A Question of IQ

At a Thanksgiving service in a forbidding old brick building on a hill overlooking Glenwood, Iowa, a trim little man of 67 directed the well-drilled 30-voice choir. Conductor Mayo Buckner is a versatile musician; he sings bass, plays the violin, piccolo, clarinet, flute, bass horn, cornet and saxophone. Though almost entirely self-taught, "Buck" is good enough to have played in the town band. He is also a journeyman printer. His IQ of 120 is well above the national average. Yet for the last 59 years Mayo Buckner has been an inmate of Glenwood State School (for the mentally retarded).

How had it happened? From musty records, school officials found that Mayo Buckner was brought in to the state school by his mother in October 1898. (It was snowing, Buck remembers, and the train they rode from Lenox, 60 miles southwest of Des Moines, was lit by coal-oil lamps.) Answering a questionnaire, Mrs. Buckner conceded that Mayo was truthful, tenderhearted, had a good memory, was quick to learn his ABCs and children's verses, could pick out any tune he heard on the family organ. Nonetheless, Mrs. Buckner felt, and the family doctor agreed, that Mayo belonged in Glenwood because "He rolls his eyes and makes a peculiar noise . . . The child is not foolish but is lacking in many ways. I do not wish to send him to public school for he will not protect himself but will take any amount of ill usage and never mention it. I think he needs special management and I am unable to undertake it."

Institutional Pattern. Young Mayo did not know what was happening to him. He was lonely and cried a lot at first, but soon he learned to do as he was told, never to question or complain. When he was 15, a teacher noted: "Mayo does good work in school. Reads well and understands. Is doing long division and fractions. In drawing does quick and artistic work. Plays first violin in the orchestra." Though his mother visited the boy occasionally, it never occurred to her that he ought to leave the school. Neither did it occur to his brother and sister, though he corresponded with them fluently.

As a young man, Buck realized that he did not belong at Glenwood, and asked for parole. His requests were ignored. Free to go into town when he wanted, Buck could have simply gone over the hill. But the institutional pattern had been stamped too deep in him. Five years ago some rough-and-ready tests of inmates showed that Buck was far above the "moderate imbecile" level at which he had been graded on admission. But he was also judged too old to make a change.

Easing into a New World. Last May Glenwood got a new superintendent, young (32) Alfred Sasser Jr., who had put through a whirlwind program of reform at Muscatatuck State School in Indiana (TIME, Oct. 18, 1954). Though his budget had been closed, Sasser talked legislators into reopening it, got extra funds for psychologists, trained technicians and essential equipment--an electroencephalograph, an audiometer, etc. Sasser also decided to retest the IQs of his 1,866 charges. In addition to Mayo Buckner, who scored 120, a dozen other patients were found to have IQs over 90 and to be well equipped for life outside. Sasser found jobs for some in local garages and other small businesses.

For Mayo Buckner, whose whole life had been spent in the institution, transition to the outside world would be tougher. In the mail came offers of two jobs and a score of places to live. Buck thought he would like to teach music. As soon as he and Superintendent Sasser agree on a place for him to go, he will be free--free, as Buck put it, "just to go out and sit in a park and listen to a good band."

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