2l6 CARNEGIE INSTITUTION 



ratory might be, and I think would be, all that is desirable for some 

 years to come. The most important equipment for such a labora- 

 tory is — 



{a) A workshop in which apparatus of the most useful sort, and 

 perhaps also some of the highest quality of finish and exactitude, 

 can be manufactured. 



{b) This workshop will be comparatively useless unless there are 

 two or three mechanics connected with it who can have the very 

 special training which such manufacture involves. 



{c) Some oversight from a trained expert in this branch of psy- 

 chological research. 



Besides the workshop, the laboratory should have a few rooms 

 which might be from time to time, at no great expense, adapted to 

 the uses of those conducting researches at the central building of 

 the Institution. 



The uses to which the laboratory should be put are : 



(«) The providing of those who are conducting researches of a 

 large general sort — e. g. , in anthropological or pedagogical lines — 

 with the necessary equipment of apparatus for their experiments. 

 Such experiments imply that the traveling expert takes his mech- 

 anism along with him. 



(d) The conductors of pieces of research in the rooms of the lab- 

 oratory, or in the city of Washington, can then have their appa- 

 ratus constructed, tested, and readjusted under their direction. 



(c) By and by, if not soon, the laboratory of the Carnegie Insti- 

 tution might be able to supply experimenters in this country with 

 as good mechanism as can now be obtained in France or Germany, 

 of the special sort adapted to experimental psychology, at cheaper 

 rates, or even by way of a loan. 



Beyond these uses I do not deem it wise for the laboratory of the 

 Carnegie Institution to aim to go until at least the rather delicate 

 problem is practically solved of its really supplementing rather than 

 harming the work of the laboratories of the universities. 



3. Next in importance I should place the commissioning and 

 equipping of experts in the matter of making psychological obser- 

 vations, tests, and measurements, computing results, etc. No serious 

 and safe work in anthropology, or even in certain lines of antiqua- 

 rian research, can possibly be accomplished in these days without 

 the assistance of one or more experts in psychology. No anthropo- 

 logical commission should be sent out by either the Institution or 

 the Government of the United States unaccompanied by such an 



