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THE CONDUCT OF MIND SERIES
EDITED BY
JOSEPH JASTROW
VOCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
VOCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
ITS PROBLEMS AND METHODS
BY
H. L. HOLLINGWORTH
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
WITH A CHAPTER ON
THE VOCATIONAL APTITUDES OF WOMEN
BY LETA STETTER HOLLINGWORTH, PH.D.
CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST, BELLEVUE HOSPITAL,
NEW YORK CITY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK LONDON
1922
COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
Printed in the United States of America
TO
THADDEUS L. BOLTON
FRIEND AND VOCATIONAL
COUNSELLOR OF YOUTH
* * * * *
_It is our business to make both a science and an art of human nature. As
in the physical world we select first the material suited to our purpose,
then turn the iron into steel and temper the steel for the knife, so in the
world of human action we must learn to select the right man, to educate him
and to fit him for his exact task. This indeed we try to do in all our
social institutions, religions, commerce, systems of education and
government. But we work by the rule of thumb--blind, deaf and wasteful. The
nineteenth century witnessed an extraordinary increase in our knowledge of
the material world and in our power to make it subservient to our ends; the
twentieth century will probably witness a corresponding increase in our
knowledge of human nature and in our power to use it for our welfare._--J.
MCKEEN CATTELL, "Homo Scientificus Americanus," _Science_, April 10, 1903.
PREFACE
This book has developed from the material presented in a course on
"Psychological Tests in Vocational Guidance and Selection" which the writer
was invited to conduct in Teachers' College, Columbia University. The
widespread interest in vocational psychology which has grown up in recent
years, the eagerness with which even the most superficial and absurd
systems of "character analysis" are being adopted and tried out, and
especially the lack of references, offering conservative evaluation, to
which inquirers may be directed, have made it seem advisable to publish the
material in systematic form. The book is essentially a presentation of the
problems and methods of that branch of applied psychology which deals with
individual differences in mental constitution. In the present instance only
those differences are considered which may seem to be significant in
determining the individual's choice of a vocation, or in influencing the
selection of workers from among a group of applicants or candidates. It is
the writer's hope that the book may be suggestive to the individual who
seeks to know himself better, helpful to the student and parent who may
desire to avoid the wiles of the charlatan, encouraging to the investigator
or counsellor who is engaged in carrying forward the solution of vocational
problems, and useful to the practical man who may be mainly interested in
surrounding himself with competent associates and employees. To all those
whose published works are referred to in the bibliography, as well as to
many not therein mentioned, the writer is under heavy obligations. He is
especially indebted to Professor F. G. Bonser, of Teachers' College, for
the original invitation to formulate the material, and to Professor Joseph
Jastrow, editor of the "Conduct of Mind" series, for most patient and
helpful editorial criticism and suggestion.
H. L. HOLLINGWORTH.
Columbia University.
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
For Text: A word surrounded by underscores like _this_ signifies the word
is italics in the text.
For Numbers and Equations: Parentheses have been added to clarify
fractions. Superscripts are designated with a caret and brackets, e.g.
11.1^{3} is 11.1 to the third power. Greek letters in equations are
translated to their English version.
Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes moved to the end of the
sections.
* * * * *
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I.--MOTIVES AND ANTECEDENTS OF VOCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 1
II.--THE SEARCH FOR PHRENOLOGICAL AND PHYSIOGNOMIC PRINCIPLES 21
III.--THE DEVELOPMENT OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS 57
IV.--THE PSYCHOGRAPHIC METHODS 80
V.--SPECIAL VOCATIONAL TESTS AND METHODS 109
VI.--SELF-ANALYSIS AND THE JUDGMENT OF ASSOCIATES 122
VII.--EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF SELF-ANALYSIS, ESTIMATES
OF ASSOCIATES AND THE RESULTS OF THE TESTS 143
VIII.--THE SCHOOL CURRICULUM AS A VOCATIONAL TEST 174
IX.--THE DETERMINANTS OF VOCATIONAL APTITUDE 208
X.--THE VOCATIONAL APTITUDES OF WOMEN 222
XI.--THEORY AND PRINCIPLE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS
AS APPLIED TO VOCATIONAL ANALYSIS 245
XII.--CONCLUSION 266
APPENDIX 275
TESTS, BLANKS, STANDARDS, FORMS 283
INDEX 303
INTRODUCTION
In the present volume Professor Hollingworth makes a distinctive and
notable contribution to applied psychology. The problem is an ancient one:
that of determining the qualities of men with reference to their fitness
for the work of the world. The general problem precedes the special one
alike in theory and in practice. The earliest solutions were in the nature
of ambitious attempts to read the ear-marks of mental ability in outward
signs; under the incentive of the growth of science these gave way to such
systems as phrenology and physiognomy. Such revelations, decisive if sound,
proved to be vain hopes or hopelessly irrelevant. The impressionistic
verdicts gained from actual experience reflected the cumulative acumen of
discernment which ever was and remains the issue of wisdom, empirical but
authentic. It furnishes suggestive clues to investigation and a check upon
its results. The problem came to its own when the modern science of
psychology gave it its setting in the rapid accumulation of knowledge and
technique for the interpretation of mental qualities. It at once
established the futility of ambitious leads and the necessity of careful,
patient and discerning analysis. The present volume surveys the field of
attained results and the method of their attainment, in this engaging
research.
