39° 
EMPLOYMENT PSYCHOLOGY 
is essentially to be ill. Now, just as the individual who 
is physically ill goes finally to a physician for an exami 
nation and prescription, so it will probably be, in time, 
that the worker who becomes dissatisfied with his work 
or has lost his job will come to the psychologist for an ex 
amination and prescription. The physician, by virtue 
of an impersonal and scientific technique, has become the 
acknowledged friend of every man. It may be that the 
psychologist, by virtue of a similar technique, may win 
a position as enviable. 
This is looking somewhat into the future. But the 
future of psychology is so promising that ambitious pro 
moters have already begun to capitalize it. There exists 
even now a large body of pseudo-psychological doctrine 
and literature which bears the same relation to psychol 
ogy that nostrums bear to medicine. Advertisements 
and articles extolling “get rich quick mentally” schemes 
are as common in periodicals of high repute to-day as 
nostrums were a generation ago. The chief signs by which 
these quack psychological remedies may be recognized is 
that they uniformly promise a remedy which is speedy, 
infallible, and ready for instantaneous application. The 
industrial world and individuals generally will do well 
to beware investing heavily in any project, masquerading 
under the name psychology, which claims any of these 
characteristics. 
While not purely scientific in every detail, it will be 
evident to the reader that the entire trend of the work 
described here is toward the development of an employ 
ment psychology based on scientific technique. The 
employment psychology which will prevail, and which 
will increasingly contribute to the unravelling of employ 
ment problems, is the psychology which rests on contin