92 REPORT OF THE PSYCHOLOGY COMMITTEE 



testing is the creation of a practical, serviceable, and reason- 

 ably reliable method of group examining by which, if neces- 

 sary, as many as five hundred individuals may be examined 

 at one time. 



The improvement in methods of individual examining due 

 to the army work and experience is also extremely important, 

 for more than eighty-three thousand individual examinations 

 were made and the attention of a large number of expert 

 examiners was concentrated for months on the perfecting of 

 procedures and the increase of their practical military value. 

 The Performance Scale for the examination of foreign and 

 illiterate subjects, developed by army psychological exam- 

 iners, has wide applicability. Like the group examination 

 devised especially for subjects incapable of reading and writ- 

 ing English to any considerable extent, it marks a most sig- 

 nificant advance in mental examining. 



It is already evident that the contributions to methods of 

 practical mental measurement made by this committee of 

 the National Research Council, and by the psychological 

 personnel of the army, are profoundly influencing not only 

 psychologists, but educators, masters of industry, and the 

 experts in diverse professions. New points of view, interest, 

 and expectations abound. The service of psychological ex- 

 amining in the army has conspicuously advanced mental en- 

 gineering, and has assured the immediate application of 

 methods of mental rating to the problems of classification 

 and assignment In our educational institutions and our in- 

 dustries. 



If the full value of the labor on methods of mental measure- 

 ment and the results of their use in the army is to be achieved, 

 this work must be adequately reported and suitably published. 

 The psychological staff of the Surgeon General's Office has 

 made a tentative arrangement which promises to provide a 

 satisfactory permanent scientific record. 



It is proposed to prepare, first of all, a comprehensive of- 

 ficial report of psychological service for the Surgeon General 

 of the army and to recommend its publication by the Govern- 

 ment. This report will present the history and organization 