Central in interest and promise stands the psychological test. In so far as
psychology has laid bare the fundamental qualities upon which achievement
depends, its application has developed a series of tests to determine how
the individual compares with the others or with the average in respect to
this, that, and the other constituent quality. Professor Hollingworth
presents the results of such analysis, both in relation to the variety of
human traits and in the grading of individuals by reference to the measure
of the quality which each possesses. The enumeration is at best
provisional, but in its totality cannot go far wrong in establishing the
measure of a man. It includes the qualities which can hardly be determined
otherwise than by an impressionistic judgment, as well as those appraised
by actual achievement under test. There results a mental scale of general
ability, adequate to gauge normality and to suggest practical standards of
superiority or deficiency.
The question at once arises: how far are the qualities desirable for this
or that vocation of a general order, and how far are they specific in their
demands. In this respect vocations differ widely. The musical vocation
exemplifies a specialized profession depending upon a proficiency that is
largely a dower of heredity; yet within this field the psychological test
has proved its efficiency by determining the still more specialized
facilities that jointly compose the psychology of the musician. In further
pursuit of insight the psychological laboratory has undertaken to analyze
the qualities needed for the several specialties of modern vocational life,
by setting up "test" counterparts of practical occupations, by reducing
them to their underlying facilities, by testing the correlation of quality
and achievement, and by combining the clues or verdicts of several methods.
Conclusions depend for their value upon logical caution and the technical
methods which have been developed to meet these applications. All this is
as yet but a program or a limited beginning in its execution; but it is a
program well founded in principle and already in part available in
practice.
A group of collateral interests supports the enterprise and yields valuable
results. The interest in unusual men has led to the psychograph or
psychological analysis of the qualities of great men, as an individual
study. Men fall into types, by temperament and achievement, by heredity and
career. The type makes definite the larger contours of human differences
and reveals their specific combination; the charm of biography is
psychological as well as historical. The vital import of
heredity--practically expressed in the eugenic movement--finds recognition
in the study of correlation of traits in those near of kin. Evolution leads
to prediction; early taste, talent, achievement, precocity foreshadow
ultimate capacity; we learn how far the child is father to the man, how far
we may see the future in the early expressions and with what limitations
the environment molds character. The most valued because most authentic
type of biography is autobiography. Self-analysis is intimate if
unreliable, but by this token worthy of study. Professor Hollingworth's
contribution to the measure of reliance to be placed upon one's judgment of
self in comparison with one's judgment of others and others' judgment of
him forms an interesting original study--one of many--incorporated in these
chapters.
Of distinctive status are the tests of ability presented by life itself and
by the conventional institutions which compose the social environment. The
processes of education, the rate of advance, the comparative readiness with
which one or another discipline is absorbed and mastered: these are at
once preparations for life and accredited tests of ability. For these
reasons such "school" qualities are subjected to a special study; and
fairly conclusive results indicate to what measure they must be
supplemented, if not superseded, by the designed psychological test, to
meet the conditions of actual selection and employment of men. At this
point the several methods converge; for the vocations have a vital interest
in the school, as has the school in vocational application of its
discipline and training. The actual comparison of results, especially by
the method of correlation, has already established the degree of
relation--and eventually of cooperation--to be expected of the two. In all
these ways has painstaking method supplemented and replaced impressionism,
haphazard opinion been supported or overturned by accumulation of fact, and
the scientific approach to the study of vocational fitness become firmly
established. The road from theory to practice, if it is to be well built
and enduring, must be laid on careful foundation. To such an end this
volume is a worthy contribution.
