d out that he belongs to a group
in which these required mental traits habitually occur. Such a
judgment based on group psychology can of course be no more than a
mere approach to a solution of the problem, as the psychical qualities
may vary strongly in the midst of the group. The special individual
may happen to stand at the extreme limit of the group, and the traits
which are usually characteristic of it may be very little developed or
entirely lacking in his special case. We may know that the inhabitants
of a special country are rather alert, and yet the particular
individual with whom we have to deal may be clumsy and phlegmatic. The
interests of economy will, therefore, be served by such considerations
of group psychology only if the employment, not of a single person,
but of a large number, is in question, as it is most probable that the
average character will show itself in a sufficient degree as soon as
many members of the group are involved.

Even in this case the presupposition ought to be that the average
characteristics found out with scientific exactitude by statistical
and experimental methods, and not that they are simply deduced from
superficial impressions. I have found that just this race
psychological diagnosis is frequently made in factories with great
superficiality. Some of the American industrial centres offer
extremely favorable conditions for the comparative study of
nationality. I have visited many manufacturing establishments in which
almost all workers are immigrants from foreign countries and in which
up to twenty different nationalities are represented. The employment
officers there easily develop some psychological theories on the
basis of which they are convinced that they are selecting the men with
especial skill, knowing for each in which department he will be most
successful. They consider it settled that for a particular kind of
activity the Italians are the best, and for another, the Irish, and
for a third, the Hungarians, and for a fourth, the Russian Jews. But
as soon as these factory secrets have been revealed, you may be
surprised to find that in the next factory a decidedly different
classification of the wage-earners is in force. In a gigantic
manufacturing concern, I received the definite information that the
Swedish laborers are preferable wherever a steady eye is needed, and
in another large factory on the same street I was assured that just
the Swedes are unfit for such w