Carl Campbell Brigham was a professor of psychology at Princeton University's Department of Psychology. He collaborated on Robert Yerkes' Army Mental Tests and published his influential book, A Study of American Intelligence, on the results of that study in 1923. Analyzing the data from the Army tests, Brigham came to the conclusion that native born Americans had the highest intelligence out of the groups tested. He proclaimed the intellectual superiority of the "Nordic Race" and the inferiority of the "Alpine" (Eastern European) and "Mediterranean Races" and argued that immigration should be carefully controlled to safeguard the "American Intelligence." Nothing troubled Brigham so much however, as miscegenation between blacks and whites, as Brigham believed "Negroes" were by far the most intellectually inferior race.[1]
Though he later denounced his expressed views on the intellectual superiority of the "Nordic Race" and specifically disowned the book, it had already been instrumental in anti-immigration legislation and eugenics debate, being used for instance by Harry Laughlin in the 1924 congressional debates on immigration.
Brigham later chaired the College Board commission which created the Scholastic Aptitude Test, now called simply called the SAT Reasoning Test.
   | Where did the Test come from -- an Interview with Nicolas Lemann - frontline: secrets of the sat: interviews: nicholas lemann |
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