No.i] PSYCHOLOGICAL EXAMINING IN THE UNITED STATES ARMY. 19 



Official inspection of the service was made during November by Col. Henry Alden Shaw, 

 M. C. His report on Camp Lee is reproduced in full below because it proved to be of the greatest 

 importance to the service. Maj. Yerkes was informed that Col. Shaw's observations at Camp 

 Devens were wholly confirmatory of the statements and recommendations contained in the 

 Camp Lee report and that for this reason detailed official report was not prepared. 



November 16. 1917. 

 From: Col. Henry A. Shaw, M. C. 

 To: The Surgeon General, U. S. Army. 

 Subject: Psychological tests, Camp Lee, Va. 



1. Pursuant to instructions from the Secretary of War dated War Department. Washington, November 5, 1917, I 

 proceeded to Camp Lee, Va., November 7 and reported to the commanding general. 



I. GENERAL STATEMENT. 



2. Camp Lee is one of the four divisional cantonments selected by the War Department to try out certain psycho- 

 logical tests upon drafted men. Lieut. Yoakum, Sanitary Corps, N. A., had been placed in charge of this work as chief 

 psychological examiner and reported for duty on September 18, 1917, under direction of the division surgeon, Lieut. 

 Col. Thomas L. Rhoads. After familiarizing himself with the purposes and methods of the examinations, Col. Rhoads 

 directed that the tests be first made upon all medical officers in camp. The results were quite remarkable, as they cor- 

 roborated in a striking way the estimates of these officers already formed by the division surgeon and his personal staff. 

 In his own words, "we found that those (medical officers) who had made the higher marks in the psychological tests 

 were the very ones who had been doing good work, developing their infirmaries, making careful recruit examinations 

 and complying with instructions, while those who had received the lower rating had not been doing as good work." 



3. In view of the important bearing of this work upon the question of rating and promotion of officers, Col. Rhoads 

 decided to take up the whole matter with the commanding general. To that end a conference was arranged, at which 

 Lieut. Yoakum was present. Gen. Cronkhite was so favorably impressed with the results that had been obtained 

 by the examination of the relatively few medical officers that he determined to have the tests applied to the entire 

 commissioned personnel of the division. 



II. THE PURPOSE OP THE TESTS. 



4. The purpose of these tests has been outlined by Maj. Robert M. Yerkes, S. C, Chief of the Section of Psy- 

 chology, Office of the Surgeon General, as follows: 



(a) To aid in segregating and eliminating the mentally incompetent. 



(6) To classify men according to their mental ability. 



(c) To assist in selecting competent men for responsible positions. 



III. METHODS OP EXAMINATION. 



5. Very briefly the scheme for examination is as follows: 



(a) The men are assembled at 8 o'clock a. m. by companies in unoccupied wards of the base hospital, reporting in 

 groups of from 80 to 130 to one of three psychological examiners. Three groups are thus handled simultaneously and 

 half a regiment is disposed of each morning. 



(b) Each recruit is given a form (copy inclosed) for the group intelligence examination and is directed to fill 

 in the information at the top of the sheet. This first test determines whether or not he is illiterate, and thus accom- 

 plishes the object of the literary test (copy inclosed), which has in consequence been abandoned. 



(c) Men who are unable to fill in the headings on their forms are at once taken out of the group and sent to the 

 room arranged for the mechanical skill test. The remainder of the group continue with the intelligence examination 

 for three or four prescribed tests when a recess for a few minutes is announced , during which the examiner and his assist- 

 ants pick out those men who are showing evident nervous or mental disturbance as a result of the strain of the ordeal. 

 This procedure was adopted by suggestion of Maj. Moore, consulting neurologist of the hospital, with a view of segre- 

 gating as quickly as possible cases of doubtful mental and nervous stability. Suspected cases are sent at once to the 

 neurologist for special examination; the rest of the group finish the intelligence test. Three groups of men are thus 

 handled by each of the three examiners between 8 o'clock and 11, or a little later, the intelligence examination pro- 

 ceeding simultaneously with the mechanical tests. 



(d) The papers are scored in the afternoon or on the day following. Recruits who have been rated in the E class 

 (receiving less than 80 points out of a possible 414) return for a special individual examination to determine their mental 

 age. The scoring is done by 40 men and their work carefully supervised and checked. It is purely mechanical, 

 being accomplished by an ingenious series of stencils made to fit over each form, showing at a glance the proper answer 

 to the questions, so that nothing is left to the personal equation of the scorer. 



(e) As a result of the tests, a report (form inclosed) is made by the chief psychological examiner to the company 

 commander showing the rating of each man on the following scale: A, very superior ;B, superior; C, average; D, inferior; 

 and E, very inferior. The total number in each class is shown, as well as the number of illiterates. All men in the 

 E class and all in the S class (illiterates who have taken the mechanical-skill test) are at once reported to the 

 neurologist for special examination. 



