tion of attention, imagination and
intelligence, will and memory, which is essential for that special
kind of labor. We may be able to reconstruct the conditions so
completely that we would feel justified in predicting whether the
individual can fulfill that technical task or not; and yet we may
disregard entirely the question whether that man is honest or
dishonest, whether he is pacific or quarrelsome; in short, whether his
mental disposition makes him a desirable member of that industrial
concern under other aspects.

We best recognize the significance of these various methods by
selecting a few concrete cases as illustrations and analyzing them in
detail. But a word of warning may be given beforehand so as to avoid
misunderstandings. These examples do not stand here as reports of
completed investigations, the results of which ought to be accepted as
conclusive parts of the new psychotechnical science; they are not
presented as if the results were to be recommended like a well-tested
machine for practical purposes. Such really completed investigations
do not as yet exist in this field. All that can be offered is modest
pioneer work, and just these inquiries into the mental qualities and
their relations to the industrial vocations have attracted my
attention only very recently, and therefore certainly still demand
long continuations of the experiments in every direction. But we may
hope for satisfactory results the earlier, the more cooeperators are
entering the field, and the more such researches are started in other
places and in other institutions. I therefore offer these early
reports at the first stage of my research merely as stimulations, so
as to demonstrate the possibilities.

As an illustration of the method of examining the mental process as a
whole, I propose to discuss the case of the motormen in the electric
railways. As an illustration of the other type, namely, of analyzing
the activity and testing the elementary functions, I shall discuss the
case of the employees in the telephone service. I select these two
functions, as both play a practically important role in the technique
of modern economic life and as in both occupations very large numbers
of individuals are engaged in the work.

VIII

EXPERIMENTS IN THE INTEREST OF ELECTRIC RAILWAY SERVICE

The problem of securing fit motormen for the electric railways was
brought to my attention from without. The accidents which occurred
through