Raymond Bernard Cattell
(1905-1998)

(Part I:  To 1963)

[20 March 1905.  Raymond Bernard Cattell was born in Hilltop, a village on the north side of West Bromwich in Staffordshire, on the outskirts of Birmingham.  He was the second of three sons of Alfred Ernest Cattell and Mary Field Cattell.
    His father, Alfred Ernest Cattell, was born in Hilltop on August 20, 1870 and died (in a fire) and was buried in Torquay, Devonshire in 1936.  Alfred Cattell was apprenticed and worked as a mechanical engineer, and operated a small factory, Cattell Brothers, with his younger brother, Harry Cattell (1866-1946), who also was apprenticed and worked as a mechanical engineer.  Raymond Cattell reported having administered an intelligence test to his father, who received a score of 120.
    R.B. Cattell's mother, Mary Field Cattell, nicknamed "Polly," was born in Hilltop in 1880 and married Alfred Cattell on September 21, 1898.  She died in 1974 at the age of 94 in Torquay and is buried in the Paignton cemetery.   Raymond Cattell reported that he determined her I.Q. to be 150.
    R.B. Cattell's paternal grandfather, Joseph Cattell, was also born in Hilltop.  His family was from Scotland or the border area between Scotland and England.  He also was apprenticed and worked as a mechanical engineer and died and was buried in Hilltop around 1920.  His wife, R.B. Cattell's paternal grandmother, Perry Cattell, was born, died, and buried  in Hilltop.  She lived about 90 years.
    R.B. Cattell's maternal grandfather, Henry Field, was born on March 27, 1830 and died on March 2, 1906.  Tall, blond, and commanding, he owned the Thomas Shaw, Lion Works, in Hilltop, a factory that produced steel axles and springs.   The firm, which employed about 200 workers, was established in 1826 and operated by the Field family until it closed in 1929 during the Great Depression.  R.B. Cattell's mother, Mary Field Cattell, was a part owner of the factory.
    R.B. Cattell's older brother, Cecil Henry Field Cattell,  was born on September 8, 1902 in Hilltop.  He contracted rheumatic fever in his youth and was left with heart damage and confined to sedentary activities in adulthood.  He worked as a bank clerk in Torquay until his death from a heart attack in 1959 at the age of 57.  He had a daughter and two grandchildren.
    R.B. Cattell's younger brother, Stanley Neville Cattell, was born in 1912.   He worked as an engineer in Devon.  He had a daughter and five grandchildren.  He still lives in Devonshire.]

[1912. When he was six, Cattell's family moved from Hilltop to a seaside house on Tor Bay in south Devonshire.  At the time they moved there, it was a popular middle-class resort and retirement district.  Cattell lived there until 1921 when he matriculated at King's College, London, which he attended on a county scholarship.   He later returned to work as an instructor at Exeter University and an advisory psychologist at the progressive school at Dartington Hall.  He spent much of his Darwin Studentship in Devonshire.  He later published recollections of Devonshire that express a strong romantic sense of place and of maritime adventure.]

[1920s.  Cattell described his experience in the 1920s in a 1984 essay ("The Voyage of a Laboratory, 1928-1984"):  "In 1921 I found myself in science at the University of London in the midst of the ferment of social and political ideas that broke out after World War I.  Shaw, Wells, Huxley, Haldane, and Russell were our prophets:  Oddly, as I see it now, I was able to meet them all!   I was lucky also in having Charles Spearman, developing the psychological logic of factor analysis, on one side of the college yard of University College and Fisher, developing analysis of variance, on the other.  [Did he meet Fisher before the Darwin Studentship in 1935?]  Interpreting these two poles of statistics technically, but more interested in social and political implications was Sir Cyril Burt.  Soon I thought I saw the possibility of reaching in human affairs beyond the traditional rules of thumb into radical improvements based on a science of psychology.  I said goodbye to the senseless pendulum of left and right politics, and wrote Psychology and Social Progress (1933) ... "
    Several accounts suggest that Cattell was attracted to some form of socialism during the 1920s.  In a March 20, 1937 letter to C.P. Blacker about The Fight for Our National Intelligence, Leonard Darwin wrote that Cattell "started, he told me, with a strong socialistic bias, and was surprised at his results;"   and in a May 15, 1937 letter to Blacker, Cattell wrote, perhaps not without irony, that "I have also written an article replying to the attack made in the Daily Herald, taking a conciliatory attitude and attempting to prove (may God and the Conservatives forgive me) that eugenics is the ultimate expression of the essential socialistic principles (though not the converse)."
    In a 1974 memoir, Cattell wrote that he "was a socialist student in the heyday of Shavian and Wellsian socialism."  Jonathan Harwood adduced this statement as evidence of the now well-documented fact that eugenics in interwar Britain was not an exclusively right-wing phenomenon.  (See Harwood, "Nature, Nurture and Politics," The Meritocratic Intellect, edited by J.V. Smith and David Hamilton, pp. 115-29, Aberdeen University Press, 1980.)  He criticized Geoffrey R. Searle for referring to Cattell, in his "Eugenics and Politics in Britain in the 1930s" (Annals of Science, 1979), as a "right-wing extremist," which, Harwood concluded, was "appropriate in the political spectrum of the 1970s but which ignores Cattell's admiration for the socialism of Shaw and Wells in the 1920s and 1930s."  (Harwood did, however, describe Cattell's 1972 book, A New Morality from Science, as a "right-wing eugenic fantasy.")
    Harwood was certainly correct about the heterogeneity of interwar eugenics, but his judgment reflected an anachronistic view of 1920s and 1930s progressivism that understates the ambiguity and fluidity of ideological classifications during the period and exaggerates the differences between the progressivism that influenced Cattell and the characteristic concerns of the radical right.  It has been argued that Shaw's socialism never amounted to much more than a commitment to eugenics, and much the same can perhaps be said of Cattell.  There is no public record of his attitude at the time toward the defining events of the period, such as the first MacDonald government or the General Strike of 1926.  As the above quote indicates, by the time of his first book, Psychology and Social Progress, the manuscript of which was largely completed by 1931, the trend of his ideas, although strongly progressivist, bore little relation to socialist egalitarianism.]

 

1924

[1924.  Cattell receives a B.A. degree with first class honours in chemistry from Kings College, London.  He was the first member of his family and the only one of his brothers to receive a university education.  After graduation, he abandoned the natural sciences for a career in the new science of psychology.  As he described it in a 1984 paper, "On a cold and foggy London morning in 1924 I turned my back on the shining flasks and tubes of my well-equiped chemistry bench and walked over to Charles Spearman's laboratory to explore the promise of psychology."  The decision to change fields severely strained his relations with his parents.
    Adrian Wooldridge emphasizes the political roots of his turn to psychology:  "As a young socialist, [Cattell] turned from chemistry to psychology because a lecture given by Burt inspired him with 'a feeling that only there was there a radical solution to our social problems'."  Adrian Wooldridge, Measuring the Mind: Education and Psychology in England, c.1860 - c.1990 (Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 204.  Wooldridge cites an interview with Cattell conducted by Frank W. Warburton in the summer of 1961.  In his review of Hearnshaw's Cyril Burt in Behavior Genetics (May 1980), Cattell recalled that he "had repeated contact with Burt from 1924 to 1939, ... [and thereafter] only at much longer intervals ... "  Burt clearly was the most important influence on the development of Cattell's career.]

1926

[1926.  Cattell comes to work in Spearman's laboratory at University College, London.]

1927

[1927-32.  Cattell becomes a lecturer in the Education Department of the University College of the South West, Exeter (now the University of Exeter), about 20 miles north of his family's home.]

1928

Cattell, Raymond B.  "The Significance of the Actual Resistances in Psychogalvanic Experiments."  British Journal of Psychology 19 (July 1928):  34-43.

[1928-42.  "Stimulated by research with ... Spearman, Burt, and Thurstone ... I published about a dozen contributions in the field of ability research. After that ... set out ... into personality and motivation research."]

 

1929

[February 1929.  Cattell receives his Ph.D. degree.]

Cattell, Raymond B.  "Experiments on the Psychical Correlate of the Psychogalvanic Reflex."  British Journal of Psychology 19 (April 1929):  357-383.

 

1930

Cattell, R.B.  The Subjective Character of Cognition and the Pre-Sensational Development of Perception.  British Journal of Psychology Monograph Supplements, vol. 5, no. 14.  Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 1930.
    [Dissertation.]

Cattell, R.B.  Cattell Group Intelligence Test.   London:  George E. Harrap, 1930.