No question of vocational fitness has been more eagerly discussed than the
contrasted fitness of men and women, and the consequent basis of
differentiation of career desirable or necessary for the two, both as
wage-earners and in every other relation of life. A discussion of this
problem from the point of view of this volume is wisely included, and in
turn a definite negative conclusion reached. It is shown that in the main
capacities tested--with several and significant exceptions--men and women,
boys and girls, are comparable; individual differences outweigh sex
differences. The interpretation of this result will not be uniform, even
when due allowance is made for the range of tests responsible for the
conclusion. The biologist will continue to insist upon the significance of
fundamental differences; the experiences of life reinforce as they express
the fact that men and women live with as well as upon a different
perspective of psychological equipment; the psychologist may suggest that
the tests and comparisons--based in large measure upon comparable and
derivative facilities--naturally bring forth the parallel measure in which
secondary qualities yield similar issues. It must be noted how largely a
large share of conventional vocations call upon specialized and late
varieties of intellectual traits; for these precisely, men and women may
have comparable fitness, while none the less psychologically contrasted in
realms closer to natural function. Women have proved that they are as fit
to study--and, if you like, to vote--as are men; as fit to enter and
succeed in vocations in terms of tested qualifications. How far the less
measurable and collateral qualities make them fit and successful on a
different basis, and still leave them contrasted in fundamental reactions,
is a very different question. It is well to understand the bearing as well
as the range of the ascertained facts of the case.
The modern man and the modern woman live upon the upper ranges of their
qualities, and in no respect more momentously than in respect to those
qualities exercised and demanded by vocational fitness. In the biological
sense they are all highly specialized, refined, derivative, secondary
issues of qualities that had a limited scope in the primitive form of life
in which the race achieved its maturity and established its psychology. The
problem of civilization is to train these original traits of man to the
specific cherished purposes of the work of the world. The life of the mind
is as highly artificial as the life of the cities; for such is the
condition of the twentieth century. Yet the primitive man survives and
asserts his own; life is not all vocation. Social and industrial complexity
dominates the expressions of human psychology. To unite a comprehension of
their foundations with skill in applying their demands is the business of
the "applied" psychologist. The present contribution, it is hoped, will
prove a helpful aid to those who are striving to understand as well as to
those who must apply with what wisdom they command, the available resources
of human nature.
JOSEPH JASTROW.
VOCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
CHAPTER I
MOTIVES AND ANTECEDENTS OF VOCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
VOCATIONAL EFFORTS OF PRIMITIVE MAGIC
Among very primitive people we find the recognition already established
that the course of the individual's fortune depends on two distinct
factors: external forces and personal characteristics. Individuals similar
in type experience different fortunes because of the different external
events that attend their respective careers. Equally, individuals of
however diverse characteristics suffer the same fortunes at the hands of
some common or identical external occurrence. Two combatants of equal skill
and valor are rendered unequal by a defective lance; two runners equally
swift are made unequal by a pebble in the path; a vigorous babe fails to
mature properly because of pestilence, war, or famine. On the other hand,
both old and young, weak and strong, stupid and cunning, are alike reduced
to helplessness in the face of flood, earthquake, and forest fire.
Primitive thinking, in its attempts to control the course of personal
fortune, thus had its attention directed to two groups of factors, each of
which it sought to control by such means as it could at the moment devise.
A very early stage of such thinking took the form of the belief that
_desire_ could impress itself on the course of physical events and also on
the development of personal characteristics. The expression of desire,
either of the individual immediately concerned or of others more remotely
involved, was consequently invoked and declared in more or less emphatic
and overt form as a determining factor in personal fortune. In many cases
this expression was given some indirect or symbolic form, as in gesture,
ritual, tableau, masquerade, and imitative portrayal.
