No.i.] PSYCHOLOGICAL EXAMINING IN THE UNITED STATES ARMY. 103 



3. Number of men given individual examination, 79,908; total to date, ' 83,543. 



4. Number of examinations: alpha only, 1,059,531; beta only, 393,404; both alpha and beta, 90,065; Point 

 Scale, 18,732; Stanford-Binet, 38.4S9; Performance Scale, 23,119. 



5. Number of grades below D: in alpha, 97,572; in beta, 95,715; in beta, following alpha, 6,682; individual — 

 Performance Scale, 4,600; Stanford-Binet, 11,129; Performance Scale, 7,984; total, 23,770. 



6. Mental ages: below 7 years, 4,780; 7 to 8, 7,875; 8 to 9, 14,814; 9 to 10, 18,878; 10 to 11, 12,631; 11 to 12, 6,480; 

 12 or above, 7,507. 



7. Number of cases reported for: discharge, 7,800; service organizations, 10,014; development battalions, 9,487. 



While the regular service of psychological examining was being organized, directed, and 

 in every feasible way furthered by the Division of Psychology in the office of the Surgeon 

 General, and while this work was being prosecuted in the greater part of the army framing 

 camps in the United States, every effort was made to meet demands for other kinds of psycho- 

 logical assistance, for it was the purpose of the psychological personnel to render maximal service 

 to the military organization. The varieties of service requested by the army itself or by civilian 

 agencies related to the army are extremely interesting and significant as indicating the trend 

 of popular and military interest in psychological service and the initiative of examining staffs. 

 Such miscellaneous service is described in section 5 of this chapter. 



The practical uses of intelligence ratings are indicated or suggested at various points in 

 this memoir. They may be enumerated here in contrast with the values originally predicted. 



As originally conceived, psychological service within the medical department was to assist 

 medical officers, and especially neuro-psychiatric officers, in discovering and eliminating men 

 who were mentally unfit for military duty. It appeared, prior to actual trial, that reasonably 

 well-planned methods of mental measurement should enable psychological examiners to dis- 

 cover mentally inferior recruits as soon as they arrived in camp and to make suitable recom- 

 mendation concerning them to the medical officer. It was also believed that psychologists 

 could assist neuro-psychiatrists in the examination of psychotic individuals. The proposed 

 role of the psychologist then was that of assistant to the army surgeon; the actual role, as a 

 result of demonstration of values, was that of expert in scientific personnel work. 



In interesting contrast with the original purpose of mental examining, as stated above, 

 stands the following account of the purposes actually achieved by this service: (1) The assign- 

 ment of an intelligence rating to every soldier on the basis of systematic examination; (2) the 

 designation and selection of men whose superior intelligence indicates the desirability of ad- 

 vancement or special assignment; (3) the prompt selection and recommendation for develop- 

 ment battalions of men who are so inferior mentally as to be unsuitable for regular military 

 training; (4) the provision of measurements of mental ability which shall enable assigning 

 officers to build organizations of uniform mental strength or in accordance with definite speci- 

 fications concerning intelligence requirements; (5) the selection of men for various types of 

 military duty or for special assignments, as, for example, to military training schools, colleges 

 or technical schools; (6) the provision of data for the formation of special training groups 

 within the regiment or battery in order that each man may receive instruction suited to his 

 ability to learn; (7) the early discovery and recommendation for elimination of men whose 

 intelligence is so inferior that they can not be used to advantage in any line of military service. 



Although it originally seemed that psychological examining naturally belonged to the 

 Medical Department of the Army, and would there prove most useful, it subsequently became 

 evident that this is not true, because the service rendered by psychological examiners is only 

 in part medical in its relations and values. In the main its significance relates to placement, 

 and its natural affiliation is with military personnel. For practical as well as logical reasons it 

 would doubtless have been wiser had the service of the Division of Psychology been associated 

 from the first with that of the Committee on Classification of Personnel in the Army, so that 

 the psychological as well as occupational, educational and other important data might have been 

 assembled by a single military agency and promptly rendered available for use in connection with 

 the assignment of recruits. Thus also the organization of a special branch of the General Staff or 

 of a personnel section of the Adjutant General's Office to deal with varied problems of military 

 personnel might have been hastened and otherwise facilitated and the utilization of brain 