Cattell, Raymond B.  "The Effects of Alcohol and Caffeine on Intelligent and Associative Performance."  British Journal of Medical Psychology 13 (1930): 20-33.
    [Issued 30 May 1930.]

Cattell, R.B.  "Intelligence Levels in Schools of the Southwest."  Forum of Education 8 (November 1930):  201-204.
   [This journal was incorporated into the British Journal of Educational Psychology in 1931.]

[1930-32.  Cattell conducts research on temperament factors under Spearman's supervision.  This was toward the very end of Spearman's career at University College, London, just before Burt succeeded him.]

[1 December 1930.  Cattell marries Monica Hazel Campbell (née Rogers), an artist and the daughter of the director of an art school.  They had one child, Hereward Seagrieve Cattell (born in London in 1932), who is now a Bethesda, Maryland orthopaedic surgeon. They divorced in 1934.  See Cattell's 1974 memoir.]

 

1931

Kretschmer, Ernst. The Psychology of Men of Genius.   Translated and with an Introduction by R.B. Cattell.  International Library of Psychology.  London:  Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1931.

Cattell, R.B.  "The Assessment of Teaching Ability:  A Survey of Professional Opinion on the Qualities of a Good Teacher."  British Journal of Educational Psychology 1 (February 1931):  48-72.

[3 May 1931.  Letter of reference written by Charles Spearman on Cattell's behalf:  "To Whom It May Concern:  I understand that Dr. R.S. [sic] Cattell is applying for a traveling studentship.  I am glad to be able to support his application.  I was one of his Examiners of his qualifications for the Ph.D. in psychology, and was much impressed by the way in which he maintained the scientific attitude derived from his original training in the physical sciences and nevertheless showed himself to be completely and exceptionally able to grasp the psychological standpoint.  Subsequently I followed his work for the Ph.D. and regard it as a very fine achievement.  Since then he has displayed great activity and initiative in various manners.  On the whole I should say that he is just the sort of man who as a fellow would do credit to himself, our country and this university, besides benefiting science."
    Cattell used this letter in his June 18th, 1935 application for the Leonard Darwin Research Studentship.      SA/EUG/C.62.]

[19 June 1931.  Announcement that Cyril Burt will succeed Spearman in the chair at University College, London, effective 1 September 1932.]

[31 September 1931.  Date to the forward to Cattell's Psychology and Social Progress.  It was published in early 1933.  The forward was written in Paignton, Devonshire.]

 

1932

Cattell, Raymond B.  Perserveration Tests of Temperament:   An Assessment of Teaching Ability.  Unpublished M.A. in Education thesis, London Day Training College, 1932.
   [Written under Cyril Burt's supervision.  Burt was Professor of Educational Psychology at the London Day Training College, on Southampton Row, 1924-1932.]

[1932. Child Guidance Council Fellowship in Clinical Psychology.    He worked at the London Child Guidance Clinic in Islington.  This clinic had been established in 1928 and was directed by Dr. William Moodie.]

[1932-37.  Director, City of Leicester Child Guidance Clinic.   Cyril Burt had been involved with the establishment of child guidance clinics in Britain.  In his 1974 memoir, "Travels in Psychological Hyperspace," Cattell alluded to the marginal position to which this job confined him within the emerging psychology profession:  "Through all the experiences of the merely 'fringe' jobs in psychology that I was compelled to take I was able to keep some research and writing going."]

Cattell, R.B.  "Psychologist or Medical Man?"  The Schoolmaster (September 8, 1932):  330-332.
    [This was written against the background of a disagreement between Cyril Burt and WIlliam Moodie, among others, concerning the relative professional roles of psychiatrists and psychologists in the field of child guidance.]

 

1933

[1933.  Cattell serves as an advisory psychologist at the progessive school at Dartington Hall, in South Devon, among other things administering intelligence tests to the students there.]

Cattell, R.B.  The Cattell Intelligence Test, Group and Individual.  London:  G.G. Harrap, 1933.

Cattell, Raymond B.  Psychology and Social Progress:   Mankind and Destiny from the Standpoint of a Scientist.  London:   C.W. Daniel, 1933.
    [Available January 1933.  Charles Daniel published heterodox books, pamphlets, and magazines (including The Crank, The Open Road, and Purpose) on psychology (including works by Alfred Adler and Francis G. Crookshank), the social credit movement, vegetarianism, Esperanto, anti-socialism and anti-feminism, nature cures, mysticism, and spiritual healing.]

Cattell, R.B.  "Temperament Tests.  I.  Temperament."  British Journal of Psychology 23 (January 1933):   308-329.
    ["... my papers on temperament structure and measurement which appeared in 1933-34 owe much to" Burt, whose approach was in turn influenced by McDougall.]

[17 January 1933.  British Journal of Psychology receives the manuscript of "Occupational Norms of Intelligence..."    Published in July 1934.]

[31 January 1933.  British Journal of Psychology receives the manuscript of "Temperament Tests II."]

[31 January 1933.   Letter of reference written by William Moodie, M.D., M.R.C.P., D.P.M. (Director, London Child Guidance Clinic) on Cattell's behalf::   "Dr R.S. [sic] Cattell held a Fellowship in Psychology at this Clinic for a year.  He was an enthusiastic worker, with an original outlook, and his thoroughness in tackling case work rendered his observations useful, not only in a purely clinical way, but as a contribution to the mass of knowledge concerning child psychology.
    "He brought to his work a thorough grounding of his subject, and this, coupled with his practical experience and energy, render him a particularly suitable person for the academic instruction of students.
    "He is an agreeable colleague, and gets on well with children."      SA/EUG/C.62.
    Cattell subsequently (June 18, 1935) submited this letter to the Eugenics Society in support of his successful application for the Leonard Darwin Research Studentship.
    Moodie, a psychiatrist, became Director of the London Child Guidance Clinic in Islington upon its establishment in 1928 after Cyril Burt turned down the position.   Moodie wrote Child Guidance by Teamwork (1931) and contributed with Burt and Emanuel Miller to How the Mind Works (1933).  In his biography of Burt, Leslie Hearnshaw wrote (pp. 97-98):  "It was not long before Moodie made it clear that in his view psychologists were to play a subordinate role in the clinics, and to be confined to the cognitive aspects of the mind and the measurement of intelligence.  This attitude was totally at variance with Burt's own conception of the part to be played by the psychologist."  Cyril Burt, Psychologist (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1979).  Moodie also contributed a Foreward to Cattell's A Guide to Mental Testing (1936).]

Cattell, Raymond B., and Hilda Bristol.  "Intelligence Tests for Mental Ages of Four to Eight Years."  British Journal of Educational Psychology 3 (June 1933):  142-169.

Cattell, Raymond B.  "Temperament Tests. II. Tests."   British Journal of Psychology 24 (July 1933):  20-49.

Bramwell, B.S.  Review of Psychology and Social Progress by Raymond B. Cattell.  In Eugenics Review 25 (October 1933):  194-195.
     [Byrom S. Bramwell (1877-1949), the son of Sir Byrom Bramwell, a prominent Scottish physican, attended Edinburgh University, from which he received an LL.B. degree in 1903.  He made a career with the London firm of Barclay and Fry Ltd., lithographers and letterpress printers.  He became a member of the Eugenics Society in 1921 and a member of its Council the following year.  He was its Treasurer, 1929-33, and Chairman of its Council, 1933-43.           He reviewed Cattell's book without disapprobation, and indeed Cattell, in his June 18, 1935 application for the Darwin Studentship, was able to note that it "was very encouragingly dealt with in the Eugenics Review."]