On the side of physical factors this attempt took the form of crude magic,
adjuration, sacrifice, and incantation, all of which were calculated to
dispose the physical elements favorably toward the individual concerned in
the ceremonials. Crude ritual observances and ceremonies, such as
sacrifice, mimicry, and tableau, were believed to influence in some occult
way the growth of crops, the changes in weather, the health of enemies,
the movements of game, the supply of fish, etc. A typical fishing
expedition among the natives of the Caroline Islands aptly illustrates this
point of view. The chief official is not an expert boatman nor a fisher,
but the medicine man of the tribe. He owes his authority not to his
knowledge of the habits and haunts of fish, but to his store of
incantations and exorcisms. Various rites are conducted before embarking.
The fishermen must leave the island without speaking; and especially, the
purpose of the expedition must not be mentioned aloud. A "luck" formula is
pronounced over the boat. Sacrifices of special foods are offered, lest the
lines be broken by sharks or tangled in the rocks. In Mexico, an elaborate
pantomime, representing the harvesting of crops, was staged annually at a
religious festival. This was believed sufficient to produce the good crops
which were desired for the next season. Special dances were performed by
persons representing the various vegetables which were particularly
coveted.
Among primitive races in almost every part of the world one finds magical
properties attributed to a sort of toy which anthropologists call the "bull
roarer." It consists merely of a flat stick, attached to the end of a cord.
When whirled around it produces a roaring or humming sound which easily
reminds one of the rumble of wind, the roll of thunder, or the distant cry
of an animal. In various quarters this instrument is used in a ceremonial
way. Since its sound resembles thunder, it is used as a charm against that
form of physical violence. Because of its resemblance to both thunder and
wind, it is incorporated in elaborate rain-making mysteries. Sometimes it
is used to drive or call wild or domesticated animals, and hence comes to
be used as a means of bringing luck to hunters. Figures and emblems, carved
on the slab of wood, are supposed to specify the particular kind of luck or
fortune which the individual seeks.
On the side of personal characteristics the same endeavor took the form of
blessings, incantations, dedications, curses, prayers and petitions, the
wearing of symbolic charms and the submission of the infant or youth to a
variety of prenatal and childhood experiences and ceremonials. Thus it is
believed that by appropriating a dead man's spear and thereby expressing a
desire for his skill and valor, these traits of character will pass to the
new owner. Boys are tossed into the air to make them grow tall, and rubbed
with crystals and snake-skins to make them clever and intrepid medicine
men. By scratching lifelike sketches of bison, deer, and fish on rocks,
walls, and weapons, the savage hunter sought to acquire otherwise
unattainable adroitness and success. "Disease or death may be produced by
operating on the cuttings of a person's hair, the parings of his nails, or
the remains of his food, when the person himself is far away. By wearing
tiger's teeth a man may make himself brave and fierce." By drinking the
blood of bulls he may become stalwart and powerful. The Ojibway Indian, in
order to hurt his enemy and thus further his own interests, makes a small
image of him and pierces it with a needle in the faith that the enemy will
suffer. In order to terminate the latter's career he burns or buries the
effigy, uttering magic words as he does so.
Remnants of this primitive magic still persist in the "psychological
underworld," and many an old-wives' practice and incantation is in various
quarters still believed or professed to further the course of the
individual's fortune, or to jeopardize it, by rendering natural forces more
benign or malignant, or by exerting some occult molding influence on the
infantile abilities and propensities. Thus it is not at all uncommon, even
in these days, for children to be dedicated at birth to the ministry, the
missionary field, the service of the king, or to some particular cause or
propaganda. A woman of the writer's acquaintance, solicitous for the future
welfare of her babe, read solid and serious books during gestation in order
to balance the emotional influences due to her absorption in music teaching
during that period. Many practices of the most superstitious kind are
resorted to in order to predetermine the sex, and hence the vocational
prospects, of children yet unborn. Reliance on prayer as an effective agent
in changing the course of events or the disposition and habits of some
other individual is by no means confined to savages. Petitions that a
neighbor may lose his appetite for drink, recover his lost eyesight, or
find his wallet are as current in modern times as are official days of
prayer for rain. Seeking to influence public opinion by the passing of
formal resolutions, and modifying character, curing diseases and prolonging
life through "absent treatment," the laying on of hands, the contemplation
of relics, visitation of shrines, and concerted supplication, are practices
which find high warrant in contemporary life. The essential idea behind all
these practices seems to be the simple faith that nothing will interfere
with the realization of desire, if only that desire is indicated by a
method which has official or traditional sanction. The true nature of
cause and effect and the conception of natural law are not yet realized on
this level of thought.
