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EMPLOYMENT PSYCHOLOGY 
ualistic and haphazard method of ascertaining points of 
view a more reliable and scientific method. 
Finally, it may be protested that the methods here 
described are altogether too disinterested and mechanical. 
It may be claimed that they work upon an individual as 
a machine works upon raw material, without sympathy 
and without the human touch. To be sure, it does seem 
to be the tendency of all scientific methods to reduce 
things to a perfect mechanism. The ideal employment 
method is undoubtedly an immense machine which would 
receive applicants of all kinds at one end, automatically 
sort, interview, and record them, and finally turn them 
out at the other end nicely labeled with the job to which 
they are to go. Those who are horrified at such a pros 
pect have little to fear; for it will be many a day before 
this consummation is reached. Instead of comparing 
scientific selection with a machine it is much more reason 
able to compare it with the practice of medicine. No 
doubt the modern practice of medicine may seem like 
butchery compared with the gentle home remedies of 
our imaginative forefathers. The appliances of the physi 
cian make a most threatening array and who does not 
quail at the mechanisms of the operating room ? And yet, 
we do not generally think of medicine as disinterested 
and as mechanical. The surgeon may take our best 
friend and rearrange his entire anatomy without our ac 
cusing him of being cold-hearted; for medicine is a tech 
nique which is larger than the particular intentions of 
a particular physician. The entire aim of medicine is 
the welfare of the human being. Particular physicians 
may be mechanical and disinterested in their attitude 
toward their patients. However, the generous aim of 
their science far outshadows their own pettiness. With