Harding, D.W.  "Social Eddies."  Review of Recent Social Trends in the United States by the President's Research Committee on Social Trends.  In Scrutiny 2 (December 1933):  313-319.
    [Harding was co-editor of Scrutiny with F.R. Leavis.   About one-third of the review is devoted to a discussion of Cattell's Psychology and Social Progress.
    " ... Out of the whole summary comes the Committee's pathetic conviction that, although they don't know where they want to go, community effort helped by science will somehow get them there.
    "This is the burden of Dr. Cattell's book too.  Because of this one is in danger of overlooking the immense pains that must have gone to the accumulation of an imposing mass of sociological and psychological information.  In his book the same lopsidedness and retarded cultural development evident in Recent Social Trends leads not to uneasiness but to earnest enthusiasm and hope.   Everything, he thinks, is clear.  Or soon would be if only we let the psychologists and sociologists experiment with us for a time.  'Sexual ethics, like other moral rules, can be derived from biological considerations by careful research and reasoning.  Although there is need for much more experiment, it seems safe to conclude that divorce by mutual consent, the institution of trial marriage, greater freedom in sexual relationships and other changes not involving dysgenic effects or loss of social purposefulness, ought to be socially recognized.'  (Among the authorities he quotes in this connection are H.G. Wells on 'Secret Places of the Heart' and the Women's Co-Operative Guild on 'Maternity'.)  The standard by which he arrives at these conclusions is given early in the book.  'The primary ideal of social life from which all others are derived, can only be that of forward Evolution.'  'Living things,' he explains in more detail, 'have constantly tended to evolve 'higher' organisms, more and more complex forms of life, capable of greater control over their environment and over the 'lower' forms.'  It is by these criteria, presumably, that we judge between the Goths and the Romans, or say Delius and Mr. Henry Ford.  It seems, unfortunately, that the two criteria do not always go together and that what might be regarded as more complex forms of life are not necessarily capable of greater control over their environment.  It is not surprising that in coming to a discussion of art and culture Dr. Cattell has to admit that by his criteria 'at first sight it is difficult to see what use cultural competition can be to the groups concerned, or how it can lead to any real natural selection among groups.'  After a short discussion however he concludes that 'In truth, though the relationships are here less obvious and more in the psychological realm, the effect on group survival is no less real.  Firstly, art is an aid to sublimational education:  it raises the general level of expression of instinctive energy, makes possible nobler integrations of character and thereby results in better directing of national mental activity and greater 'wisdom' in all fields.  Secondly, it increases national prestige in the eyes of other nations, producing an attitude which reacts favourably in the economic spheres, favours the formation of alliances in time of war, and assists potently in the general spread of that nation's culture.'  It is perhaps only fair to give an instance of the more practical suggestions that Dr. Cattell has to make.  The most impressive, occuring in the chapter headed 'The Control of Destiny' is that a nation like Great Britain should be divided into 'sociological experimental groups.'  'England and Scotland might have decided to adopt a dual group formation - a northern and a southern community ... Then there might be mooted in the southern group the question as to whether the existent rate of increase of income-tax with salary was the best socially and eugenically, or again whether the school-leaving age ought or ought not to be raised by one year, or whether divorce ought to be granted on demand or only after twelve months' notice.  Two counties might be chosen sufficiently similar in economic conditions, such as Dorset and Somerset.  One would then be put under the first system and the other under the second.  The people desiring one system would, as far as possible, migrate to the county in which their preferred system was at work.  Then the social and economic effects of the two systems could be accurately compared over a period as long as one or two generations if necessary.'  'For if the believers in action' - but this is only Matthew Arnold - 'who are so impatient with us and call us effeminate, had had the same good fortune, they would, no doubt, have surpassed us in this sphere of vital influence by all the superiority of their genius and energy over ours.  But now we go the way the human race is going, while they abolish the Irish Church by the power of the Nonconformists' antipathy to establishments, or they enable a man to marry his deceased wife's sister.'   One wonders whose confidence has been the more misplaced, Matthew Arnold's or Dr. Cattell's."]

 

1934

[1934.  Cattell and his first wife divorce.  See Cattell, "The Early Years."]

Cattell, Raymond B. Your Mind and Mine:  An Account of Psychology for the Inquiring Layman and the Prospective Student. London:  George G. Harrap, 1934.

Scott Moncrieff, George.  Review of The Way of All Women by M. Ester Harding and Psychology and Social Progress by Raymond B. Cattell.   In The Criterion 13 (April 1934):  480-482.
    [Scott-Moncrieff was a prominent conservative Scottish writer.   He writes:
    "Neither of the two books here reviewed is a work of pure psychology:  in both the philosophical constantly recurs.  Otherwise they have nothing in common.
    ...
    "With the literary quality and quiet assurance of Dr. Harding, Dr. Cattell makes a sorry contrast.  He presents an epitome of the worst fallacies of psychology and the facile philosophizing of the day.  Unlike Dr. Harding his approach is one through a form of philosophy of psychology, and attempts rather to solve the life of society than that of the individual.  His philosophy is that of Progress;   and his book is directly derivative from the works of others, only the more superficial of which he has succeeded in digesting.  He is arrogant in his self-delusions, and his illusions are familiar and juvenile.  He advocates God as a useful conceit for the masses.  He accepts implicitly Bertrand Russell and Judge Lindsay.  He obtains conclusive evidence from shaky statistics.  One would recommend Dr. Cattell to relinquish his professorship and go to the world in order to get in touch with reality.
    "The approach of the two authors to the topic of sexual freedom provides an adequate comparison of their perception.  Dr. Harding describes the continual, if shifting, problems introduced, and distinguishes the 'degenerate spirit of democracy abroad to-day' with its cry for more liberty, less convention, for what it so largely is:  self-seeking and cowardly, doomed to disappointment, inevitable under whatever conventions may prevail.  Dr. Cattell finds a 'progressive' tendency, and assures us that 'education' can prevent too facile promiscuity after the removal of the existing barriers, and that the average human life will have the 'benefit of intimacy with two or three lovers before its permanent love - an enrichment that would bring great balance to one's attitude to life and an appreciation of what is rightly to be expected of marriage.'  To the mind of the 'progressive' everything is a digit with a plus or minus sign in front of it:  all 'love affairs' are approximately the same:  he progresses with each and almost automatically achieves the state of the qualified husband.   Whereas if it means, as it usually does, that the lover has failed to solve what he has taken upon himself, the opposite must tend to be the case."]

Cattell, Raymond B.  "Occupational Norms of Intelligence, and the Standardization of an Adult Intelligence Test."  British Journal of Psychology 25 (July 1934):  1-28.

Cattell, Raymond B.  "Friends and Enemies:  A Psychological Study of Character and Temperament."  Character and Personality 3 (September 1934):  54-63.

[September 1934.  At a British Association meeting in Aberdeen, Cattell reads "The Practicing Psychologist in the Educational System."]

Cattell, Raymond B.  "The Border Line Feeble-Minded Child:   How Can He Be Catered for in the School System?"  Mental Welfare 15 (October 1934):  99-105.
   [A journal of the Central Association for Mental Welfare, of which Cyril Burt was a vice-president.]

Kilgour, J.  Review of Your Mind and Mine by Raymond B. Cattell.  In The New Era in Home and School 15 (December 1934):  256.

 

1935

Cattell, R.B.  Cattell Group Intelligence Scale.   London:  George G. Harrap, 1935.

Cattell, Raymond B.  "Perseveration and Personality:   Some Experiments and a Hypothesis."  Journal of Mental Science 81 (January 1935): 151-167.

Cattell, Raymond B.  "On the Measurement of 'Perseveration'."  British Journal of Educational Psychology 5 (February 1935):  76-92.

Cattell, Raymond B.  "The Practising Psychologist in the Educational System."  Human Factor 9 (February 1935):  54-62.

[14 March 1935.  C.P. Blacker to Byrom Stanley Bramwell (Messrs. Barclay and Fry, Ltd., The Grove, Southwark S.E. 1):
    "I enclose herewith a draft of a proposed letter to the Secretaries of the Royal Society, the Royal Statistical Society and the Royal Society of Edinburgh.  Would you be kind enough to vet this in any way you see fit?  You will observe that I have altered the memorandum on the foundation in order to conform with what was decided at yesterday's Council Meeting."
    The enclosed draft states:
    "Draft                                                                                                               14.3.35
    "Dear Sir,
    "The Council of the Eugenics Society has decided to found one or more Leonard Darwin Studentships in Eugenics.  These will carry an emolument of £250. a year.  I attach a memorandum on these Studentships.
    "For the selection of candidates, the Council has decided to set up an independent Committee consisting of five persons - two appointed by the Eugenics Society and one each by the Royal Society, the Royal Statistical Society and the Royal Society of Edinburgh.  The recommendations made by this committee will be subject to approval by the Council and the work undertaken must, in general, fall within the scope of the Aims and Objects of this Society as set forth in the enclosed leaflet.
    "Will you be kind enough to bring this letter before your appropriate Council or Committee and let me know, as soon as convenient, if your Society is prepared to appoint a representative?"                 SA/EUG/C.36.]

[27 March 1935.  British Journal of Psychology receives the manuscript of Cattell, "Standardization of Two Intelligence Tests for Children."   Published in January 1936.]

