A Pragmatic Test of Thorndike's GG

Author(s): Robert B. Cantrick

Source: American Sociological Review , Dec., 1941, Vol. 6, No. 6 (Dec., 1941), pp. 864-868
Published by: American Sociological Association

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 A PRAGMATIC TEST OF THORNDIKE'S GG

ROBERT B. CANTRICK
Rochester, New York

IN I939, E. L. Thorndike published Your City. The thesis of the book

was without precedent. It proposed a formula which would measure
the "general goodness" of any city in as strictly quantitative terms as
the I.Q. and similar psychometric tests measure an individual. A technical
presentation of the formula was made in a memoir of the New York Acad-
emy of Sciences, entitled "American States and Cities." A review of this
study in The Annals (Sept., I939) described it in these words:
Professor Thorndike has compiled for his cities [the 3io American cities with popu-
lations in excess of 30,000] data on approximately 300 items, ranging in scope from
population, per capita wealth, and public indebtedness to annual salary of full-time
workers in chain stores, illiteracy rates, and per capita tobaco sales .... He selects
37 traits which, in combination, he believes have significance as an index of "good-
ness"...... The cities are then rated with respect to their "G" quality (goodness)
with results that put Pasadena at the top and certain southern cities at the bottom.
These variations established, the task is then, through correlation techniques, to
determine the factors that influence the "G" score of the cities.
Your City is a popularized summary of these materials, written to be
of practical use to municipal administrators and laymen. The expository
chapters, couched in nontechnical language and containing explicit appeals
to "common sense," are followed by a concluding chapter entitled "Im-
prove Your City" in which Thorndike urges that his formula be adopted as
the basis for municipal reform. Obviously, in this book his interest outruns
the province of the scholar; he seeks action. With the practical purpose of
the book so apparent, it is rather surprising that reviewers generally failed
to judge it in the light of the practical question, would the idea work? The
criticism covered almost all other conceivable questions. There was a
plaintive editorial in Municipal Management saying Thorndike did not pay
enough attention to the importance of municipal managers. A disillusioned
liberal accused him of giving a glorified Fireside Chat. More scholarly re-
viewers criticized his presuppositions and methods: the attempt to reduce
"goodness" to a quantitative concept; the handling of statistics, etc., but
the primary question remained unanswered, could this pragmatic thesis
meet a pragmatic test?
A pragmatic test would simply require that the "general-goodness yard-
stick" be applied to some city (or better, to many cities) not included in the
original survey. This would determine whether: (a) the Thorndike indices
are an accurate measure of actual conditions; (b) the items scoring lowest on
the yardstick are actually the community's biggest problems.
Such a test was made in the summer of I940 in Monroe, Michigan, an
industrial city of approximately i8,5oo population located approxima
864

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 A PRAGMATIC TEST OF THORNDIKE'S GG 865

thirty-five miles south of Detroit on Lake Erie. The tester was a lo

paper reporter who had lived in the city all his life and was familiar with
local conditions. His newspaper had previously been influential in several
major community reforms. He collected the data required by the Thorndike
formula and presented the conclusions in a series of articles. The formula he
used was not the 37-item index of general goodness applicable to large cities
but a simplified IO-item index which Thorndike had prepared for use in
small cities where data were likely to be scarce. The Io-item index, Thorn-
dike claimed in a personal letter to this reporter, would yield a statistical
result which approximated the 37-item index to "within 5 to io percent."
The ten indices and Monroe's data for each one were as follows.
i. Infant death rate, 53 per iooo. (Five-year average covering the period
I935-39 inclusive; source, State Department of Health).
2. Per capita expenditures for public recreation, $0.40. (Period from July
I, I939, to June 30, ig40; source, city director).
3. Per capita value of city-owned educational and recreational facilities,
$IO.07. (As of June 30, I940; source, city assessor).
4. Per capita difference between city's bonded indebtedness and esti-
mated valuation of all city property excluding streets and sewers, $I57.5I.
(The city assessor estimated the value of all municipal real property as
directed by Thorndike, and subtracted from this the amount of the city's
bonded indebtedness. The remainder was divided by the population of the
city. As of June 30, I 940).
5. Per capita current operating expense of public schools, excluding capi-
tal investment and debt service, P745. (Period from July I) I939, to June
30, I940; source, annual report of Board of Education).
6. Per capita senior high school graduates, o.oi. (As of June, I940;
source, principal of high school).
7. Per capita library circulation, 7.69. (Period from July i, I939, to June
30, I940; source, annual report of librarian).
8. Percentage of all i6 and I7-year-old children in city who are attending
school, 84.3. (as of May, I940; source, annual school census).
9. Per capita telephone installations, 0.2i. (As of July I, I940; source,
local telephone company).
io. Per capita installations of electricity in homes, o.28. (As of July 31,
1940; source, local electric company).
From these data, Monroe's GG (general goodness) score was computed,
using Thorndike's special system of weighting. The score was 764, which
ranked the city in the 65o-8oo bracket designated as "superior." This is
the mathematical quintessence of the matter but it is too general to be of
practical use. A municipal administrator seeking to follow Thorndike's
advice, "Improve Your City," would have to consider the separate items
to determine in which specific respects his city needed improvement. This

