THE  OBSERVATIONAL  METHOD

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himself.  This  is  quite  true.  However,  no  employment
process  can  ever  get  beyond  this  state  of  artificiality.  Its
degree  of  staginess  can  only  be  lessened.  The  important
fact  about  the  outlined  procedure  is  that  it  stages  the  interview ­
  or  demonstration  of  an  applicant  in  the  field  in  which
he  is  most  at  home.  It  enables  him  to  act  in  the  manner
in  which  his  trade  or  occupation  has  taught  him  to  act,
and,  in  this  way,  it  greatly  decreases  the  degree  of  nervousness ­
  or  embarrassment  to  which  the  applicant  is  subject.
The  logical  culmination  of  this  method  is  found  in  the
psychological  examination.  This  is  the  final  step  in
choosing  relevant  actions  on  the  part  of  the  applicant  and
in  placing  the  proper  estimate  upon  these  actions.  First
of  all,  the  psychological  method  finds,  by  means  of  an
experimental  process,  just  what  the  relevant  activities  in
an  occupation  or  an  operation  are.  This  it  does  by  means
of  tests  which  are  tried  out  on  workers  whose  ability  is
known  and  with  whose  work  the  tests  can  be  compared
and  correlated.  In  this  process,  it  also  discovers  the
standard  which  ought  to  be  met  in  the  significant  tests  by
those  who  wish  to  succeed  at  the  kind  of  work  in  question.
It  then  standardizes  the  manner  in  which  these  tests  should
be  used,  so  that  every  applicant  for  a  particular  kind  of
work  will  be  examined  in  exactly  the  same  way,  and  his
ability  determined  according  to  the  same  formula.  In  this
way  those  uncertain  factors  due  to  the  human  equation
which  are  present  to  a  greater  or  lesser  extent  in  all  the
methods  described  are  largely  eliminated;  and  the  method
of  observation  is  finally  supplemented  in  such  a  way  as
to  make  it  indeed  a  science.
From  this  discussion  it  becomes  clear  once  more  that
the  entire  trend  of  employment  psychology  is  to  subordinate ­
  irrelevant  appearances  to  relevant  actions,  and  the