THE  OBSERVATIONAL  METHOD  233
is  necessarily  very  brief,  and  permits  only  the  most  superficial ­
  observation.
During  the  course  of  some  of  the  experiments  described,
it  was  the  practice  of  the  experimenter  to  note,  on  one
side  of  the  record  card,  his  personal  impressions  of  the
subject  being  examined.  These  observations,  as  already
described  in  Chapter  III,  were  recorded  under  the  following ­
  heads:
General  Intelligence
Attention
Rhythm
Personal  Appearance
Physique
The  object  of  this  practice  was  to  find  out  by  means  of
a  later  comparison  how  well  the  estimates  based  upon  mere
observation  tallied  with  the  actual  production  records  and
also  with  the  records  in  the  tests.  At  the  end  of  the  first
experiment,  this  comparison  showed  a  fair  if  not  a  remarkable ­
  agreement  with  the  more  reliable  production
records.  The  experimenter,  who  had  had  considerable
experience  in  selecting  people  by  means  of  mere  observation ­
  and  who  had  a  certain  degree  of  confidence  in  his
ability  as  a  judge,  was  naturally  pleased  by  this  agreement. ­
  However,  upon  comparing  his  estimates  of  inspectors ­
  with  his  estimates  of  gaugers,  he  found,  to  his
surprise,  that  they  were  almost  alike.  In  short,  he  had
estimated  the  girls  in  one  group  as  good,  poor,  and  indifferent, ­
  and  had  estimated  the  girls  in  the  other  group  in  the
same  way.  But  there  was  nothing  in  his  estimates  which
made  it  possible  to  separate  the  successful  gaugers  from
the  successful  inspectors,  although  nearly  all  of  the  gaugers
were  girls  who  had  first  tried  inspection  and  had  failed.