ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the birth of mental measures during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The analysis begins with early efforts to infer mental abilities based on analyses of the skull. Psychophysics and phrenology are also examined. Francis Galton’s efforts to collect measures of physical and mental abilities in England during the late 19th century are then visited. The chapter next focuses on the development of the first standardized test of mental ability developed in France by Alfred Binet and Théodore Simon. Henry Goddard’s importation and use of the Binet-Simon test in the United States, and modifications and extensions to this test by Lewis Terman, among others, are examined. The chapter ends by detailing the development of the Army Alpha test. Through this analysis, the various ways in which the White Racial Frame influenced the development of these early tests of mental ability is revealed.
