56 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Ai'oL. XLIX. No. 1255 



doubtless be desirable. A more varied test 

 ■whicb will prophesy ability to work with 

 things and human beings as well as ideas 

 and symbols would doubtless be desirable. 

 Series of tests that could be made public with- 

 out serious injury from deliberate preparation 

 by tutors would also be desirable, and prob- 

 ably necessary. However, even with these 

 more rigorous requirements, the expense for 

 an annual nation-wide inventory of the in- 

 telligence of the ten-year-old cross section 

 would not equal the cost of the war to Amer- 

 ica alone for five hours. 



The results of such a census of intellect, 

 especially if repeated at 14, 18, 22, would give 

 superintendents of schools, commissioners of 

 charity, mayors of cities and governors of 

 states facts which they really need every day 

 in their business. 



A second main line of scientific work for 

 large groups of soldiers was carried on by the 

 Committee on Classification of Personnel in 

 the Army under the leadership of "Walter Dill 

 Scott. 



As a result of work done by him for the 

 army in the first months of the war there was 

 constituted in August of 1917 a Civilian Com- 

 mittee^ of seven psychologists and three ex- 

 perts in the selection of men for employment. 

 This committee worked first under the juris- 

 diction of the Adjutant General and later 

 xmder the General Staff. This committee 

 urged, and was soon entrusted with, the work 

 of planning and carrying out an inventory of 

 the man power of the National Army and es- 

 tablishing Personnel units in each of the six- 

 teen cantonments. By these means each man's 

 special abilities could be considered so that the 

 right man would be put in the right place. 

 These personnel units were found to be of 

 direct practical service, were soon established 

 in the ITational Guard as well as in the Na- 

 tional Army, and were later extended to the 

 Staff Corps and to the Students' Army Train- 

 ing Corps. Schools were established to train 

 officers in the committee's system of inter- 



s Just before the close of the war, the members 

 of the committee and the group of associates whom 

 they had organized were being commissioned. 



viewing recruits, recording their abilities and 

 training, and using these facts in placing and 

 transferring men. 



A modern army is specialized into over two 

 hundred occupations each as essential in its 

 way to success in war as is the combat work of 

 infantrymen, machine gunners or signallers. 

 An anny fights with a force of specialists 

 ranging from artists to automatic-screw oper- 

 ator, bacteriologist to butcher, cargador to 

 cupola tender, detective to dog trainer. The 

 Committee on Classification of Personnel had 

 to fill such orders for man power as : 



One hundred and five artists, scene painters, 

 architects, etc., for camoufiage work for the 

 Engineer Corps. 



Three thousand typists, needed at once. 



Forty-five enlisted men capable of leadership 

 who are competent in the distribution and 

 handling of oils and gasolines, fit to receive 

 commissions in the Quartermaster Corps. 



Professors of mathematics equipped to 

 teach in the Field Artillery schools. 



Meteorologists and physicists able to learn 

 quickly to make meteorological observations 

 and predictions. 



Six hundred chauffeurs who speak French. 



Electric crane operators. 



In August, 1918, nearly four hundred such 

 requisitions calling for over two hundred thou- 

 sand men were filled. They had to be filled 

 promptly in almost every case, and each had to 

 be filled so as to leave the best possible ma- 

 terial to fill every other requisition. ' 



From one point of view this work was simply 

 that of an enormous and glorified employment 

 agency; and the scientists and business men 

 engaged in it would be content if they had 

 done nothing more than conduct an efficient 

 agency for supplying to the army the skill it 

 needed, when and where it needed it. From 

 another point of view the work was a continu- 

 ous study of human nature and application of 

 scientific management. 



I In connection with the inventory of each 

 man's abilities, tests to measure proficiency in 

 each of about a hundred trades were devised, 

 in the eight months from March, 1918. By 

 the end of October these tests were in regular 



