510 RECORDS 



rank as when freshmen, thus indicating a general advancement 

 of the group during college, life. In correlations it appeared 

 that logical memory and length of head are related character- 

 istics, but length of head also correlates with lung capacity and 

 strength of hand. The work has not gone far enough to say 

 which of these has the most weight. Attempts to correlate re- 

 action time and the other tests of quickness gave no results. 



Dr. Thorndike presented the results of certain experiments on 

 the Effects of Special Training on General Ability. These 

 experiments were performed jointly by Drs. Woodworth and 

 Thorndike. The results of a number of experiments show that 

 when any mental function is trained in connection with certain 

 data, the improvement is not of the function in general. If dif- 

 ferent data are used there will be less or even no improvement 

 shown. The general theory that the mind equals a number of 

 special abilities, independent to a degree hitherto unsuspected, 

 was supported further by the great variability in our judgments 

 of slightly differing magnitudes. 



The fourth paper was on the Movements of Writing. These 

 movements were analyzed by means of tracers attached to the 

 hand, back of the fingers, and to the arm, back of the wrist. 

 The written words give the sum of all the movements of arm, 

 hand, and fingers. The hand tracer gives only arm and hand 

 movements, omitting finger movements. The arm tracer shows 

 arm movements only. The general result of this analysis shows 

 that the arm carries the hand forward and participates only to 

 a very small degree in the formation of the letters and words. 

 The gross movements, especially those which are upward and 

 forward, in the formation of the letters, are performed by the 

 hand. All the finer curv^es and more delicate lines of the letters 

 are formed by the fingers. The muscular coordinations of the 

 different individuals tested, while differing greatly in detail char- 

 acteristics, all show this general type of movement. No results 

 were presented from subjects who write naturally with a full 

 arm movement. 



Charles H. Judd, 



Seo'etary. 



