The educational legacy of Francis Galton

Abstract

This paper examines the claim, put forward by Roy Lowe over three decades ago, that members of the twentieth-century eugenics movement exerted a major, perhaps even decisive, influence on the structure of secondary schooling in England and Wales – and particularly with regard to the intellectual justification for fairly rigid tracking systems, whereby children were to be directed through separate school routes towards differing career outcomes and contrasting adult lifestyles. Can it, in fact, be argued that Sir Francis Galton and his disciples, and notably Cyril Burt, were directly or indirectly responsible for the nature of the divided system of secondary education that developed in England and Wales in the years following the Second World War?

Keywords:

• eugenics
• ability
• intelligence
• measurement
• secondary selection

Notes

¹R. Lowe, ‘Eugenics and Education: A Forgotten Agenda?’, History of Education 33, no. 4 (2004): 487. The books in question were: The Problem of Mental Deficiency: Eugenics, Democracy and Social Policy in Britain, c. 1870–1959 (1998) by Matthew Thomson; and Inheriting Shame: The Story of Eugenics and Racism in America (1999) by Steven Selden.

²R. Lowe, ‘Eugenicists, Doctors and the Quest for National Efficiency: An Educational Crusade, 1900–1939’, History of Education 8, no. 4 (1979): 293–306.

³R. Lowe, ‘Eugenics and Education: A Note on the Origins of the Intelligence Testing Movement in England’, Educational Studies 6, no. 1 (1980): 1–8.

⁴C. Chitty, Eugenics, Race and Intelligence in Education (London: Continuum, 2007), 124.

⁵S. Murdoch, IQ: A Short History of a Failed Idea (New Jersey: Wiley, 2007), 233.

⁶J. White, Intelligence, Destiny and Education: The Ideological Roots of Intelligence Testing (London: Routledge, 2006), 2.

⁷D. Sewell, The Political Gene: How Darwin’s Ideas Changed Politics (London: Picador, 2009), 234.

⁸F. Galton, English Men of Science: Their Nature and Nurture (New York: Appleton, 1874), 9.

⁹See N. Gillham, A Life of Sir Francis Galton: From African Exploration to the Birth of Eugenics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 192.

¹⁰F. Galton, Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development (London: Macmillan 1883), 17.

¹¹The title of D. W. Forrest’s 1974 biography is Francis Galton: The Life and Work of a Victorian Genius (New York: Taplinger).

¹²K. Pearson, The Life, Letters and Labours of Francis Galton, Vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1914), 60.

¹³N. Gillham, A Life of Sir Francis Galton, 13.

¹⁴C. Darwin, On the Origin of Species (London: John Murray, 1859), 402.

¹⁵F. Galton, Memories of my Life (London: Macmillan, 2008), 287–8.

¹⁸C. Darwin, Origin of Species, 21.

¹⁶F. Galton, ibid., 289.

¹⁷F. Galton, ‘Hereditary Talent and Character’, Macmillan’s Magazine 12 (June 1865), 157–66; (August 1865), 318–27.

¹⁹F. Galton, Hereditary Genius: An Inquiry into its Laws and Consequences (London: Macmillan, 1869), 1.

²⁰F. Galton, ibid., 9.

²¹F. Galton, ibid., 1.

²²F. Galton, ‘Hereditary Improvement’, Fraser’s Magazine 7 (1873): 125, 129.

²³B. Simon, ‘The IQ Controversy: The Case of Cyril Burt’, in Does Education Matter? (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1985), 107.

²⁴C. Burt, ‘Francis Galton and his Contribution to Psychology’, British Journal of Statistical Psychology 15 (1962): 1.

²⁵F. Galton, Hereditary Genius, 33.

²⁶F. Galton, ibid., 20.

²⁹C. Burt, ‘The Inheritance of Mental Characters’, Eugenics Review 4 (1913): 199–200.

²⁷C. Burt, ‘Experimental Tests of General Intelligence’, British Journal of Psychology 3 (1909): 94–177.

²⁸C. Burt, ‘The Inheritance of General Intelligence’, American Psychologist 27(1972): 175–90.

³⁰L. Hearnshaw, Cyril Burt – Psychologist (London: Hodder & Stoughton,1979), 49.

³¹S. J. Gould, The Mismeasure of Man (New York: Norton, 1981), 274.

³²C. Burt, ed. , How the Mind Works (London: Allen & Unwin, 1933), 28–9.

³³B. Simon, The Politics of Educational Reform, 1920–1940 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1974), 241.

³⁴D. Thom, Review of Eugenics, Race and Intelligence in Education by Clyde Chitty History of Education 39, no. 3 (2010): 429–32.

³⁵G. Sutherland, Ability, Merit and Measurement: Mental Testing and English Education, 1880–1940 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), 176.

³⁶Board of Education, Secondary Education, with Special Reference to Grammar Schools and Technical High Schools (Spens Report) (London: HMSO, 1938), 123–5.

³⁷L. Hearnshaw, Cyril Burt, 111.

³⁸W. Van Der Eyken, ed., Education, the Child and Society: A Documentary History, 1900–1973 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973), 16.

³⁹ The Listener, 16 November 1950.

⁴⁰C. Burt, ‘The Examination at Eleven-plus’, British Journal of Educational Studies 7, no. 2 (1959): 117.

⁴¹C. Burt, ‘The Mental Differences between Children’, in Black Paper Two: The Crisis in Education, ed. C. B. Cox and A. E Dyson (London: Critical Quarterly Society, 1969), 16–25.

⁴²L. Kamin, The Science and Politics of IQ (New York: Wiley, 1974), 35.

⁴³L. Hearnshaw, Cyril Burt, 259.

⁴⁶D. Gillborn and D. Youdell, Rationing Education: Policy, Practice, Reform and Equity (Buckingham: Open University Press, 2000), 15.

⁴⁴L. Hearnshaw, ibid., 126.

⁴⁵C. Benn and C. Chitty, Thirty Years On: Is Comprehensive Education Alive and Well or Struggling to Survive? (London: David Fulton, 1996), 254, 265.

⁴⁷DfES (Department for Education and Skills) Higher Standards, Better Schools for All: More Choice for Parents and Pupils, Cmnd 6677 (London: HMSO, 2005), 20.

⁴⁸J. White, Review of Eugenics, Race and Intelligence in Education by Clyde Chitty, British Journal of Educational Studies 56, no. 2 (2008): 229.

⁴⁹G. McCulloch, Failing the Ordinary Child? The Theory and Practice of Working-Class Secondary Education (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1998), 46; see also: G. McCulloch, Philosophers and Kings: Education for Leadership in Modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).

⁵⁰Board of Education, Curriculum and Examinations in Secondary Schools (Norwood Report) (London: HMSO, 1943), 4.

⁵¹D. Thom, Review of Eugenics, Race and Intelligence in Education, 430.

⁵²B. Norton, ‘Psychologists and Class’, in Biology, Medicine and Society, 1840–1940, ed. Charles Webster (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 291.