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EMPLOYMENT  PSYCHOLOGY

limited  scope  of  verbal  tests  is  becoming  more  and  more
apparent.  The  reason  for  this  is  that  the  vast  majority
of  industrial  occupations  do  not  depend  so  much  upon
verbal  agility  or  the  gift  of  words,  as  upon  ability  of  hand,
eye,  foot,  trunk,  and  combinations  of  these.  This  does
not  mean  that  the  activities  involved  in  these  occupations
do  not  require  mental  agility.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  they
frequently  require  intellectual  ability  of  an  extremely
high  type.  However,  the  kind  of  mental  agility  involved
is  not  necessarily  the  kind  which  expresses  itself  in  a  fluent
use  of  words.  Scientists,  for  instance,  or  inventors  may
be  very  poor  in  verbal  tests  and  yet  highly  remarkable
for  their  ability  to  formulate  scientific  laws  or  devise  intricate ­
  and  ingenious  mechanical  devices.  Many  a  toolmaker
  or  draughtsman  is  very  slow  in  naming  the  opposites ­
  to  a  list  of  words  such  as  that  given,  but  very
quick  in  setting  up  and  turning  out  a  difficult  piece  of
work  or  in  making  a  complete  drawing  from  a  rough
sketch.  To  the  unbiased  mind  of  the  layman,  instances
like  these  are  probably  too  obvious  to  need  elaboration.
But  even  the  psychologist,  setting  out  with  a  penchant
for  verbal  tests,  is  bound  to  see  in  time  their  comparative
insignificance  when  applied  to  a  vast  majority  of  human
activities.
Looked  at  from  another  point  of  view  the  verbal  tests
described  are  entirely  too  general  to  be  of  much  value
in  differentiating  between  the  various  abilities  required
by  the  various  kinds  of  work.  Verbal  tests  as  used
hitherto  have  been  aimed  at  the  discovery  of  general  intelligence ­
  rather  than  specific  abilities.  The  so-called
Trabue  Language  Scale  is  a  good  example  of  this  tendency-However,
  agility  in  the  use  of  words  is  only  one  kind  of
ability  and  is  by  no  means  synonymous  with  general