2 Thaddeus L. Bolton and Eleonora T. Miller 



series? Are records taken after practice a better test of work 

 capacity than earlier ones? These are a few of the questions 

 which present themselves in a study of this kind, and for which 

 answers must be found before tests of capacity can be regarded 

 as trustworthy. 



Ordinary circumstances do not mean the same for all people. 

 Normal daily life and habits keep some individuals nearer than 

 others to their maximum capacities all the time, so that a short 

 series for the former would more nearly represent the maximum ; 

 while, on the other hand, those whose bodily conditions resulting 

 from daily habits keep them near the minimum of capacity would 

 not, in a short series of observations, reach a point even approxi- 

 mating their maximum capacities. Accordingly, the maximum 

 records must be used as the standard, and this makes it abso- 

 lutely necessary that the reagents be practiced in the particular 

 exercises used as tests. 



Upon empirical grounds it is highly probable that practice is 

 an essential in many psychological and physiological experiments 

 before the tests have either relative or absolute trustworthiness. 

 If ordinary circumstances meant the same thing for all individ- 

 uals, it would not be necessary to go through long and severe 

 courses of training, because tests at any time would establish the 

 relative merits of each, and, furthermore, it is probable that 

 certain individuals are capable of far greater practice effects than 

 others, so that the relative merits can be determined only after 

 each has been brought to the highest level of practicable practice 

 effect. Accordingly, maxima of effort are used by all trainers 

 of athletes and by sportsmen and breeders of animals when com- 

 parisons of relative merits are made. But besides this there are 

 other reasons why maxima should be sought for. First, there is 

 the purely sentimental one of knowing how great a performance 

 one is capable of; and, second, the reason that in performances 

 where accuracy is the chief desideratum, as in marksmanship, 

 relative estimates are entirely without point until a certain degree 

 of accuracy has been obtained. 



In nearly all skilled occupations the maxima are demanded 

 for commercial reasons. In many occupations workers can not 



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