LANGUAGE AND LITERACY TESTS I43
so forth. The essential feature in all of these tests is
Ae association of words or phrases with each other under
the guidance of some dominant idea.
In relying so largely on tests of this type, psychologists
have been very much under the influence of the literary
or academic tradition. A majority of the earlier tests
Were devised in institutions of learning, where they were
tried out on members of the student body. Moreover,
the study of psychology has been more closely linked with
academic and liberal arts courses than with the strictly
scientific departments. (Until recently psychology has
heen considered a phase of philosophy.) Now, the education
given by academic and liberal arts schools consists
largely of the inculcation of certain general ideas on general
subjects in such a way that the student shall be able to
talk and write about them with some degree of fluency.
The accepted way still in which to judge the amount of
knowledge acquired by the college man is to test his verbal
a bility in certain general topics of economics, sociology,
English literature, philosophy, psychology, and so forth.
Chemistry, physics, and mathematics are shining exceptions
to this rule, and, coincidentally, these three subjects
ar e the most difficult for the average student. With the
predominance of the verbal or the literary tradition in
education, it is not strange that many psychologists,
so closely linked up with this tradition, should have so
decided a leaning toward the use of verbal or language
tests. The tremendous popularity of Muensterberg’s
association tests still further accounts for the present
popularity of verbal tests.
Since psychology has emerged from its strictly academic
environment and has begun to apply itself to the more
realistic varieties of industrial life, the inadequacy and
