May 31, 1918] 



SCIENCE 



531 



half-time leave from the University of Pitts- 

 burgh and is working with Dr. Thurstone, Mr. 

 L. C. Toops, of the University of Ohio, and 

 Dr. J. Crosbey Chapman, who is in charge of 

 the Pittsburgh station of this Trade Test 

 Standardization Committee. The purpose of 

 these standardized trade tests is not to dis- 

 cover which trade or occupation a soldier 

 should be trained to follow. It is rather to 

 measure the degree of trade skill which his in- 

 dustrial experience has alread.v given him. 

 The question is not one of " guidance " but of 

 assignment of men to those duties of a tech- 

 nical sort which their civilian occupations 

 have already equipped them to follow to ad- 

 vantage in the Army. Oral and performance 

 tests of carpenters, pattern makers, vulcaniz- 

 ers, automobile engine repairmen, truck driv- 

 ers, electricians, etc., have been developed, 

 standardized and introduced into Army pro- 

 cedure. Tests for skill in more than a hundred 

 other trades of importance in a modern army 

 remain to be developed and standardized. 

 About twenty mechanical engineers, civil serv- 

 ice experts, employment managers and psy- 

 chologists are engaged in the preparation and 

 standardization of these trade tests, working 

 under the immediate supervision of Dr. Ruml, 

 at Newark, New Jersey, and under the more 

 general direction of Dr. Bingham who is execu- 

 tive secretary of the Committee on Classifica- 

 tion of Personnel in the Army, with headquar- 

 ters in the office of the Adjutant General at 

 Washington. Installation of the trade tests in 

 the Army camps is in charge of Mr. E. M. 

 Hopkins, employment director of the General 

 Electric Company. 



PRESENTATION OF THE EDISON MEDAL 



According to the account in the Electrical 

 World a large audience, gathered in the Engi- 

 neering Societies Building, New York, at the 

 annual meeting of the American Institute of 

 Electrical Engineers on May 17, witnessed the 

 presentation of the eighth Edison medal to 

 Colonel John J. Carty of the United States 

 Army Signal Corps, chief engineer of the 

 American Telephone & Telegraph Company. 

 The award of the medal to Colonel Oarty for 



his work in the science and art of telephone 

 engineering has already been announced in 

 SciEN'CE. Those to whom the medal has been 

 awarded in previous years are Elihu Thomson, 

 Frank J. Sprague, George Westinghouse, Wil- 

 liam Stanley, Charles F. Brush, Alexander 

 Graham Bell and Nikola Tesla. 



Dr. A. E. Kennelly, professor of electrical 

 engineering at Harvard University and Massa- 

 chusetts Institute of Technology, told of the 

 history and significance of the medal. Dr. 

 Michael I. Pupin of Columbia University said: 

 " Carty's life is filled with romance. He never 

 went to college. At the age of eighteen, when 

 other boys entered college, he entered the serv- 

 ice of the American Bell Telephone Company 

 and at the age of twenty-eight became chief 

 engineer of the great New York Telephone 

 Company." E. W. Eice, Jr., president of the 

 Institute, made the formal presentation of the 

 medal. In accepting the medal Colonel Carty 

 gave credit for the American telephone achieve- 

 ments to the engineers who have been asso- 

 ciated with him in the Bell system and paid 

 a tribute to Major-General George 0. Squier, 

 chief signal officer of the United States Army. 



The newly elected Institute officers, who 

 serve during the administrative year beginning 

 on August 1, 1918, were the directors' nom- 

 inees, as follows: 



President — Professor Comfort A. Adams, Har- 

 vard TJuiversity and Massachusetts Institute of 

 Technology, Cambridge, Mass. 



Vice-presidents — Allen H. Babcock, San Fran- 

 cisco; William B. Jackson, Chicago; Raymond S. 

 Kelsch, Montreal; F. B. Jewett, New York; Harold 

 Pender, Philadelphia ; John B. Taylor, Schenectady, 

 N. Y. 



Managers — G. Faccioli, Pittsfield, Mass.; Frank 

 D. Newbury, Pittsburgh; Walter I. Slichter, New 

 York. 



Treasurer — George A. Hamilton, Elizabeth, N. J. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS 



At the ninety-fourth annual commencement 

 of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the 

 degree of doctor of engineering was given to 

 Lieutenant Colonel Henry W. Hodge, U. S. 

 engineer, manager of roads, American Expe- 



