Merit (1920-1945)
Testing and Ethnicity
By divorcing ability from accomplishment, and by linking ethnicity to 'intelligence' ... intelligence tests became attractive to other college officials.
Harold Wechsler
"Eastern Standard Time: High School-College Collaboration and Admission to College, 1880-1930"
Educators and admissions personnel saw the use of aptitude tests as a way to ensure ethnic selectivity and limit or exclude certain minorities from higher education institutions.
This was because in the 1920s, educators connected intelligence and ethnicity. Aptitude tests, it was believed, would eliminate those people with lower innate intelligence.
Ethnic groups like Russian Jews were thought to have succeeded in high school not because of innate ability but because they worked hard. Some college official used the aptitude tests as a way to limit the number of Jews admitted to the institution and to curb "the Jewish problem." While the connection between intelligence and ethnicity abated in the 1930s, the conception of testing for innate ability did not.