THE PRACTICES OF MEDIEVAL CLAIRVOYANCE
A more advanced stage in the development of such thinking is indicated by
the recognition that both the series of physical events and the individual
endowment follow laws which transcend the personal desires of men. Nature
comes to be recognized as a system of facts and connections. Both control
and foresight henceforth seek to base themselves on the utilization of
these stable laws and relationships. Instead of willing the individual's
fortune to be thus and so, there is an earnest endeavor to seek for signs
and clues of what that fortune is inevitably destined to be. Fortune-making
becomes fortune-telling. The accidents and accompaniments of birth, the
momentary positions of the planets, the calendar incidents, the hour or day
of birth, the local meteorological conditions, birth-marks, stigmata,
physiognomic and anthropometric characteristics, the folds of the flesh,
the lines of the hand, the mode of birth: every fact that can participate
in a relation of coincidence with the birth of the individual is selected
as a sign of some future state of affairs, desirable or untoward, in the
fortune of the individual, of his personal, domestic and occupational
career.
Thus, in a recently published guide to character analysis based on ancient
astrological pretensions, the following characteristics are asserted to
belong to those who are born in the month of February:
"Those born in this month are very intuitive and good judges of character
and human nature. They are successes in mercantile interests and
enterprises. It is said that the best wives are born in this month, being
always faithful and devoted. Great sincerity and power are possible for
those born in this month. They rise to great heights and on the other hand
are inclined to sink to the lowest depths. At times they are inclined to be
melancholy, a tendency which they may overcome.
"Most February persons have good taste, are quick at absorbing information,
and intuitive. One of their great faults is that they are inclined to be
intolerant and cannot make themselves think from another's point of view.
"Their most common diseases are of the nervous and rheumatic orders. They
should guard their actions on the ninth and sixteenth day of each month.
Luck day, Saturday. Favorite colors, all shades of blue, pink, and Nile
green. Lucky stones, sapphire, opal, or turquoise. Lucky numbers, 5 and 7.
They will excel in music and art, and should marry with those born in
October, January, or June."
Hardly less common than faith in the horoscope is belief in the detailed
prophecies of palmistry. The following is a direct reproduction of
paragraphs from a well-known metropolitan American newspaper, of the year
1915 (A. D.), headed, "What Your Fingers Mean:"
"Shorter palm and longer fingers, these show an aptitude for doing small
things well. Their owners analyze everything, are supersensitive over
trifles, often feeling unintentional slights. When these fingers are slim,
as well as longer than the palm, they give to one the quality of diplomacy.
Card sharps and gamblers have these long, slim, smooth fingers. The
average-length fingers with an ordinary-sized palm show a well-balanced
mind, with a thoroughly commonplace nature. When long fingers (with shorter
palm) are knotted at the joints we find an extreme love for the minor parts
of construction, whether it be in the building of a bridge or the endless
tasks pertaining to a kitchen."
The same thing happens in the case of the individual's own acts. Every
petty move and caper is taken to be significant of his future disposition,
powers, or achievements. The first word the child utters, the first object
for which he reaches, the animal he first imitates, the form of his
earliest play activities, nothing that can be identified and described but
comes to possess, in someone's mind, some peculiar significance and
prognostic value. "Homely in the cradle, lovely at the table," is an
oft-quoted maxim among hopeful mothers. "Happy is the bride that the sun
shines on," has doubtless served to postpone more than one nuptial
ceremony, and being "born under an unlucky star" has equally often afforded
a certain consolation for personal awkwardness. A father of the writer's
acquaintance believed his boy destined to follow the career of a druggist
or pharmacologist, because, as a child, "he was so fond of playing with
bottles and of pouring water from one into the other." Any lack of
submissive devotion to a rubber doll is calculated to fill the parent's
heart with apprehension and dire forebodings for the domestic peace of his
daughter. War-babies and infants born on the high seas are envied for their
romantic prospects. Illegitimate children are expected to be idiotic or
else to be especially gifted with some poetic form of talent.
