Intelligence Tests
Credit LineGift from St. Joseph's Health Care London, 2008.
Object number2008.005.198
Label TextIntelligence tests are among the most influential - but also controversial - innovations of the 20th century. Alfred Binet set out with the best of intentions to determine how to place children in the best type of school for their intellectual skills. But intelligence, or IQ, testing, has been used to deny immigrants entry to the US, and to justify racism, suggesting that Americans of African origin are less intelligent than those of European origin for genetic reasons, and that some countries are poor because they are less intelligent.
Intelligence tests are notoriously bound by the time and place in which they were created, which is one reason why people are thought to perform more poorly on tests imported from other cultures.
These toys, from a 1930s version of the Stanford-Binet scale, were used to assess children's understanding of language.
From: https://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/cUK7ofyaS2udL_lt9PGJRA
NameExamination
c. 1880-1910
