inant category of the feminine (or
of the privy feminine) mind, is valid, with proper reservations."

[Sidenote: _Measuring Speed of Thought_]

Another method of testing speed of thought is to pronounce a series
of words and after each word have the subject speak the first word
that comes to him. The answers are taken down and are timed with a
stop-watch. About the quickest answers by an alert person will be made
in one second, or one and one-fifth seconds, while most persons take
from one and three-fifths to two and three-fifths seconds to answer,
under the most favorable circumstances. Puzzling words or conflicting
emotions will prolong this time to five and ten seconds in many
cases. Much depends upon the kind of words propounded to the subject,
starting with such simple words as "hat" and "coat," and changing to
words that tend to arouse emotion. A list of words may be carefully
selected to fit the requirements of different classes of subjects.

[Sidenote: _Range of Mental Tests_]

By appropriate tests, the quickness of response to sense-impressions,
the character of the associations of ideas, the workings of the
individual imagination, the nature of the emotional tendencies, the
character and scope of the powers of attention and discrimination, the
degree of persistence of the individual and his susceptibility to
fatigue in certain forms of effort, the visual, auditory and manual
skill, and even the moral character of the subject, can be more or
less clearly and definitely determined.

[Illustration: TESTING SHARPNESS OF HEARING WITH ACOUMETER. PRIVATE
LABORATORY, SOCIETY OF APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY]

It is possible by these tests to distinguish individual differences
in thought processes as conditioned by age, sex, training, physical
condition, and so on, to analyze the comparative mental efficiency of
the worker at different periods in the day's work as affected by long
hours of application, by monotony and variety of occupation and the
like, and even to reveal obscure mental tendencies and to disclose
motives or information that are being intentionally concealed.

[Sidenote: _Tests for Army and Navy_]

Among the simplest of such tests are those for vision, hearing and
color discrimination. Tests of this kind are now given to all
applicants for enlistment in the army, the navy and the marine corps,
and more exacting tests of the same sort are given to candidates for
licenses as pilots and for positions as offi