372 THE NEW WORLD OF SCIENCE 



particular regiment is startling. The one has three per cent, 

 of highly intelligent men ; the other, twenty-nine. The one, 

 thirty-eight per cent, of illiterate or foreign-born soldiers ; and 

 the other, only nine per cent. Yet the captains of these two 

 companies are expected and required by their commanding 

 officer to produce in the shortest possible time practically 

 equivalent fighting machines. The captain of C company has 

 by comparison with the captain of E company an extraordi- 

 narily difficult task. 



It required no arguments to convince army officers of the 

 undesirability of this state of affairs. Indeed they had no 

 sooner been shown such pictures for companies, batteries, and 

 regiments as that of Fig. 9 than they demanded reorganization 

 in order that the various units should have approximately equal 

 mental strength and similar distribution of intelligence. Be- 

 yond this it was but a step to suggest, then to request, and 

 finally to effect the assignment of men to organizations so that 

 intelligence should be properly distributed, or if not properly 

 distributed, at least much more satisfactorily distributed than 

 formerly. 



In some divisions of the United States Army the use of mental 

 ratings was based upon specifications for different types of 

 organization. It was decided, for example, that the infantry 

 regiment could use a certain percentage of low grade men and 

 that it should have for efficient training and action a certain 

 minimum percentage of men of high intelligence. These 

 specifications naturally differed somewhat for different types of 

 organization. Their principal values were the facilitation of 

 training and the avoidance of such inequalities of distribution 

 as have been described. 



The evidences of the practical relations of intelligence to 

 military value which have been presented up to this point are 

 primarily objective, but it must be admitted that the phenomenal 

 success of this sort of psychological service in the army was 

 due in part to the opinions of officers. Usually these opinions 



