176 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



formerly locked up iu the skill, real or alleged, of the professional. Cookery 

 supplies many examples. The use of the weighing machine, the clock 

 and the thermometer will supersede many rules of thumb. A child who 

 has never made tea, but has read that the water poured on it should be 

 boiling, knows better than many so-called skilled cooks. 



(3) The possession of judgment and knoioledge coiicermng apparently 

 ' outside ' jobs may rank a person as skilled in the primary occupation. 

 In practice this may be important. Its theoretical meaning is simply 

 that other things, including intensity, being equal, the greater the extensity 

 of skill the better. 



(4) The ability to transfer knowledge and skill to a different industry and 

 to different material.— This raises the question of the relation between 

 general and specific training in a pleasingly concrete and useful form. 

 Actually it does so twice, once in the realm of knowledge and once in the 

 realm of power. This will be discussed separately. 



In industry a relatively new event may simplify the problem. Trans- 

 ference of a worker from one type of machine, or even from one type of 

 industry, to another may be facilitated by deliberately designing the 

 machine with that aim. A simple operation on a certain machine may 

 nowadays be a unit in the production of quite different articles. So 

 successful transference of skill may reflect credit not on the worker but 

 on the machine designer and on the employer, an example of the portentous 

 ' fractional distillation ' of skill of which more will be said in the joint 

 discussion with the Section of Economic Science on Monday morning, 

 September 10. 



A special instance of the interrelations between mental abilities (and 

 bodily ones) is raised in the consideration of 



(5) Keenness of Perception. — In theory, keenness of perception, which 

 means fine sensory discrimination, e.g. of colours and tones, or perceptual 

 discrimination, e.g. of shapes or patterns (not, of course, visual only), 

 might or might not be linked to superlative skill. The method of correla- 

 tion makes it possible to investigate this relationship. Pioneer work has 

 already been done by Prof. Carl E. Seashore in the investigation of musical 

 talent." But, while it is unlikely that superlative skill will ever be found 

 linked to subnormal discrimination, a high correlation between them 

 cannot be assumed. And the correlation between sensory discrimination 

 and general intelligence, though usually positive, is very low." 



(6) Appreciation of the interrelation of factory processes. — This involves 

 intelligence rather than skill. But success in appreciating any relations 

 may depend upon the way in which the data have been vouchsafed, and 

 the extent to which they are obscured or illuminated by well-meant and 

 enthusiastic ' explanation.' Explaining complex matters usually requires 

 a skilled explainer. The skilled performer often does it especially badly. 



A General Classification of Skills. 



We may now attempt to classify skills, working upwards from the 



lowest type. 



^o'The Psychology of Musical Talent. Boston, 1919. 



'^i Psychological Tests of Educable Capacity. London, 1924. Cf. T. H. Pear, 

 Skill in Work and Play, p. 23. 



