Janoaet 17, 1919] 



SCIENCE 



57 



operation in twenty-one cantonments, and 

 about 125,000 men had been tested. Their 

 operation made it sure that a man said to be a 

 journeyman ship-carpenter really could do the 

 work of a journeyman ship-carpenter if he was 

 to be sent to the Emergency Fleet Corpora- 

 tion as such; that a man said to be a skilled 

 truck-driver really could drive a truck as re- 

 quired in war-work, if he was to be sent to 

 Trance for that work; that in general each 

 man's statements and reported career were 

 cheeked by objective test and measurement. 



These trade tests were devised to fit the 

 needs of the army in the war emergency and 

 did so. They would need modification and ex- 

 tension to meet the needs of employers, labor 

 unions, civil-service examining boards and the 

 like. But the principles and methods accord- 

 ing to which they were made have been fully 

 justified. To the question " How well does in- 

 dividual A know trade I?" we can obtain a 

 definite quantitative answer and can reduce its 

 probable error to harmless dimensions. Just 

 as we framed standard, workable, convenient, 

 inexpensive, objective instruments to make 

 sure that men assigned to certain work in the 

 army could do that work satisfactorily, so we 

 could upon order frame instruments which 

 labor unions or civil service boards could use 

 as admission examinations, which economists 

 or business men could use in investigations of 

 wages and production, or which a local sur- 

 vey could use in an intimate study of the total 

 life of a community. 



With respect to this inventory of man- 

 power and organized effort to put the right 

 man in the right place, it is probably no ex- 

 aggeration to say that every thoughtful per- 

 son who became well acquainted with its 

 operation wished that it might be to some ex- 

 tent continued in peace time. " Why," we 

 have been asked, " could not a progressive state 

 inventory all its man power and plan for using 

 it wisely for the purposes of peace?" 



The special dLfiBculties caused by geograph- 

 ical distribution and migration could probably 

 be overcome, at least in certain of our states. 

 The cooperation necessary from all citizens 

 might be obtained. A system adequate for re- 



cording in usable form the essential facts for 

 a state's entire population might be less ex- 

 pensive and quicker in action than would have 

 been expected to be the case before the army 

 methods were worked out. 



An even greater difficulty lies in the fact 

 that we lack laws, customs and experience con- 

 cerning the use of such information; and it 

 is hard to see just how efficient use of it to 

 answer reasonable queries by federal and state 

 bureaus, chambers of commerce, labor unions, 

 boards of education and other reputable or- 

 ganizations could be encouraged and im- 

 proper uses by futile or even disreputable con- 

 cerns could be avoided. If a state coxdd be 

 sure that the information would be used by the 

 right persons in the right way, it might there- 

 fore reasonably consider trying to make and 

 maintain such an individualized inventory of 

 its man power. 



ANALYTIC WORK 



What is called, for lack of a better term, 

 analytical personnel work, is more or less 

 clearly distinguished from the mass work so 

 far described in several ways. It affects fewer 

 individuals; it affects them in more specialized 

 ways; it depends more upon insight and ex- 

 periment to learn what to do and less upon 

 executive energy and organization for doing 

 it. To such work many men have contributed, 

 and I can only illustrate it. 



Early in the war, the problem of selecting 

 from a given number of men those best fitted 

 for rapid training as gun pointers on ship- 

 board was referred to the Subcommittee on the 

 Psychology of Special Abilities, and at their 

 request referred to Dr. Raymond Dodge. He 

 studied the task of the gun-trainer and pointer, 

 the situations and responses involved, the 

 methods of testing their ability then in use, the 

 men from whom selections would be made, and 

 the practical conditions which any system of 

 selection for this work must meet. He had 

 the problem of imitating the apparent move- 

 ments of the target which are caused by the 

 rolling and pitching of the gun-platform as a 

 distant object would appear to a gun-<pointer 

 on a destroyer, a battleship or an armed mer- 



