The clearest insight into the general situation may be found in the most recent books by Emerson.  He says frankly:  “It is psychology, not soil or climate, that enables man to raise five times as many potatoes per acre as the average in his own state";[7] or:  “In selecting human assistants such superficialities as education, as physical strength, even antecedent morality, are not as important as the inner attitudes, proclivities, character, which after all determine the man or woman."[8] He also fully recognizes the necessity of securing as early as possible the psychological essentials.  He says:  “The type for the great newspaper is set up by linotype operators.  Apprenticeship is rigorously limited.  Some operators can never get beyond the 2500-em class, others with no more personal effort can set 5000 ems.  Do the employers test out applicants for apprenticeship so as to be sure to secure boys who will develop into the 5000-em class?  They do not:  they select applicants for any near reason except the fundamental important one of innate fitness."[9] But all this points only to the existence of the problem, and in reality gives not even a hint for its solution.  The theorists of scientific management seem to think that the most subtle methods are indispensable for physical measurements, but for psychological inquiry nothing but a kind of intuition is necessary.  Emerson tells how, for instance, “The competent specialist who has supplemented natural gifts and good judgment by analysis and synthesis can perceive attitudes and proclivities even in the very young, much more readily in those semi-matured, and can with almost infallible certainty point out, not only what work can be undertaken with fair hope of success, but also what slight modification or addition and diminution will more than double the personal power."[10] The true psychological specialists surely ought to decline this flattering confidence.  Far from the “almost infallible certainty,” they can hardly expect even a moderate amount of success in such directions so long as specific methods have not been elaborated, and so long as no way has been shown to make experimental measurements by which such mere guesswork can be replaced by scientific investigation.

The only modest effort to try a step in this direction toward the psychological laboratory is recorded by Taylor,[11] who tells of Mr. S.E.  Thompson’s work in a bicycle ball factory, where a hundred and twenty girls were inspecting the balls.  They had to place a row of small polished steel balls on the back of the left hand and while they were rolled over and over in the crease between two of the fingers placed together, they were minutely examined in a strong light and the defective balls were picked out with the aid of a magnet held in the right hand.  The work required the closest attention and concentration.  The girls were working ten and a half hours a day.  Mr. Thompson soon recognized that the quality most