The Origins and Development of Mental Testing in England and the United States

This paper examines the development of mental testing; it discusses the tests themselves, the men who developed them, and the social and historical context in which they worked. Attention is drawn to the interpersonal connections among the early testers and the social background which they shared. It is argued that the tests were produced in an intellectual and social climate heavily influenced by eugenicist theory. Acceptance of the vocabulary of psychometry into educational debate institutionalised this theory as scientific ‘fact’. Finally, some reference is made to research which first cast doubts on such facts’.