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866 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

determination can be made, according to the Thorndike formula, by com-

paring Monroe, item for item, with the ten United States cities ranking
highest in GG. Your City contains tables giving the average of the ten high
cities and also of the ten low cities for most of the items. Each Monroe item
can be expressed as a certain percentage of the distance from the low-city
score to the high-city score. If this percentage is ioo or above for any item,
that aspect of the city would be considered to need no improvement. A
score slightly below ioo-down as far as, say, 8o-would indicate mild need
for improvement. Items scoring considerably below ioo would be the real
targets for reform action.' Monroe's percent position between the high and
low cities is shown in Table i. The item numbers refer to the list above.

TABLE I. COMPARISON OF MONROE, MICHIGAN, WITH THE TEN HIGHEST AND

LOWEST CITIES ON THORNDIKE'S GG SCALE, I940

Monroe's

Items Ten Monroe

High Ten Low
Cities Percent
Cities Position'
(y) (x (Z) (4))

I. Infant deaths 53 50 93 93
2. Recreation2 $0.40 $1 .84 $o. 63 <0
3. Educ. & recreation $II0.00 $Ii6.00 $57.00 go
4. Property3 P 57 .00 $I54.00 $2I.00 >Ioo
5. School $I7.45 $2I .50 $o1.00 65
6. H.S. graduates o. OI
7. Library circulation 7.69
8. i6-I7-year-olds in school 84% 82% 5i% > I00
9. Telephones .2I . I 8 .Io > I00
Io. Electricity .28 .29 .I7 92

1 By the formula (y -z)/(x -z) =4

to the nearest whole number.
2 All items are per capita except I and 8. 3 Less bonded debt.

It will be noted that Items 6 and 7 are incomplete. These two indices of
the io-item yardstick do not appear in the 37-item yardstick, evidently
being substitutes for items more difficult to secure, and Your City contains
no data on them. Thorndike, in a reply to a request for these data, scrib-
bled hastily, "These are available only in my files," and kept his secret to
himself. Hence, only eight items can be used to show Monroe's percent
position compared to the ten high and ten low cities: above ioo percent,
Items 4, 8, 9; from 8o to ioo, Items I, 3, IO; below 8o, Items 2, 5.
If the Thorndike analysis is correct, Monroe is blessed with extraordinar-
ily prudent financial management, with unusually high living standards,
and with a remarkably well educated generation of adolescents; it is among
the healthiest of the nation's cities and has adequate educational and
1 This statistical device is not proposed by Thorndike but by the writer.