[Early summer 1935.  Leonard Darwin and the Council of the Eugenics Society approve a proposal that the Society should establish a Leonard Darwin Research Studentship, to be funded by Darwin. The grant is to be in amount of £ 250 from October 1st, 1935, renewable for a second year, tenable at any approved institution in the UK, for research on subjects bearing on eugenics.  A five-man committee is established to administer the award:
    R.A. Fisher                 Eugenics Society
    Julian Huxley             Eugenics Society
    F.H.A. Marshall        Royal Society (London)
    Dr Fraser-Harris      Royal Society (Edinburgh)
    David Heron             Royal Statistical Society
    Heron (1881-1969), a halt Scottish associate of Karl Pearson at University College, London from 1905 to 1915, remained active in UCL affairs thereafter.   He worked for a London insurance firm from 1915 to 1941.  See the obituary by Egon Pearson in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society A (1970).]

[June 1935.   Times advertisement announces the establishment of the Leonard Darwin Research Studentship and calls for applications by June 30th.]

[18 June 1935.  Cattell to the General Secretary of the Eugenics Society:
"Dear Sir,
    "I am very interested in the Leonard Darwin Studentship as I have for some time been working towards an estimation of the changes that are taking place in intelligence in various communities, as you will see from my book 'Psychology and Social Progress', which was very encouragingly dealt with in the Eugenics Review.   Unfortunately the endowment offered is only one half of my present salary, but if you think the Trustees would be willing for me to take off only two terms full time and to continue the work in my spare time, I should be pleased to send particulars of my proposed plan of work.  Perhaps you will let me know whether it is worth while my giving a more detailed account of my past and proposed future research?"  The letter was written on City of Leicester Education Department letterhead.
    Two letters of recommendation were attached:
1.   Charles Spearman (3.5.31):  "To Whom It May Concern:   I understand that Dr. R.S. [sic] Cattell is applying for a traveling studentship.   I am glad to be able to support his application.  I was one of his Examiners of his qualifications for the Ph.D. in psychology, and was much impressed by the way in which he maintained the scientific attitude derived from his original training in the physical sciences and nevertheless showed himself to be completely and exceptionally able to grasp the psychological standpoint.  Subsequently I followed his work for the Ph.D. and regard it as a very fine achievement.  Since then he has displayed great activity and initiative in various manners.  On the whole I should say that he is just the sort of man who as a fellow would do credit to himself, our country and this university, besides benefiting science."
2.   William Moodie, M.D., M.R.C.P., D.P.M. (London), Director, London Child Guidance Clinic (31 January 1933):  "Dr R.S. [sic] Cattell held a Fellowship in Psychology at this Clinic for a year.  He was an enthusiastic worker, with an original outlook, and his thoroughness in tackling case work rendered his observations useful, not only in a purely clinical way, but as a contribution to the mass of knowledge concerning child psychology.
    "He brought to his work a thorough grounding of his subject, and this, coupled with his practical experience and energy, render him a particularly suitable person for the academic instruction of students.
    "He is an agreeable colleague, and gets on well with children."      SA/EUG/C.62.]

[19 June 1935.  From office staff, Eugenics Society, to R.A. Fisher:
    "I enclose a copy of a letter received this morning in connection with the Leonard Darwin Research Studentship, with which I am afraid I do not know how to deal.  I should be grateful if you would be so kind as to let me know what reply to send.
    "I have so far received 16 applications for further particulars."       SA/EUG/C.62.]

[20 June 1935.  R.A. Fisher to Cattell:
"Dear Sir,
    "Your letter to the Secretary of the Eugenics Society has been passed on to me.  As Chairman of the Committee, I have no right to anticipate its decisions, but my opinion, for what it is worth is that the Committee will be inclined to give preference to applicants offering whole time, and to post-graduate work which could not otherwise have been undertaken."         SA/EUG/C.62]

[28 June 1935.  Cattell to R.A. Fisher:
    "Many thanks for your letter regarding my application for the Darwin Studentship.
    "Whilst I recognise that, other things being equal, the Committee will prefer applicants offering whole time for research, I should like to make a definite application, describing the particular work which I am in a position to undertake.
    "My work would be divided into three parts, at least one of which would strike entirely new ground.
    "(1)    To make direct intelligence tests, with the most valid tests which recent research has provided, of the intelligence quotients of all members of about seventy families.  I think I may say that my experience of intelligence testing and the interpretation of results is rivaled by few investigators in this country.
    "I should work out all possible correlations between these figures but principally between the mid-parent and the mid-child.  As far as I know, no such correlation on actual tests have yet been carried out.
    "(2)    To test the whole of the typical City population at a certain age level and to work out the fertility rates for various intelligence quotient levels.  I am already in a favorable position for getting that data satisfactorily since I am Psychologist for the Leicester City Schools, and could get tests done with a satisfactory technique on a large scale.  Here I should also relate the intelligence level of the children to the occupation of the parent.  This latter, I know, has already been done in the Isle of Wight and Northumberland, but not, I think, with a single City community.
    "(3)    To repeat (2) for a rural area;   perhaps a dozen scattered villages.
    "From these results I should make calculations showing the probable trends of inborn intelligence levels in the population under different conditions, and I should hope to publish the whole in a book intended to appeal to educated people generally.
    "My difficulties in accepting the studentship under the ordinary conditions lie principally in the fact that it would be awkward for me to get a whole year's leave of absence from my present post.  On the other hand, I should be working on the problems for at least a year and my position in the administrative machinery of a City Education Authority would permit me to gain material with much greater ease and certainty than the average field worker could hope for.  It would in fact mean that the Eugenics Society would be having a research carried out on a larger scale than would otherwise be possible, with the same expenditure.  At the same time it would mean from my point of view that I should be able to undertake work which, with the prospect of two terms' leisure in which to complete the results and work them out, I should not otherwise contemplate undertaking.
    "I shall be pleased to send a list of my previous research, and any testimonials, if you will kindly let me know whether they are required.  My academic qualifications include a Ph.D. in psychology, B.Sc. in physical sciences and an M.A. in education."       SA/EUG.C.62]

[5 July 1935.  Cattell to the Business Secretary, Eugenics Society:
    "In response to your request for particulars under Headings C. and D. of the Regulations for the Leonard Darwin Research Studentships, I have the pleasure in informing you that I should plan to carry out my research in collaboration with Professor Burt, the Psychological Laboratory, University College, London.
    "The following persons would, I am sure, be glad to give you further particulars of my past work.
                    Dr. C.S. Myers,
                        Principal,
                        National Institute of Industry Psychology,
                            Aldwych House,
                                Aldwych,
                                    London, W.C. 2.

                    Dr. Cyril Burt, of the above address."           SA/EUG/C.62]

[30 July 1935.  Committee awards Cattell (from among 10 candidates) the first Leonard Darwin Research Studentship.  See "Notes of the Quarter" Eugenics Review 27 (October 1935): 185-7;  R.A. Fisher "Eugenics, Academic and Practical," Eugenics Review 27 (1935): 95-100;   and Joan Fisher Box, R.A. Fisher (New York: Wiley, 1978), 282-283.]

[1 August 1935.  R.A. Fisher to Cattell:
"I have much pleasure in informing you that, at the meeting of the Leonard Darwin Studentship Comittee, you were unanimously elected to the Studentship.  This election will, however, require the confirmation of the Council of the Eugenics Society before it becomes effective.  I should like personally to keep in close touch with your programme of work, since this will be essential for the renewal of the Studentship for a second year, which will have to be considered next Summer.  At that time, indeed, we shall require to have from you an interim report to lay before the Council.  In the meantime, there are a few points in your research which it is not too early to discuss at once.
    "Section (1) of your programme includes measurements of intelligence, not only of children, but of parents.  This is thought by many psychologists to be a matter of great difficulty, and I should be glad to know by what means you think the difficulty can best be overcome.  In so far as testing intelligence in children and adults may concern different psychological attributes, one would expect the parental correlations to be somewhat, and perhaps largely, reduced.
    "You do not mention it, but I imagine that tests in at least a large number of children and parents will be duplicated, so as to have a measure of reliablity appropriate to the main body of the material.  In part (2) you mention the fertility rates for various intelligence quotient levels.  These I take to mean the sizes of the families to which different children of the chosen age belong.  In this connection I may mention that the actual size of the living family, if completed, is from some standpoints more important than the total number of births.
    "In connection with the occupational status of the parent, it is of some importance to choose and use occupational designations which shall be comparable with those employed in other, possibly subsequent, enquiries.  The Registrar General's office has, since 1921, employed a very full and elaborate classifications [sic] of industries and occupations, which should, I suggest, if possible form the basis of the classifications you use.  In suggesting this I recognize, of course, that valid results can be obtained for the special purposes of the enquiry from any classification carried out carefully and consistently in your population.
    "A point of great importance arises in this connection.  It is probable in most English communities that parents of a lower social status have, on the average, more children than more prosperous parents, also, from the enquiries to which you refer, that the latter have more intelligent children.  The question is whether, among the parents of a given status, the more intelligent have more or fewer children appears to be an open one;  and one needing rather special care in its elucidation.  In the same social class it is certain that parents of many children can give them less ample educational opportunities than parents of fewer children.  In consequence if in an enquiry  it were possible to choose children having closely equalised educational opportunities, it is possible that, from this cause alone, the more intelligent would come from the larger families.
    "It seems that a large part of the social promotion by which children of the less affluent parents are promoted into the better paid occupations takes place through the medium of educational opportunities.  The extent to which such promotion is conditioned, respectively, by the inherent ability of the child, and by the size of the family to which he belongs, is a problem of the greatest socialogical [sic] importance, on which we have, so far, but little direct data.  I hope you may find it possible to orient your enquiry so as to throw as direct light as possible on this problem."        SA/EUG/C.62.
     See J.H. Bennett, ed., Natural Selection, Heredity and Eugenics:  Including Selected Correspondence of R.A. Fisher with Leonard Darwin and Others (Oxford University Press, 1983), pp. 188-189, 282n19.]

[1 August 1935.  R.A. Fisher to Mrs Collyer:
    "I am returning herewith the particulars supplied by you about the different candidates.  Will you please notify all but Dr. Cattell that they have not been appointed.  It might, I think, be proper to express the hope that a second Studentship may be established, on the same conditions next year, since one or two of the applicants, such as Fordon and Gross, were thought highly of by the committee.   Perhaps you will consult Dr. Blacker as to the propriety of this course."   SA/EUG/C.62.]

[2 August 1935.  C.P. Blacker to Byrom Stanley Bramwell.   He encloses "a circular letter which I suggest we might send to the Council."  It reads:
    "Draft                                 MEMORANDUM TO COUNCIL                            2.8.1935
...
"(3)   Darwin Research Studentship.  According to a decision reached by the Council on February 5th, 1935, the decision of the Darwin Studentship Committee as to the first scholarship should be approved by the Council.  The Darwin Studentship Committee consists of Professor Fisher and Professor Huxley representing the Society, Dr. F.H.A. Marshall representing the Royal Society, Dr. Fraser-Harris representing the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Dr. David Heron representing the Royal Statistical Society.  This Committee has met twice, on May 28th and July 30th respectively.  At their last meeting, which took place on Tuesday, July 20th, 10 applications were considered.  Subject to the approval of the Council, the Committee unanimously decided to award the first scholarship to Dr. R.B. Cattell (M.A., B.Sc., Ph.D.) who wishes to carry out the following investigation in Leicester -
        "1.  To make intelligence tests
        "2.  To test the whole of the typical City population at certain age and work out fertility rates for various i.q. levels
        "3.  To repeat (2) for a rural area.
    "It is hoped that Members of the Council will not wish to oppose the decision taken by the Darwin Studentship Committee.  If I do not hear to the contrary by Wednesday, August 14th, I will take it that you approve of ... the recommendations of the ... Leonard Darwin Studentship Committee ..."             SA/EUG/C.36.]

[29 August 1935.  Leonard Darwin to C.P. Blacker:
"My Dear Blacker,
    "I note that in our Council Minutes it is recorded that the 'Darwin Studentship' has been awarded to Dr. Cattell, the subject being, as I understand, the relation between intelligence, age, and fertility in various districts.  This seems to me to be an excellent choice.
    "There are plenty of other subjects which could be selected in the future with advantage.  For example I have often wished that an impartial enquiry on the effects of taxation on the birth rate could be made, this being a complicated problem on which considerable differences of opinion exist.  However it is not for me to make suggestions."  SA/EUG/C.62.]

[1935.  Meeting of the British Association, in Norwich.   Cattell and two research students at the Psychological Laboratory at University College, London, -- R.M.W. Travers and John Cohen -- discuss a common interest:   Cattell had been "planning a journal to form a body of opinion among the general public in favour of referring political, social, and cultural problems to the sciences which deal with humanity," and the other two men were planning a departmental journal to make "immediately available the results of scientific work of topical social interest."  The begin collaboration on a project to establish a journal.  "An editorial board of leading authorities in the various sciences was formed, and a periodical, Human Affairs, was projected to bring topical problems into fruitful contact with recent advances in the social and biological sciences."   The magazine never appeared, but two edited volumes, Human Affairs (1937) and Educating for Democracy (1939) were published.
   Travers (b. 1913), like Cattell, was awarded a Leonard Darwin Research Studentship.  He was at the Galton Laboratory 1935-37.  See N. Wallace and Travers, "A Psychometrical Study of a Group of Specialty Salesmen," Annals of Eugenics 8 (1938): 266-302, and Travers, "The Elimination of the Influence of Repetition on the Score of a Psychological Test," Annals of Eugenics 8 (1938): 303-318.  He emigrated to the U.S. shortly after Cattell.  During the 1950s he worked at the Personnel Research Laboratory, Air Force personnel and Training Research Center, Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas, where he worked with Lloyd Humphreys.   Cohen subsequently had a distinguished career at the University of Manchester.]

[25 September 1935.  Date on "Leonard Darwin Research Studentship Report," drafted by R.A. Fisher:
    "Leonard Darwin Research Studentship Report
    "Of the ten candidates, three offered programmes of research in psychology, principally concerned with intelligence tests, two offered biological studies of the effects of selection, two research in vital statistics, while the remaining three may be classed as physiological, economic, and anthropological
    ...
    "The candidates who seemed capable of adding to existing knowledge by genuine research were all in the two groups of psychologists and biologists ... of these both the programme and the qualifications submitted by Dr. R.B. Cattell were such as to make the committee unanimous in choosing him.
    "This choice, which would in any case have been strongly supported, was reinforced by a consideration of policy, namely, that, although the Studentship should be open for the encouragement of researches covering a wide field, provided that they throw light on the eugenic effects of the selective processes at work in mankind, yet the study of human quality and of differential reproduction in human populations has a special claim on the support of the Society."    A copy of this report was enclosed with an October 8th, 1935 letter from Fisher to C.P. Blacker.  SA/EUG/C.62.]

[Editor.]  "Notes of the Quarter."  Eugenics Review 27 (October 1935):  181-189.

[1 October 1935.  Cattell's tenure of the Darwin Studentship begins.]

[3 October 1935.  Italy invades Ethiopia.  Cattell refers to this development without disapprobation in The Fight for Our National Intelligence (April 1937).]

[8 October 1935.  A meeting of the Council of the Eugenics Society approves plans for five members' meetings, to be held in the period from January 21st to June 16th 1936.  The last of these is to feature a lecture by Cattell, scheduled for June 16th, with a title not yet decided.]

[8 October 1935.  R.A. Fisher to C.P. Blacker:
"Dear Blacker,
    "I enclose a report of the candidates for the Darwin Studentship.   I drafted it as a personal statement, since the committee could not meet to consider it;  but, in fact, each of the other members has written giving his concurrence in what I have said."  A copy of the September 25th, 1935 report is attached.  SA/EUG/C.62]

[November 1935.  Preliminary meeting of the group of mostly psychologists that produces The Study of Society: Methods and Problems (1939), a widely marketed volume of essays touting value of social science in solving social problems.  They meet twice yearly hereafter to coordinate work on the book.   Cattell is active in the group and writes a draft chapter on personality assessment; when he leaves England in 1937 the chapter is reassigned to C.J.C. Earl.   The other participants include Frederic C. Bartlett, J.M. Blackburn, J. Drever, Morris Ginsberg, T.H. Pear, A.I. Richards, R.H. Thouless, P.E. Vernon, and others.]

[22 November 1935.  C.P. Blacker to Cattell (City of Leicester Education Dept., Newark St.):
    "Dear Dr. Cattell,
    "The Eugenics Society is a member of an organization called the Conference of Educational Associations which holds its twenty-fourth annual meeting between December 30th, 1935 and January 6th, 1936. This Association is attended or the most part by teachers and persons interested in or concerned with education. An opportunity to address a meeting has been allotted to the Society at 3 p.m. on Wednesday, January 1st.
    "The Council of this Society approved, some time ago, that the subject for discussion at our meeting should be 'Health Certificates before Marriage.' It transpires, however, that this subject is unacceptable to the Conference, and I am told that they would be much more interested in a topic that would bear more directly on the problems of education, for instance, as the results of intelligence tests, etc.
    "The object of this letter is to ask you if you would care to address a meeting of this Conference on any subject which you think might be of interest to educationalists on the date in question. Your expenses to and from London would be paid by the Society.
    "I am extremely sorry to give you such short notice, but it was only recently that the secretary of the Conference of Educational Associations informed me of the unacceptability of the subject we had proposed, and the decision to offer an alternative subject was only taken at a General Purpose Committee meeting of the Society, held the day before yesterday." SA/EUG/C.62.]

Cattell, Raymond B.  "The Measurement of Interest."   Character and Personality 4 (December 1935):  147-169.

[12 December 1935.  Cattell (City of Leicester Education Dept.) to C.P. Blacker:
"Dear Dr. Blacker,
    "Everyone seems to be going in for the snappier titles in scientific work today; indeed at times I have had leanings that way myself, so I shall not object to being in the fashion by having the title of my paper modified in the manner you suggest. I presume the indication is that the lectures themselves should also be a little more 'popular' and if I can garnish mine without overstepping sober statements, I will try to do so in moderation.
    "Could you let me know what is happening with regard to the Eugenics Society's lecture at the conference of Educational Associations on January 1st? I myself had a feeling that the title of the lecture I suggested for the gathering was somewhat stilted and I think I might modify it slightly if you consider it desirable, when I know the lecture is definitely to be given." SA/EUG/C.62.]

[12 December 1935.  C.P. Blacker to Cattell:
    "Thank you for your letter of the 12th. It is good of you not to mind altering the title of your lecture which will be announced as 'Is the National Intelligence Declining?'
    "The Conference of Educational Associations will be very happy if you will give the lecture you have promised on January 1st. I have arranged for the Rev. J.C. Pringle, the secretary of the Charity Organization Society, to take the chair for you, and I will try to be present myself. The Society will, of course, pay your expenses to and fro if you will let me have an account of these after the meeting.
    "With kind regards and many thanks for your kindness in helping us out." SA/EUG/C.62.]

[16 December 1935.  C.P. Blacker to Cattell:
    "Thank you for your letter of December 13th. I enclose herewith a programme of the Conference, from which you will see that your lecture has been arranged for 3 p.m. on Wednesday, January 1st. I enclose herewith a complimentary ticket.
    "I have to-day received a letter from Miss Challen, which contains the following paragraph:
    ' I wish to remind you that seven pages of the Conference Report (approximately 3,330 words) are allowed free for the report of each session. Associations must report their own meetings. The printing of a full account (verbatim if possible) is of great value t the Associations concerned and to the Conference report. Typescript or MSS. For insertion in the Report should be sent in, if possible, within one week of the end of the Conference and at any rate, not later than the end of January.' "   SA/EUG/C.62.]

 

1936

[1936-37.  Cattell is absent from his post in Leicester, conducting his Darwin Studentship research.  Formally affiliated with R.A. Fisher's Galton Laboratory, he spends much of the time in Devonshire.]

Cattell, Raymond B.  "Standardization of Two Intelligence Tests for Children."  British Journal of Psychology 26 (January 1936):   263-272.

[1 January 1936.  The 24th annual conference of the Educational Associations is held at University College, London.  Cattell warns of a "disastrous" lowering of national average intelligence within two generations.   His comments are widely reported in the press.]

"Peril of Race Deterioration."  Times (January 2, 1936), 15.
   [A report of Cattell's talk of the previous day.]

"Eugenics Society:  Danger of Race Deterioration:  Doctor on High Birth Rate Among the Dull."  Northern Echo (Darlington), (January 2, 1936)
    [    "The grave danger that the race would deteriorate was stressed by Dr. R.B. Cattell, Director of the School Psychological Clinic in Leicester, addressing the Eugenics Society at University College, London, today.   The meeting formed part of the annual conference of educational associations now in progress atthe College.
    "'Schools," said Dr. Cattell, "are being forced to modify their standards by proportion to the borderline and  feeble-minded children.   All kinds of delinquency are more prevalent among dull children.
    "Mental capacity has been proved by researchers to be an inborn characteristic of the individual, and it is virtually unaffected by mental training or nutrition
                                                   GRAVE STATE OF AFFAIRS
    "The only way in which average national intelligence capacity can be increased, therefore, is by providing for a higher birth-rate of the more intelligent and diminishing the birth-rate of the dull and of the borderline feeble-minded.
    "Investigations at present show a grave state of affairs in that there is a greater birth-rate among the dull.  They usually have a lower standard of living and are less able to support and educate their children."
    In on manufacturing city children above normal intelligence were being produced in families of 2.1, and those of average intelligence in families of 3, while children of defective intelligence were on an average in families of 4.5.  Such figures indicated that even within two generations there would be a disasterous lowering of the national standard of intelligence.
    "Those who complacently say, 'It will not happen' must remember that the process is too slow to be noticed by an individual in his life experience.   History provides instances of empires which have deteriorated in this way.
                                             TEACHERS SHOULD COMPLAIN
   "If we had a statesman worthy of the name he would be thinking of the next generation.  But posterity has no votes.  The Church is not interested in biological problems, and it is really the school teachers who should complain because it is they who are blamed for turning out poor material."
    Replying to questions, Dr. Cattell said that sterilization touched only the edge of the problem and the most obvious thing to bear in mind was that the majority of parents who had these large families did not want them, and they would be willing in the majority of cases from purely selfish motives, to restrict the family.
    At present birth control knowledge was in the hands of those who should not have it.  If we could prohibit that knowledge to the better educated and more intelligent classes and supplt it to the slums it would be a great advantage.  He suggested that parents who had a certain number of children in the special schools should be given advice on birth control.
    Men of genius were four or five times as frequent among the well-to-do as among poor families.]

"Race Deterioration:  Fears of 'Disasterous' Lowering of Average Intelligence."  Manchester Guardian (January 2, 1936), 12.
    ["A warning that within two generations there will be a disasterous lowering of the national average intelligence was given by Dr. R.B. Cattell, director of the School Psychological Clinic at Leicester, when he addressed the Conference of Educational Associations at its resumed meetings at University College, London, yesterday.
    "Schools, he said, were being forced to modify their standards by the proportion of border-line feeble-minded children.  Among dull children all kinds of delinquency were more prevalent.  Mental capacity had been proved by repeated research to be an inborn characteristic of the individual virtually unaffected by mental training or by wide variation in nutrition or by general environment.  The only way in which the average national intelligence could be increased, therefore, was by providing for a higher birth-rate of the more intelligent section of the commnity and by diminishing the birth-rate of the dull and border-line feeble-minded.
    "Investigations at present showed that the birth-rate was much higher among the dull who, incidentally, had a lower standard of living and were less able to support and educate their children.
    "In one manufacturing city children of above normal intelligence were being produced in families averaging 2.1, those of average intelligence in families of three, and those of defective intelligence in families of an average of 4.5.   Those figures indicated that within two generations there would be a disasterous lowering of the national average of intelligence.
                                                        'Posterity Has No Votes'
   "Those who complacently said that it would not happen should remember that the process was too slow to be noticved by an individual in his life experience.  History presented repeated examples of civilisations that had 'gone thin on top' and disintegrated, giving place to relative barbarism.  'If we had statesmen worthy of the name they would be thinking about the next generation, but posterity has no votes and the Church is not interested in biological matters.'
    "School teachers were really the people who ought to complain, since they were being blamed by business men for turning out incompetent children.
    "Dr. Cattell said his statements were based on the results of mental tests which psychologists had been using for more than twenty years.  They were not mere estimates.  Sterilisation would only touch this problem.  It had to be kept in mind that the majority of parents who had large families did not want them and would be willing to restrict them.  If they could prohibit birth control to the better educated and more intelligent classes and apply it to the slums it would be all to the good.  He suggested that knowledge should be given to all parents who had a certain number of children.
    "Mr. R.J. Bartlett, of King's College, said that they were really condemning those who were at the bottom because those who had managed to climb to the top were not doing their duty in the breeding of the race.
    "Another delegate said that it should not be thought that poverty and dullness of intellect necessarily went together.  Many men of genius had come from poor families.
    "Dr. Cattell replied that men of genius were four or five times as frequent among the well-to-do as they were among the poorer families."]

[2 January 1936.  Bristol Western Daily News story on Cattell's talk of the previous day.  This is cited by Greta Jones in Social Hygiene in 20th Century Britain.]

[3 January 1936.  Date on John L. Gray's letter to the Manchester Guardian criticizing the views expressed by Cattell in his january 1st speech.   The letter appears in the January 7 edition.]

[4 January 1936.  West Yorkshire Pioneer story on Cattell's findings.  Cited by Greta Jones.]

