Can we go back just a little further? The concept of IQ and intelligence was developing in the beginning of the 1900's for the purpose of eugenics. The USA was a huge proponent of eugenics, before Hitler was born, and politicians even proposed gas chambers to euthanize those deemed to be less intelligent. Instead, they settled on institutionalizing, forced sterilization (which is still totally okay in the USA, btw), and infecting with terminal diseases within institutions. The government had a department of eugenics (I forget the exact name).
Where does this leave the other end of the spectrum? Well, intelligence was put on display. Intelligent *and moral* families were encouraged to have more children. In fact, there were competitions in which families were most intelligent, moral, and prolific at county fairs. I think this is getting into the 40's and 50's now.
The word "gifted" doesn't even come to represent intelligence until after 1950. Before that, "gifted" was used to describe any gift. One could be a gifted poet, or gifted with gab, or gifted with prudence, or money or any other quality. It wasn't used widely to describe intelligence until the Department of Education adopted the "gifted and talented" terminology, which replaced the older terminology of "superior student".
Attitudes about higher education were totally different before the world wars. Rather than encouraging all students to pursue a degree, educators wrote about intentionally excluding "unfit" students, and accelerating promising students was considered appropriate without reservation.
The whole gifted and talented thing is entirely a political creation. Intelligent children were (and are?) recognized not to provide the child with services, but to provide the nation with the resource of intelligent citizens.
The "myths" about gitedness as elitism are WELL FOUNDED in history, as are reservations in IQ testing, sharing IQ test scores, and data tracking in schools.
