by trade a Shoemaker, was one of those, to whom, under ruder or purer form, the Divine Idea of the Universe is pleased to manifest itself... - Page 70
Appears in 67 books from 1831-2007
WHEREAS, Psychological diagnosis requires thorough technical training in all phases of mental testing, thorough acquaintance with the facts of mental development and with... - Page 247
Appears in 15 books from 1917-1998
Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground, The emptiness of ages in his face, And on his back the burden of the world. - Page 295
Appears in 505 books from 1856-2008
Feeblemindedness generally to include all degrees of mental defect due to arrested or imperfect mental development, as a result of which the person so affected is incapable of competing on equal terms with his normal fellows or of managing himself or his affairs with ordinary prudence. - Page 83
Appears in 63 books from 1870-2007
... the new immigration . . . contained a large and increasing number of the weak, the broken and the mentally crippled of all races drawn from the lowest stratum of the Mediterranean basin and the Balkans, together with hordes of the wretched, submerged populations of the Polish Ghettos. Our jails, insane asylums and almshouses are filled with this human flotsam and the whole tone of American life, social, moral and political has been lowered and vulgarized by them. - Page 264
Appears in 48 books from 1944-2006
All of the legitimate children of Martin, Sr., married into the best families in their state, the descendants of colonial governors, signers of the Declaration of Independence, soldiers and even the founders of a great university. Indeed, in this family and its collateral branches, we find nothing but good representative citizenship. There are doctors, lawyers, judges, educators, traders, landholders, in short, respectable citizens, men and women prominent in every phase of social life. - Page 173
Appears in 34 books from 1901-2003
... the literature of eugenics has largely become a mingled mess of ill-grounded and uncritical sociology, economics, anthropology, and politics, full of emotional appeals to class and race prejudices, solemnly put forth as science, and unfortunately accepted as such by the general public. - Page 321
Appears in 21 books from 1928-2003
My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds- That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God... - Page 337
Appears in 128 books from 1900-2008
March 10, 2021
Great, informative reading. A lively depiction of Goddard's life and work, intertwined with the history of child study, clinical psychology, biology, sociology and other social sciences.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews