Saul Dubow, Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa
(Cambridge University Press, 1995) p. 222.

One of the striking features of the debate about race and hereditary intelligence in the inter-war years is its internationalisation. The pioneers of comparative intelligence testing in South Africa kept in close contact with colleagues overseas. Conversely, South Africa served as an important social laboratory for foreign research. The support of the Carnegie Corporation and the interest of the New Education Fellowship have been mentioned, and these institutions helped to facilitate a considerable flow of experts back and forth.

One notable visitor was S. D. Porteus of the University of Hawaii, who toured South Africa in 1934 with the aid of a Carnegie grant in order to 'study the problem of racial differences in more primitive settings'. Porteus -- who was responsible for devising a widely used maze test for the purpose of identifying 'practical' intelligence -- was an internationally recognised authority in the field. He used his experience in South Africa and Australia as a platform to attack 'race-levellers' such as Otto Klineberg whose 'cunning' use of language was designed to mislead the public into thinking that '"not proven" means that there are no race differences in mentality'.

In the Kalahari desert, Porteus conducted his maze tests among the bushmen and found their performance to be consistently inferior to that of Australian aboriginals. Porteus also tested groups of uneducated Africans at a mine-labour recruitment compound in Johannesburg using the Leiter Performance Scale. The results showed them about equal to eleven-year-old Chinese and Japanese youths. Comparing these results to Frick's 1934 study, he generously calculated that some 10 percent of Africans would be capable of completing secondary education -- rather than the 4-5 percent determined by Frick.

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