THE CONSULTING PSYCHOLOGIST 285 



(2) education, (3) technical arts, crafts and professions, and (4) 

 eugenics. This classification is not all-inclusive nor are the divisions 

 mutually exclusive, but some such divisions may be helpful in blazing 

 the trail. 



The first division embraces all institutions for those who deviate 

 from the normal condition of mind; such as insane asylums, schools 

 for the sensory defective, institutions for moral delinquents, homes for 

 the feeble-minded, epileptic colonies, the provision for the abnormally 

 retarded and mentally defective in the public schools, and special 

 schools, clinics, foundations, laboratories or retreats for the study and 

 treatment of mental deviation. As the physician is at present more in 

 demand for the curing of disease than for preventive measures, so the 

 psychologist's first mission will be to the mentally suffering. The 

 alienist will share his duties with the consulting psychologist; the 

 superintendent of the charitable institutions will be guided by his ad- 

 vice to a large extent in organization and management of institutions ; 

 the segregation of mentally defective pupils in the public schools will be 

 under his supervision ; and, in the special institutions for the investiga- 

 tion of mental troubles the psychologist will, of course, be the central 

 figure. 



The second division embraces the vast field of applied psychology 

 in the organization and administration of the education of normal 

 individuals. This does not refer to the work of the professor of edu- 

 cational psychology, nor to the psychologically trained superintendents, 

 principals or teachers, but to the experts who are available for con- 

 sultation work only. The consulting psychologist will be found in the 

 research laboratory of educational psychology, in the research laboratory 

 of other educational agencies, in the office of the city board of education 

 (or in the superintendent's office), in the office of the state superintend- 

 ent of public instruction, and in the national bureau of education. We 

 have recently heard the assertion that the railroads of a certain section of 

 the country could save a million dollars a day by scientific management ; 

 but it would be less hazardous to say that the patrons of the public school 

 system of the country could save a million dollars a day by the introduc- 

 tion of psychologically scientific management of instruction. The prin- 

 ciple is the same, and the one measure is as tangible as the other; neither 

 has been solved and neither is the task of a day ; both are progressive meas- 

 ures. The first thing essential is that the administration shall have 

 faith in the aim and effort of the expert; and second, that the expert 

 shall be willing and able to make good. Both are in sight. If the 

 money now paid to authors of children's first books in reading were 

 paid to a group of experts for a dozen years some fundamental prin- 

 ciples of mental economy in learning to read might be worked out so 

 as to be of permanent guiding value to authors and teachers of primary 