Belief in vocational magic and clairvoyance is clearly not entirely
confined to medieval days. Nor is it true that such instances as those just
cited arise only as material for frivolous conversations or as journalistic
space-fillers in a dearth of more serious copy. So firmly are these
superstitions established among large classes of people that special
legislation is required to prevent their exploitation at the hands of
crafty fakers. The fortune-teller is far from being a romantic and
vestigial institution; and the type of prophecy which medieval clairvoyance
represents continues to provide many with a substitute for more rigorous
and less exciting inquiry.
MODERN PERIOD OF GUIDANCE AND SELECTION
However, as knowledge develops, a third stage is reached, in which we may
be said to be moving, even though somewhat slowly, in our own scientific
and educational work. This stage is marked by relative inattention to the
series of physical events and by special emphasis on the original nature of
the individual and on changes wrought in that original nature through the
experiences of school life and other forms of educational process. The
conditions and environmental factors of life have become so plastic that
individuals can fairly easily find congenial environment and occupational
material near at home or far from it, if only they know for what
environment and material their natural powers are best adapted. Modern
life, whether in city or in country, has become so diversified and labor so
divided, that a small community affords the vocational variety which only a
few years ago was quite unfamiliar to it. Moreover, the various avenues of
communication, transportation and cooperation have become so elaborate that
workers in one part of a nation can with little difficulty profit by
activities and opportunities existing in distant places. Each branch of
industry, commerce and art, as well as each professional and occupational
activity, provides not only for a larger number of workers but for a
greater variety as well. There is thus a tendency for the individual at an
early point in his career, not only to adapt himself to an environment
already provided, but to a certain degree to select that environment for
which his abilities and interests seem best to fit him.
Attempts at controlling fortune, as now exercised, are neither magical nor
clairvoyant. They take the rational, selective form of fitting the
individual to the place for which his natural aptitudes best adapt him, so
far as these facts of adaptability are discoverable, and so far as the
environment is plastic or optional. This is at least the description of the
process in democratic conditions of society. In countries in which
hereditary aristocracy and caste systems still exist, the fortune of the
individual is determined to a considerable extent by his birthright, by the
occupation of his father, above all by sex--all dominated by tradition.
Within this field of guidance and selection, activity has developed rather
independently in two different directions. There has been on the one hand
the notion that all the individual needs for a satisfactory occupational
adjustment is knowledge of available opportunities, and appropriate
technical training for the occupation of his choice. This point of view is
seen in our own country in the popularizing of general education.
Under this conception general education, instead of being the prerogative
of the ruling or moneyed class, is urged as a common right, a social duty
and an economic necessity. Learning is not limited to those who expect to
enter the theological, medical, legal, or academic professions. A certain
amount of elementary school-knowledge, or at least of school-attendance,
comes to be required of every prospective worker. Even the feeble-minded
are labored with in the attempt to bring them up to their highest possible
academic level. Boys and girls alike are not only urged but compelled to
equip themselves with the knowledge of the elementary formal subjects; and
the community taxes itself to furnish the teachers, the books, and the
necessary physical paraphernalia. In this earlier form of educational
theory little effort is made to give immediate applicability to the
subject-matter of the curriculum. Classical studies with very little
relevance to contemporary life; dead languages, with only a feeble claim to
concrete serviceability; formal exercises in designing and constructing
useless bric-a-brac; trivial geographical, astronomical, anatomical, and
military details: these are the subject-matter of the "general education."
Back of their selection lies of course the doubtful conception that the
general powers or faculties of the student are thereby cultivated, and that
these may then be brought to bear effectively on any vocational activity
which may be chosen.
The subject-matter is selected, not because of its interest or its utility,
but mainly because of its difficulty and its formal character. Parental
compulsion, vague social tendencies and impulses, petty personal
rivalries, fondness for the teacher, and general cultural aspiration are
relied on to facilitate the work of administration and to provide
incentive. The "life-career" motive is but little utilized, and tends on
the whole to be discouraged as sordid and commercial. But it is
nevertheless believed that the grammatical, geographical, historical, and
arithmetical elements will in the long run enable the pupil not only to
enjoy life but to find it as well, or at least to be of the greatest
possible service in the work into which he or she drifts. Only in the case
of those who are utterly incompetent to deal with the general
subject-matter, the feeble-minded, the blind, and the deaf, is this formal
education willingly abandoned in favor of some definitely serviceable
"industrial" training.
