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 educa 
tion 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 excep 
tions 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