ized by many more
or less important collisions or other accidents. Finally, we had men
whose activity as motormen was neither especially good nor especially
bad.

The test of the method lies first in the fact that the tried motormen
agreed that they really pass through the experiment with the feeling
which they have on their car. The necessity of looking out in both
directions, right and left, for possible obstacles, of distinguishing
those which move toward the track from the many which move along the
track, the quick discrimination among the various rates of rapidity,
the steady forward movement of the observation point, the constant
temptation to give attention to those which are still too far away or
to those which are so near that they will cross the track before the
approach of the car, in short, the whole complex situation with its
demands on attention, imagination, and quick adjustment, soon brings
them into an attitude which they themselves feel as identical with
that in practical life. On the other hand, the results show a
far-reaching correspondence between efficiency in the experiment and
efficiency in the actual service. With a relatively small number of
experiments this correspondence cannot be expected to be complete, the
more as a large number of secondary features must enter which
interfere with an exact correlation between experiment and standing in
the railway company. We must consider, for instance, that those men
whom the company naturally selects as models are men who have had
twenty to thirty years of service without accidents, but consequently
they are rather old men, who no longer have the elasticity of youth
and are naturally less able to think themselves into an artificial
situation like that of such an experiment, and who have been for a
long time removed from contact with book work. It is therefore not
surprising, but only to be expected, that such older, model men, while
doing fair work in the test, are yet not seldom far surpassed by
bright, quick, young motormen who are twenty years younger, even
though they are not yet ideal motormen. Moreover, the standing in the
company often depends upon features which have nothing to do with the
mental make-up of the man, while the experiment has to be confined to
these mental conditions which favor accidents. It is quite possible
that a man may happen to experience a slight collision, even though no
conditions for the accident were lying in his men