THE METHODS OF INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION
Quickly following this effort of the public schools to guide every boy and
a few girls into successful careers through general education, came the
realization that literary, linguistic, and mathematical information alone
is inadequate to this task. It was felt by many that industrial or
vocational education, calculated to fit the individual directly for his or
her life occupation, should be begun at a much earlier age than that at
which the group choosing the professions entered upon their further studies
in the higher technical schools. It became obvious that many pupils
terminated their public-school education as soon as they had satisfied the
minimal requirements of the compulsory education law. These engaged at the
earliest possible opportunity in some immediately gainful occupation. The
occupations into which they commonly drifted were such as called for only a
slight amount of intelligence and promised proportionately little by way of
further equipment or promotion. They have come to be called "blind alley"
occupations, and refer to such work as that of errand boys, elevator and
telephone operators, small clerks, domestic servants, nursemaids,
messengers, delivery boys, and teamsters.
Meanwhile those who had continued in school and completed the high-school
curriculum emerged without special vocational fitness, and even without any
knowledge of the vocational possibilities of their age and locality. The
further development of vocational and industrial education of special sorts
was then supplemented by general instruction in the vocational
opportunities available. Vocational surveys were initiated for the purpose
of acquiring information which could be placed in the hands of pupils and
of those in charge of their training. These surveys made systematic inquiry
into the vocational opportunities afforded to young people by the
industries and enterprises of the vicinity. The assistance of employers was
sought in the effort to learn the requirements of the various types of
work; the nature of the labor involved; the wages; the general conditions,
such as healthfulness, danger, companionship, and instruction; the rate of
promotion; the prospect of future advancement. Such information has in many
cases been published in pamphlets and bulletins and thus made accessible to
teachers, pupils, and parents.
Along with this tendency went the attempt to give the pupil some first-hand
knowledge of and immediate experience with the materials, implements, and
products of the various industries from among which he or she might be
expected to choose after leaving the school. This has been a difficult step
to bring about, partly because of the various technical and administrative
difficulties which it involved. Occasional hasty visits to mills,
factories, stores, shops, offices, laboratories, and similar busy places
give the pupil but a superficial notion of the actual work of the
operations there observed. More extended and intensive observation, on the
other hand, with perhaps an actual trial at the work, means a corresponding
limitation of the range of institutions inspected. Talks by managers and
foremen are likely to give only a dramatized view of the facts. School
industries, on the other hand, cannot easily be organized and conducted in
a manner technically complete and industrially representative. The result
has been a growing tendency to push the vocational training further and
further back into the earlier years of the curriculum, thus displacing much
of the purely formal subject-matter. With this change have come various
experiments in study-practice methods, in which part of the day or term is
spent at the general academic work, and part in actual service in a
tentatively chosen form of industrial or commercial activity.
In this movement but little recognition was given to the psychological
differences and peculiarities of the individuals concerned. Knowledge of
personal aptitudes and capacities, interests, and satisfactions, was more
or less taken for granted in each case, or at least left to develop in its
own way. It was assumed either that any individual could satisfactorily
pursue any vocation in which he might become interested, or else that
industrial and vocational information alone was needed in order to enable
the individual to make a suitable choice. Nor was there any doubt that the
work which the youth found interesting and attractive at the time was the
work in which he might find a maximum of ultimate success, satisfaction,
and serviceableness. With the vocational surveys, the industrial schools,
and the part-time practice methods of education we shall not be concerned,
in what is to follow. They represent a movement of tremendous social and
educational significance, but their development does not immediately
concern that other field of work which we have designated "vocational
psychology." They proceed mainly by giving the individual a knowledge of
the external series of facts and events, thus replacing the era of
fortune-telling and clairvoyance, with its search for signs and omens, just
as fortune-telling had, in its own day, replaced the practices of crude
objective magic. But the methods of industrial and occupational training
have been found to solve only one aspect of the vocational problem; and it
is more and more coming to be realized that a thorough understanding of the
aptitudes which the individual brings to his work is as important as the
knowledge of the opportunities which the environment affords. In the
remainder of this book we shall be concerned with the various systematic
efforts that have been made or are now being made to study the individual
himself, and to judge from a determination of his mental characteristics
the type of vocational activity which he is best fitted to undertake with
success.