456 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



between interest and ability may safely be placed at about .9 of perfect 

 resemblance. 



I have computed the resemblance between interest in the last three 

 years of the elementary school and capacity in the college period as a 

 partial measure of the extent to which early interest could be used as a 

 symptom of adult capacity. The average for the hundred individuals is 

 a coefficient of correlation or resemblance of .60. 



I have also, for comparison with the last measurement and with the 

 measurement of the resemblance of interest in the late elementary 

 period to interest in the college period, computed the coefficient of corre- 

 lation or resemblance between the order of the seven subjects for ability 

 in the elementary and their order for ability in the college period, using 

 the records from these same hundred individuals. The average resem- 

 blance obtained is six and a half tenths, or slightly closer than that for 

 early and late interest. 



These facts unanimously witness to the importance of early inter- 

 ests. They are shown to be far from fickle and evanescent. On the con- 

 trary, the order of interests at twenty shows six tenths of perfect 

 resemblance to the order from eleven to fourteen, and has changed 

 therefrom little more than the order of abilities has changed. It would 

 indeed be hard to find any feature of a human being which was a much 

 more permanent fact of his nature than his relative degrees of interest 

 in different lines of thought and action. 



Interests are also shown to be symptomatic, to a very great extent, 

 of present and future capacity or ability. Either because one likes 

 what he can do well, or because one gives zeal and effort to what he 

 likes, or because interest and ability are both symptoms of some funda- 

 mental feature of the individual's original nature, or because of the 

 combined action of all three of these factors, interest and ability are 

 bound very closely together. The bond is so close that either may be 

 used as a symptom for the other almost as well as for itself. 



The importance of these facts for the whole field of practise with 

 respect to early diagnosis, vocational guidance, the work of social secre- 

 taries, deans, advisers and others who direct students' choices of schools, 

 studies and careers, is obvious. They should be taken account of in 

 such practise until they are verified, or modified by data obtained by a 

 better method : and such data should be soon collected. The better 

 method is, of course, to get the measurements of relative interest and 

 of relative ability, not from memory, but at the time; and not from 

 individuals' reports alone, but by objective tests. Such an investigation 

 iequires a repeated survey of each individual at three or more periods, 

 say in 1912, 1915 and 1920, and demands skill and pertinacity in keep- 

 ing track of the hundred or more children and arranging for the second 

 and third series of reports and tests. I hope that some one of my 

 readers will be moved to undertake it. 