Gray. J.L.  "Influence of Environment on Mental Capacity: Comparative Intelligence of the Poor and Well-to-Do."  Letter. Manchester Guardian (January 7, 1936), 18.
["It is difficult to read without impatience opinions so irresponsible and so little based on scientific evidence as those of Dr. R.B. Cattell in his address to the Conference of Educational Associations reported in your issue of January 2.  Fears of a 'disasterous lowering of the national average intelligence within two generations' are the common emotional stock-in-trade of the more reactionary type of eugenist.  They are not founded on any large-scale investigation into the distribution of intelligence within the community, nor do they correctly interpret the results of modern research in genetics.
    "In the first place, it is simply not true that mental capacity has been proved 'by repeated research to be an inborn characteristic of the individual, virtually unaffected by mental training or by wide variation in nutrition or by general environment.'   Students of genetic psychology recognise only two valid methods of deciding this issue.  One is to compare the performance on standardised intelligence tests of individuals genetically related but reared in different environments.  The other is to study the resemblance between individuals sharing the same environment but of different degrees of hereditary relationship.  Freeman, Holzinger, and Mitchell in 1928 demonstrated that the intelligence of orphan brothers and sisters was very considerably improved after they had spent several years in foster homes, the greater gain being shown by the sib who was placed in the socially and culturally superior home.  Moreover the intelligence of foster and own children came to be remarkably similar.  On the other hand, recent twin studies have revealed that fraternal twins resemble each other much more than ordinary brothers and sisters, although genetically the two classes are not different.  This can only happen because twin children, even if resulting from the fertilisation of two different ova, share the same uterine environment and the same early upbringing.
   "Dr. Cattell's second contention is that in a period of differential fertility dull children come from large and poor families and bright children from small and prosperous ones.  This statement is entirely misleading.  That there is a negative correlation between intelligence and family size in the general population nobody denies.  But it is very small, of the order of one-fifth of what it would be if the two series were perfectly correlated.  Moreover it does not exist at all among children of the prosperous classes educated in London fee-paying schools.   In other words, above a certain income level parents who produce a large number of children have offspring as intelligent as those who restrict their families to one or two.   Although the evidence is not yet conclusive, it is highly probable that a great part of the observed inferiority in the average intelligence of the poor is associated not with their genetic constitution nor with their fertility, but with their poverty.
"Thirdly, I do not know what Dr. Cattell means when he declared that 'men of genius were four or five times as frequent among the well-to-do as they were among the poorer families.'  Does he completely reject the possiblity that genius or high talent is often obscured or destroyed by poverty and social inequality?  In any case, his figures are not relevant to intellectual capacity as measured by intelligence tests.   In a sample of 10,000 school children recently examined by Miss Pearl Moshinsky and myself 50 per cent of all individuals of high ability were children of wage-earners and 33 per cent of the higher social and professional classes.  Two-thirds of the total originated in elementary schools.
"Finally, it is absurd to speak of a declining national average of intelligence when we fail to utilise the high ability of three-quarters of the brighter children in elementary schools.  Average figures in social statistics are frequently abused.   With a population like ours, in which there are eleven times as many children in the State schools as there are in fee-paying schools, a survey of the national resources of personnel may afford to ignore the fact that the average intelligence of children from prosperous homes is somewhat higher than that of the poor.  What does matter is that the total number of able individuals whose services are utilised by society should be increased as much as possible.  This could be done within the next two generations, or much earlier if we wish, by extending opportunities of higher education to the vast numbers of able but poor children who at present lack them."]

[8 January 1936. C.P. Blacker to Cattell:
    "I do not know whether you have seen the Manchester Guardian of January 7th.  This contains a letter from Mr.J.L. Gray criticizing the statements which you seem to have been reported as having made on January 1st.  I do not recall your having said what Mr Gray says that you said. Surely you stressed the importance of environmental factors.  I do not know whether you intend to reply to this letter, but I draw your attention to it in case you have not seen it."  Blacker also forwarded a copy of Gray's letter to Julian Huxley.  SA/EUG/C.62.]

[8 January 1936.  Date on Cattell's 735-word letter to the editor of the Manchester Guardian responding to John L. Gray's January 7 letter. It appears in the January 15 edition.]

[9 January 1936. Julian Huxley to C.P. Blacker:
"Dear Pip,
    "Thanks for letting me see the cutting. It looks as if our friend Cattell has been letting himself go in a rather stupid way.
    "Gray is definitely a good man, though rather biased in the opposite direction. Have you got a copy of his paper? I should welcome it very much in preparing my Galton Lecture. I must meet these criticisms. If not, could you let me have the reference?"
    In longhand, Huxley adds, "Cattell has a good paper in the last no. of Character and Personality."  SA/EUG/C.185.
    This letter is dated eight days before Huxley delivered the Galton Lecture.  See Huxley, "Eugenics and Society," Eugenics Review 28 (April 1936): 11-31.
    Greta Jones, Social Hygiene in Twentieth Century Britain, p. 109, cites the letter as evidence of "Huxley's anger at Cattell's book."]

[11 January 1936 (Saturday). Cattell to C.P. Blacker:
    "Dear Dr. Blacker,
    "Thank you for drawing my attention to Gray's letter. I had, as it happened, seen it and sent a reply which may be in today's or Monday's paper. (Though, as it was belated, the Editor may not publish).
    "Actually it is not really possible to discuss the technical points he raises in the medium of a newspaper.  I know Gray from of old. He never loses an opportunity to attack my modest efforts!  I say, without acerbity, that he has no standing in psychology and that his technical arguments are quibbles which I shall deal with in the right place.  What I and others object to in the man is the invariable truculence and abusiveness of his manner.  I have tried to get hold of him to discuss the matter in a rational, scientific manner - possibly, I shall succeed in meeting him for this purpose in the near future.  If I don't it won't be my fault.   I think his allegiance to the environmentalist political viewpoint of the London School of Economics has much to do with his scientific arguments."  SA/EUG/C.62.   Cattell is writing from Sunnymede, Torquay.]

Cattell, R.B.  "Environment and Mental Capacity:   Intelligence Largely Inherited."  Letter.  Manchester Guardian (January 15, 1936), 18.
    [Dated January 8th.  "Mr. Gray's unnecessarily abusive letter regarding my lecture foretelling a decline in national intelligence (accurately reported in your columns on January 2) reminds one vividly that there are qualities other than intelligence which society needs to foster.
    "The technical aspects of Mr. Gray's criticism are met in textbooks of psychology, but their tone raises a point of the utmost importance regarding the fitness of the social psychologist to handle our social problems.  For it is as certain as day following night that many of the social problems through which we now blunder painfully in the track of politicians will in the next generation be solved by the technical advice of social psychologists and economists.
    "At this suggestion people of experience will object that men of science are notoriously difficult to organise in co-operative endeavours.   Psychologists will also add that sometimes, viewed from the standpoint of the emotional development of the individual scientist, a special scientific field is often a 'funk hole' permitting the individual to escape from a proper adjustment to his fellows and to life as a whole.  This does not matter in the physical sciences, but if social psychologists, scientists in human nature, are to play their valuable role in social life they must, in addition to intellect and moral integrity, possess a psychoanalytic understanding of their own motives and a comprehensive philosophy of life.  The man in the street may be ignorant of technical issues, but he can sense whether a personality is well balanced or led by motives unrelated to the social need.  My hopes for the evolution of the social psychologist are heartened by finding that the half-dozen leading social psychologists in this country are men with deep human sympathies motivating their technical understanding.
    "Only people fully qualified in all branches of psychology are fit to handle these problems.  So long as economists and others are encouraged to pick up psychological data and handle them statistically, without regard to the total meaning, so long shall we have misunderstandings, such as the present one, damaging the repute of the social sciences.
    "The lecture of which Mr. Gray complains was given to practical men concerned to guide their efforts for the betterment of society by the light of scientific evidence.  I maintain that any philanthropist wanting to apply his efforts at the point of maximum effect would set out to raise our level of inheritable mental capacity.  If the scientist will use a little imagination he will realise that business men, journalists, and administrators have no time for the quibbling of scientific men.  They want the gist of the thing to act upon, for they see that life is short and indifference widespread.
    "For that matter any farmer or stock-breeder, or indeed any man of ordinary power of observation, knows that the national level of intelligence can be raised by breeding more from the gifted than from the less gifted stocks.  Mr. Gray unfortunately has lost sight of this fact long ago, when he first began to study the subject, and now seeks to paralyse initiative by hair-splittings akin to those which from time to time lead the ordinary man to suppose that Darwinism or the atomic theory is 'totally disproved.'
    "I confidently repeat my main theses:  (1) That intelligence (as measured by sound tests, not by the early American material on which Mr. Gray relies) is largely inherited.  (2)  That throughout the bulk of the population the birth-rate is greater among the less intelligent.  (3)  That no politician has yet glimpsed the meaning of this decline of mental capacity.  If finer research should show that intensive training can expand mental capacity a few points (as Mr. Gray claims) the legislation which I advocate is no whit less necessary.  What manufacturer would year after year work up inferior raw material when his processes could be shortened once and for all by using an improved raw material?
    "With my critic's contention that we should make better provision in schools for the intelligence we have already got in the population I, and I think every psychologist worthy of the name, would heartily agree.  But here Mr. Gray speaks as if school were the whole of life.  Though in school we may have more high intelligences than there are opportunities in civilisation, in the social problems of our times we have more opportunities than we have gifted individuals to cope with them."]

