THE QUESTION OP FATIGUE FROM THE ECONOMIC STANDPOINT, 265 



common with many processes of industry than any ergographic or 

 mental test, and consists essentially in successfully jabbing with a pen 

 at a series of spots in irregular succession on a cylinder. The rate of 

 rotation may be increased or decreased, and the subject may be given 

 any other task to be performed concurrently. It is claimed that the 

 method enables us to measure, after an interval of half-an-hour's 

 duration, the degree of fatigue produced by an effort sustained for about 

 three minutes only. 



This method is not dissimilar from the operations involved, e.g. in 

 working on the dial-feed cartridge-making machine, and when its value 

 has been more generally recognised, it should provide a more practical 

 measure of the effects both of monotonous and complex operations, 

 and of the value of pauses, than has hitherto been available. 



A question naturally arises as to the value for industrial purposes 

 of experimental work which does not reproduce the actual processes 

 and machinery of the factory itself. On the one hand, we have 

 the very natural objection that any abstraction from the actual 

 conditions must, to some extent, vitiate the applicability of the results 

 obtained. On the other hand, Muensterberg has pointed out that unless 

 concrete situations are reproduced in toio we can never be sure that the 

 omission is not an essential factor. He illustrates the argument by the 

 contention that a reduced copy O'f an external apparatus may arouse 

 ideas, feelings, and volitions which have little in common with the 

 processes of actual life. The man to be tested for any industrial 

 achievement would have to think himself into the miniature situation, 

 and especially uneducated persons are often very unsuccessful in such 

 efforts. This can clearly be seen from the experiences before naval 

 courts, where it is usual to demonstrate collisions of ships by small 

 ship models on the table in the court-room. Experience has frequently 

 shown that helmsmen, who have found their course all life long among 

 real ships in the harbour and on the sea, become entirely confused when 

 they are to demonstrate by the models the relative positions of the 

 ships. 



Hence Muensterberg urges the necessity of concentrating on the 

 essentials of the process involved; e.g. in the case of street-car accidents 

 a peculiar strain on the attention, &c. 



It is obvious that such a selection of essentials may be of the greatest 

 value for the study of fatigue in certain cases — especially where attention 

 is involved. On the other hand, there are many other kinds of opera- 

 tions which are simple enough to reproduce in toto, and which can be 

 better studied under laboratory conditions than in the factory itself. 

 Particular interest attaches to the controlled experiments of Bogardus 

 designed to get a degree of monotony and speed and strain equivalent 

 to that produced by a longer spell of similar operations in the factory ; 

 and showing that two-thirds of the muscular inaccuracies occurred in 

 th'e last half of the period. 



(h) Educational Psychology. 



Scepticism with regard to the possibility of obtaining any satis- 

 factory conclusions as to the effect of fatigue in schools seems to have 