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 A PRAGMATIC TEST OF THORNDIKE'S GG 867

recreational facilities; but it is failing to utilize to the optim

educational and recreational facilities because its recreatio
budget, and library circulation are below par. This is the
Thorndike would institute a program of municipal reform.
Recall the two questions of the pragmatic test being app
each of these indices an accurate measure of the general c
it refers? (b) are these reforms the only, or even the most ur
the city? To one who knows Monroe, six of the yardstick sco
Item i, high score in health. For years the health situation
Monroe county has been openly and vehemently condemned
department officials as the "worst in the state." Not until I9
phoid epidemic swept the city, was there an adequate foo
nance and a full-time inspector. The county board of supe
its local power, has repeatedly refused to sanction the or
state-approved health department, though this reform ha
port of the county medical society and has been adopted
counties in the state. The administration of public health tw
described at a public meeting as "rotten" by a prominent
who is a member of the American College of Surgeons. T
Karch, himself a physician, manager of a large hospital, a
quainted among all classes, was voted into the mayorship
form one of whose major planks was health reform. The Chi
Michigan, a charity organization which dispenses free den
schools, withdrew its services last year saying it was folly
money into a county which refused to help itself.
Item 2, low score in recreation expenditures. The yards
expenditures by the city recreation department. Actually, M
iture for recreation in I939-40 was more than three time
department expenditure. The Board of Education and the
Administration together contributed about $J3,700, whic
city's contribution of $7400, made the actual per capita
On this basis, Monroe's percent position would be improv
cent. This might still indicate drastic need for reform if th
other factor to consider. Monroe, located only a mile fr
endowed by nature with free recreation facilities. Many of i
or rent cottages and indulge in both winter and summer
cannot afford cottages have access to a state park nearby
facilities lessen the need for public expenditures.
Item 3, high score on educational and recreational facili
stick credits only public facilities. An estimated $i,500,000 is invested in
parochial schools which educate nearly one third of the city's children. If
this figure were added to Item 3 and judged by Thorndike's criteria, Mon-
roe's schools and playgrounds would appear appropriate to some dream
community of sweetness and light. This is far from the case. Even if the

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868 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

yardstick credited all available educational facilities, its score would be in-
ordinately optimistic. The schools, both parochial and public, are badly
overcrowded. One of the Catholic parish schools, unable to accommodate all
of its parishioners' pupils, conducts Bible classes in a neighboring public
school. The latter has had three additions in is years, tripling its capacity,
and still remains crowded. The junior-senior high school, built in I927 for an
optimum enrollment of i000 and a maximum of I200, now has more than
i6oo students; and the Board of Education is under pressure to build a new
junior high school in a part of the city which, including two of the largest
precincts, is served by only one grade school.
Item 5, low score on operating school expense. The yardstick credits only
expenditures by the public schools, but, as mentioned above, far more is
spent for schools in Monroe than is spent by the Board of Education, be-
cause one third of the city's school children are in parochial schools.
Items 9 and I0, high score on living standards. Of all the cities of compa-
rable size in southern Michigan, Monroe has the largest slum district. This is
due to several factors: the rapid growth of local paper, steel, automotive
parts, and other industries since I9oo; the large proportion of foreign-born
residents from southern Europe;the location of the city between two metrop-
olises, Detroit and Toledo, making it a favorite dumping ground for un-
desirable elements fleeing from the law. The late Mayor Karch, who because
of his medical practice had a very wide personal acquaintance among the
lower classes, declared housing conditions in this area deplorable and had
taken the first steps toward reform just before his death in 1939.
Here is a fairly conclusive answer to the first question of the pragmatic
test. Six of the ten indices do not reflect conditions accurately; two, lacking
data for comparison, reflect nothing; two seem reliable.
As to the second question, inaccurate indices certainly cannot determine
what are a city's most urgent problems, but there is a further consideration
-a problem of considerable magnitude is ignored completely by the Thorn-
dike yardstick. This is juvenile delinquency, fostered in the city's large slum
areas. Delinquency is so widespread that University of Michigan sociolo-
gists use Monroe as a research laboratory. It is so frankly acknowledged
that parents themselves in the largest of the underprivileged areas have
recently organized a community improvement association, one of whose
aims is the eradication of criminal environmental influences. It is so per-
vasive in its effects on the community at large that a few years ago the Mon-
roe Community Council was organized. This is a volunteer city-wide organ-
ization of adults interested in coordinating and encouraging the work of all
community agencies dealing with delinquency problems. Is delinquency a
real problem or not in Monroe? This is another Thorndike secret.
The only conclusion is that, in this case at least, the io-item yardstick
flunked the pragmatic test. As a measuring device, it proved inaccurate; as a
basis for reform, inadequate.

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