[1st Quarter 1936. Cattell is elected a member of the Eugenics Society.]

[February 1936.  Birth Control News, Marie Stopes' paper, carries a story on Cattell's findings.  Cited by Greta Jones.]

Gray, J[ohn] L[inton]. The Nation's Intelligence. Changing World Library, edited by Hyman Levy. London: Watts, 1936.

Cattell, R.B.  A Guide to Mental Testing for Psychological Clinics, Schools, and Industrial Psychologists. London:  University of London Press, 1936.
    [With a forward by William Moodie.]

[16 March 1936.  C.P. Blacker, Memorandum on the Present Position of the Eugenics Society:
    " ... It was Professor Fisher's suggestion that the three external bodies above mentioned should be asked yo appoint representatives to the Committee ...
   "At the instance of Lord Horder, the selection made by the Darwin Studentship Committee was submitted to the Council as a recommendation and became effective after the approval of the Council had been given.  It was unthinkable, however, that the Council should have failed to approve the recommendation of a Committee thus constituted."  SA/EUG/C. 36.]

Cattell, R.B.  Review of Psychology and Religion by David Forsyth.  In The New Era in Home and School 17 (April 1936): 116.

Cattell, R.B.  "Temperament Tests in Clinical Practice."   British Journal of Medical Psychology 16 (1936): 43-61.
   [Issued 18 May 1936.]

[5 June 1936.  Cattell (Prince of Orange Hotel, Barton, Torquay) to Mrs. G.P. Collyer:
"Dear Mrs. Collyer,
    "Perhaps there has been some 'duplication of functions,' for Professor Fisher obtained from me about a fortnight ago the Report of my year's work which was to be made before June 1st. He said he would be distributing copies of it to members of the committee. Would you be so kind as to pass on to the Secretary to the Editor of the Eugenics Review the attached letter and summary, which he is awaiting for the July issue of the Review. P.S. Could you let me have four more tickets for my lecture on the 16th?"  SA/EUG/C.62.]

[9 June 1936. C.P. Blacker to Cattell (Prince of Orange Hotel, Barton, Torquay):
    "Many thanks for your letter of June 5th.  I did not know that Professor Fisher had communicated with you directly or I would not have bothered you with a request for a report on your work.
    "I have to-day received a letter from Professor Fisher informing me that the Darwin Studentship Committee unanimously of the opinion that your Studentship should be continued for a second year. I am delighted to hear of this. I look forward to seeing you on Tuesday, the 16th.
    P.S. I have passed on to the Editor your memorandum for the July issue of the Review." SA/EUG/C.62.]

[16 June 1936 (Tuesday). Members' Meeting No. 6, Eugenics Society, at the rooms of Linnean Society, London, with R.A. Fisher in the chair.  (Fisher left the country around this time for an extended stay in the United States and did not return until late October or early November.)  At 5:15 PM, Cattell delivered his lecture on the question "Is National Intelligence Declining?"  After the lecture, Cattell dined with C.P. Blacker.  Cattell wrote a resumé of the lecture:
    "There has been much indirect evidence, e.g. the large families of borderline mental defectives, suggesting that national intelligence may be declining from generation to generation through the replacement of more intelligent by less intelligent strains.
    "Psychological tests show that mental capacity is largely innate and to a considerable extent inherited.  A direct answer could therefore be given by testing a sufficiently representative sample of our child population with intelligence tests to see whether the more intelligent or the les intelligent are being produced in bigger families at the present day.
    "All the children in one industrial city and one rural area at a certain age were tested.  The results revealed an astonishing state of affairs, the children of very limited capacity being produced in greater numbers than average children and average children than children of good mentaliy.
    "A marked fall of average intelligence is therefore taking place at the present time.  This is a recent phenomenon for in former generation (a) the able did not limit their families any more than did the incapable (b) the death rate was higher among the children of relatively incapable.
    "As a result of this decline of intelligence we may expect (1) an increasing demand in the education system for special school accomodation for the defective and border line defective (2) an increase in juvenile delinquency (3) an increase in the number of permanently unemployable people, since the tendency of industry and society is to make more openings for people capable of being trained to high degrees of skill whereas most people are being produced at the level of poor educable capacity.
    "Remedies calculated to arrest this flood of low grade capacity and to lead to a progressive increase in the numbers of the relatively intelligent are discussed."   SA/EUG/C.62]

"Intelligence Is 'Declining'." Daily Mirror (June 17, 1936)
   ["A marked fall of average intelligence is taking place at the present time.
    "In a paper read to the Eugenics Society, in London last night, Mr. R.B. Cattell, psychologist to the Leicester Education Committee, explained that his view followed from testing all the children in one industrial city and one rural area with intelligence tests.
    "'The children of very limited capacity are produced in greater numbers than average children,' he says."]

"Is Intelligence Declining?: An Educationist's Test: 'Marked Average Fall'." Liverpool Daily Post (June 17, 1936)
   ["A marked fall of average intelligence is taking place at the present time. This is the conclusion of Mr. R.B. Cattell, psychologist to the Leicester Education Committee.
    "In a paper read to the Eugenics Society in London last night, he explained that his view followed the testing of all the children in one industrial city and one rural area with intelligence tests.
    "'The results revealed an astonishing state of affairs,' he said, 'the children of very limited capacity being produced in greater number than average children, and average children in greater number than children of good mentality.
                                                        Effects of Decline
   "'A marked fall of average intelligence is, therefore, taking place at the present time, he added. "This is a recent phenomenon, for in former generations the able did not limit their families any more than did the incapable, and the death-rate was higher among the children of the relatively incapable'.
    "Mr. Cattel [sic] said that as a result of this decline of intelligence one might expect an increasing demand in the education system for special school accomodation for the defective and border-line defective, an increase in juvenile delinquency, and an increase in the number of permanently unemployable people, since the tendency in industry and society was to make more opening for people capable of being trained to high degrees of skill."]

"Average Intelligence." Editorial. Liverpool Daily Post (June 17, 1936)
   ["Psychologists are usually rather sceptical persons but the psychologist of the Leicester Education Committee who says that a marked fall of average intelligence is taking place at present, seems to have no doubt about things. In a paper to the Eugenics Society, in London last night, he explained how this, as he calls it, 'astonishing state of affairs,' has been revealed to him. Apparently his conclusion is based on nothing more substantial than an intelligence test of the children in an industrial and rural area. Many psychologists are extremely critical of the value of such attempts to isolate and test specific mental qualities, and would rigidly hesitate to base sweeping conclusions on the results obtained from them. Elusive temperamental qualities of mind and character are apt to escape such procrustean tests: and it is these very qualities that may vitiate their results. But the explanation given by the Leicester psychologist of his conclusion is even more questionable than his method of reaching it. He suggests that average intelligence is declining because the more intelligent people are producing fewer children. But this is a familiar eugenic assertion which itself surely needs to be proved."]

"Intelligence Is Declining:  'Astonishing' Results of Psychologist's Tests:  Recent Phenomenon."  Glasgow Bulletin (June 17, 1936)
   ["A marked fall of average intelligence is taking place at the present time.
    "That is the conclusion of Mr. R.B. Cattell, psychologist to the Leicester Education Committee. In a paper read to the Eugenics Society in London last night he explained that his view followed the testing of all the children in one industrial city and one rural area with intelligence tests.
    "'The results revealed an astonishing state of affairs,' he said. 'The children of very limited capacity are being produced in greater numbers than average children, and average children in greater numbers than children of good mentality.
    "'A marked fall of average intelligence is therefore taking place at the present time. This is a recent phenomenon, for in former generations the capable did not limit their families any more than did the incapable, and the death rate was higher among the children of the relatively incapable'."]

"School Test Reveals Fall of Average Intelligence." Leicester Daily Mercury (June 17, 1936)
   ["That a marked fall of average intelligence is taking