148 REPORT OF THE PSYCHOLOGY COMMITTEE 



Of special interest is the fact that the executive officers 

 of this organization, after trying other methods of selection 

 to improve the Y. M. C. A. personnel, decided that the army 

 procedure for measuring mental alertness should be intro- 

 duced. 



IV. Future Relations of Psychology to the National 

 Research Council. 



The eager and effective cooperation of psychologists in 

 professional war work has enabled the Psychology Committee 

 to win the confidence and the hearty support of the several 

 scientific groups which together constitute the Research Coun- 

 cil. Largely because of the way in which it responded to 

 the practical demands and the opportunities of the military 

 emergency, psychology today occupies a place among the 

 natural sciences which is newly achieved, eminently desirable, 

 and highly gratifying to the profession. An immediate re- 

 sult of this improved status is the desire of the Executive 

 Board of the Research Council to have psychology adequately 

 represented in the permanent national organization. 



A conference of psychologists called for the discussion of 

 the relations of psychology to the organization of the Re- 

 search Council, unanimously approved the inclusion of psy- 

 chology in the national organization and formulated the 

 following as a tentative statement of the functions of the psy- 

 chological section of the Council: 



"i. Service, in an advisory capacity, to the Government and 

 its various agencies in connection, for example, with psychological 

 problems of education, immigration, civil service, military organi- 

 zation, public health, and labor. 



2. The stimulation and facilitation, coordination, conduct of 

 psychological research. 



"3. The furtherance of the international relations of psychology 

 and psychologists in the interests alike of research and effective 

 instruction. 



"4. The study and improvement of the status of the relations of 

 psychology as science and as technology. 



"5. Concern with such generally important matters of psycho- 

 logical personnel as the qualifications of individuals for research 

 tasks and measures for maintaining and improving the quality of 

 the professional personnel." 



