232 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 
minutes, his mental level for every branch of the elementary 
curriculum.”* 
To measure the effects of experience or training in a trade or business 
is almost as easy as to measure progress in school work. To determine 
the speed and accuracy with which a typist types, or a shorthand-writer 
takes down matter in shorthand, all that is needful is, first, to construct 
a simple test on scientific principles, and then to draw up, on the basis 
of actual experiment, standards of efficiency for work of differing diffi- 
culty. Tests for such acquirements are of use chiefly in vocational 
selection—where, that is to say, an employer desires to pick out for 
a given job the best in a list of applicants. Vocational guidance, on the 
other hand—where the adviser picks out for a given child the best of all 
possible jobs—is a far more intricate task. It demands the measure- 
ment, not of attainments, but of the underlying aptitudes. To test 
capacity is much harder than to test acquired knowledge or skill. This 
we have already seen, And to determine whether a child is endowed with 
sufficient intelligence, sufficient finger-dexterity, sufficient quickness in 
analysing sounds, for it to be worth while to train him as a shorthand- 
typist, is an infinitely harder affair than to discover whether, once his 
period of training is over, he has reached the minimum of practical 
skill that will be expected from an office clerk. Here then is yet another 
pressing problem for future experimental inquiry. The vocational 
psychologist must work backward from the measurement of acquired 
dexterities in every trade to the measurement of the related capacities. 
At present most tests that he administers hinge upon a blend of both. 
And, in spite of the theoretical difficulty of disentangling the two 
psychological components, the methods devised hitherto have already 
proved their value in factories, in workshops, and in commercial firms. 
In this country vocational tests have been drawn up, and are now being 
still further refined, not only for different kinds of clerical work, but 
also for dressmakers, miners, and the various branches of the engineer- 
ing trades. The practical results, even in these early stages, are an 
unquestionable success.*° 
b. Temperament. 
We have now reached the most delicate portion of every psycho- 
logical analysis. Hitherto we have been studying the man’s intelli- 
gence, of which he is not likely to be ashamed. Now we have to study 
his character, which he naturally prefers to keep private. Having seen 
the full-length portrait exhibited to public gaze, our ruthless hands 
must lift the picture from the wall, and turn it over, that our prying 
eyes may look upon the back. 
22 The teacher, unacquainted with the newer methods, will find the best 
introduction to the subject in Dr. Ballard’s excelient and attractive little book, 
Mental Tests. 
23 Those desirous of further details may be referred to Professor Claparéde’s 
little pamphlet on Problems and Methods of Vocational Guidance (International 
Labour Office, Geneva, 1922); to Professor Muscio’s Review of the Literature 
on Vocational Guidance (Reports of the Industrial Fatigue Research Board, 
No. 12, HM. Stationery Office, 1921); and to articles and reviews in the 
Journal of the National Institute of Industrial Psychology. 
