ork. Sometimes this diversity of
opinion is the result of different points of view. In one factory in
which a certain industrial operation is rather dangerous, they told me
that they took no southern Europeans, especially no Italians and
Greeks, because they are too hasty and careless in their movements,
while they gladly filled the places with Irishmen. In a quite similar
factory, on the other hand, they had a prejudice against the Irishmen
alone for this work, because the Irish laborers are too willing to run
a risk and to expose themselves to danger. Probably both
psychological observations are on the whole correct, but in the first
factory only the one and in the second factory only the other was
recognized. Much more thorough statistical inquiries than those which
as yet exist, especially as to the actual differences of wages and
piecework for wage-earners of various nationalities, would have to
furnish a basis for such race psychological statements, until the time
arrives when the psychological experiment comes to its own.

In a similar way so far we have to rely on general theories of group
psychology when the psychological differences of the sexes are to be
reckoned with in economic interests. So long as laboratory methods for
individual tests are not usual, the mental analysis of the general
groups of men and women must form the background for industrial
decisions. To be sure, it is not difficult to emphasize certain mental
traits as characteristic of women in general in contrast to men in
general, and to relate them to certain fundamental tendencies of their
psychophysical organism. As soon as this is done, it is easy
theoretically to deduce that certain industrial functions are
excellently adapted to the minds of women and that certain others
stand in striking antagonism to them. If the employment of large
numbers is in question, and average values alone are involved, such a
decision on the basis of group psychology may be adequate. In most
factories this vague sex psychology, to be sure, usually with a strong
admixture of wage questions, suggests for which machines men and for
which women ought to be employed. But here again it is not at all
improbable that in the case of a particular woman the traditional
group value may be entirely misleading and the personality accordingly
unfit for the place. Only the subtle psychological individual analysis
can overcome the superficial prejudices of group psychology. Th