Oscar Buros, 1940s


Luella Buros: "During World War II, he served as captain (to major) in charge of testing in the Army Specialized Training Program. While in the Army, he made some unusual inspections of Officer Candidate Schools and West Point. His reports brought about many reforms--one of his West Point studies was quoted by President Kennedy when he was still a senator. After the war he was one of a team of educators and psychologists appointed by the Secretary of the Army to assess leadership training at West Point."



(We received the following newspaper article in the mail. It is dated December 15, 1939, and is from a Superior, Wisconsin, newspaper.)

Prof. Buros, STC Graduate, is Arousing Educators, Publishers

A former Superior State Teachers college student, class of 1924, has caused quite a stir in educational and publishing circles, Time magazine assures the public in its latest issue.

He is Prof. Oscar Krisen Buros, now of Rutgers University, who graduated from the local college after a three-year course. Professor Buros, it seems, doubted the reliability of about nine out of 10 so-called "I.Q" or "standardized" tests.

In fact, to check his suspicions, Time reports, Professor Buros got 133 top-rank experts to rate the tests and published his findings, "The 1938 Mental Measurements Yearbook."

However, it wasn't as simple as all that. Most tests are marketed by commercial publishers and yield handsome profits to publishers and authors alike. Upon seeing pre-publication copies, the publishers began to appeal to Mr. Buros "in the name of common decency" to stop the presses.

Time magazine said that by last week some test publishers had broken off "diplomatic relations with Professor Buros. Nevertheless, the professor was almost ready to publish a second yearbook. This time, instead of 133 experts, he had 245, among them such famed testers and educators as University of London's Charles Spearman, Yale's Edward S. Noyes, Iowa's Carl Seashore, Harvard's Charles Swain Thomas, University of Chicago's Ralph W. Tyler."

Referring to the publishers' request that he cease and desist, the former Superior student said: "During my four years of service in the U.S. Marine corps and later during my service...with the A.E.F., it never occurred to me that I would ever be called upon to die for dear old Rutgers."

While the experts gave some tests a clean bill of health, they pointed out some absurdities. One was from a personality test (Q): "Do you think that this school is run as if it were a prison?" Reviewer's comment: "It is questionable whether high-school students would have the courage and desire to answer such questions honestly."

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