PSYCHOLOGY 357 



service only by the insistence of administrative authorities that 

 their professional services were incalculably more important to 

 the army than their possible help as combatants. 



The committee on Classification of Personnel in the army 

 likewise organized special schools in which large numbers of 

 personnel adjutants were trained and subsequently men for the 

 conduct of trades tests. 



Although psychological work received a large amount of 

 unsought publicity during the war and many points ef method 

 were thus brought to the attention of lay readers, it may not 

 be amiss to describe very briefly the principal methods of classi- 

 fication which were used by psychologists. 



When a man is sent to a military training camp he has al- 

 ready passed the preliminary draft examination, but before he 

 can qualify as a soldier he must also pass a rigid medical ex- 

 amination. Assuming that he qualifies on the basis of medical 

 examination, the following additional information about him 

 is necessary if the army is to assign him intelligently and use 

 him to advantage. There is, first, measurement of his mental 

 alertness or intelligence. This is supplied by the psychological 

 examination. Second, the determination, by personal inter- 

 view or by actual measurement, of the man's occupational train- 

 ing, experience, and proficiency. Assignment should always 

 take into account physique, degree of intelligence, and occupa- 

 tional value, for the army is an extremely complex social or- 

 ganization which has need of almost all of the common occupa- 

 tions engaged in by civilized man, and, in varying proportions, 

 of all of the grades of intelligence and degrees of physical 

 development and endurance which men possess. 



If the best possible use is to be made of an individual in the 

 army, and for that matter anywhere else in society, he must 

 be placed where his physical qualifications can be used effec- 

 tively, where his intelligence is adequate but not wasted, and 

 where his special occupational training and experience are 

 needed. To put a well educated, highly intelligent young fel- 

 low who is gifted with the power of leadership into the ranks 



