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partment of the army through the National Research Council. This was rendered possible by the breadth of view, faith, and optimism of Colonel Victor C. Vaughan, Colonel William H. Welch, and Surgeon General William C. Gorgas. The second important contact, made a little later, was with the Adjutant General of the Army. This was due to the insight and energy, as well as the faith and enterprise, of Colonel W. D. Scott, Doctor E. L. Thorndike, Mr. F. W. Keppel, later Third Assistant Secretary of War, Secretary of War Baker and General McCain. Almost simultaneously relations were established with the navy through the National Research Council which enabled Doctor, subsequently Lieutenant Commander, Raymond Dodge to serve that branch of the military organization to excellent advantage over a period of nearly two years.

Thus during July, August, and September of 1917 the psychological war organization of the country was transformed into an effective military organization. It is true that psychologists were used both in the Medical Department of the army and in the office of the Adjutant General as civilians, but in the majority of cases the active members of the profession were ultimately given military appointment either in the army or the navy.

Viewed in retrospect the three principal lines of psychological service are: psychological examining, conducted under the direction of the Surgeon General of the Army and affecting all arms of the military service; the classification of personnel in the army, conducted under the Adjutant General, and similarly affecting the entire army; and, finally, the study of special psychological problems in the army and the navy. The principal achievements of psychologists in the military service will be presented in the following chapter under these three heads.

It would be almost as unfair to the army and the navy as to the psychologists of the country to make it appear that the development of really important service in this entirely untried field of application was agreeably easy. Instead it was at many

times and in various directions almost impossible. A few lines of work progressed from the start smoothly, steadily, and even rapidly. Others, equally deserving of success, met obstacles which were either insurmountable or wasteful of precious time. In many instances there were discouraging disapprovals and heartbreaking delays, misunderstandings and opposition, which wasted time of officers who should have been engaged in increasing military efficiency.

As a fitting introduction to the chapter on achievements a brief statement may be made concerning the psychological personnel for the three principal lines of service which have been mentioned.

For psychological examining, the War Department first authorized a preliminary trial of methods. In order to make this preliminary experiment about thirty well trained psychologists were given either military appointment in the Sanitary Corps or civilian appointment to work in National Army cantonments or in the office of the Surgeon General of the Army. After this preliminary work had satisfactorily demonstrated the practical value of results, psychological examining was rapidly extended to the entire army. For this purpose a large number of military psychologists were needed. A school for military psychology was promptly established at the Medical Officers' Training Camp, Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, where properly qualified psychologists might be given intensive training in military drill as well as in army methods of psychological examining. During the existence of this school approximately one hundred officers and more than three hundred enlisted men were trained. At least two hundred of these may fairly be listed as professional psychologists. Many of these men served in the army either as civilian appointees or as soldiers for from one to two years. By some they have been stigmatized as "non-combatants" and have been subjected to the unfair criticism of choosing a safe service. It is only just to point out that a considerable number of the psychologists of the country preferred combatant service and were kept from such

service only by the insistence of administrative authorities that their professional services were incalculably more important to the army than their possible help as combatants.

The committee on Classification of Personnel in the army likewise organized special schools in which large numbers of personnel adjutants were trained and subsequently men for the conduct of trades tests.

Although psychological work received a large amount of unsought publicity during the war and many points of method were thus brought to the attention of lay readers, it may not be amiss to describe very briefly the principal methods of classification which were used by psychologists.

When a man is sent to a military training camp he has already passed the preliminary draft examination, but before he can qualify as a soldier he must also pass a rigid medical examination. Assuming that he qualifies on the basis of medical examination, the following additional information about him is necessary if the army is to assign him intelligently and use him to advantage. There is, first, measurement of his mental alertness or intelligence. This is supplied by the psychological examination. Second, the determination, by personal interview or by actual measurement, of the man's occupational training, experience, and proficiency. Assignment should always take into account physique, degree of intelligence, and occupational value, for the army is an extremely complex social organization which has need of almost all of the common occupations engaged in by civilized man, and, in varying proportions, of all of the grades of intelligence and degrees of physical development and endurance which men possess.

If the best possible use is to be made of an individual in the army, and for that matter anywhere else in society, he must be placed where his physical qualifications can be used effectively, where his intelligence is adequate but not wasted, and where his special occupational training and experience are needed. To put a well educated, highly intelligent young fellow who is gifted with the power of leadership into the ranks

to serve as a private is inexcusably wasteful, and, on the other hand, to commission as an officer a man of meager education, less than average intelligence, and mediocre ability as a leader is a criminal blunder.

The army needed (and it was quick to recognize the need), these several sorts of information about each man. It needed also the sort of machinery which would make use of this information in assigning and training men. The ideal course of things toward which events moved rapidly during the progress of the war ran somewhat as follows: There was, first, reliable rating of a man and resulting classification in accordance with physical characteristics, mental ability, and occupation. In the light of this information he was assigned to his place in the military machine. He was then, if things fell out properly, suitably and efficiently trained and instructed in the duties of a soldier. Subsequently he was skilfully controlled and directed, inspiringly led and heartened in the day's work, and technically as well as socially supported both in the drudgery of drill and in the demands of action.

The theory of psychological service was that human factors should be appreciated, measured, and intelligently used, that so far as feasible chance, personal whim or bias, and convention should be replaced by action in the light of reasonably accurate and thorough information. In a word, that the army should utilize what may be called "human engineering," just as it attempts to utilize other forms of engineering which have to do primarily with non-living things.

Methods of psychological examining suitable for use in the army were not available at the beginning of the war, but they were prepared speedily by a small group of experts in much the same fashion that the Liberty Motor was developed; that is, by intensive, highly coördinated work based upon the best information that could be assembled from all available sources. The group of psychologists charged with the development of methods promptly decided that it would be entirely too slow

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Figure 3. Testing the mechanical skill of soldiers by the Stenquist method

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