6 4

EMPLOYMENT  PSYCHOLOGY

construction  of  the  room  makes  it  impossible  to  give  a
rigid  surface  to  a  hinged  table,  and  a  table  on  four  legs
is  therefore  being  secured.  The  portable  room  is  further
fitted  out  with  devices  providing  for  the  necessary  combination ­
  of  electric  currents.  Its  equipment  includes  an
electric  fan,  a  necessary  adjunct  to  a  room  otherwise  devoid ­
  of  ventilating  mechanisms.
In  this  laboratory  only  such  apparatus  is  carried  as  is
necessary  for  the  experiment  in  hand.  This  apparatus
is  stowed  in  a  large  but  lightly  constructed  chest.  In  this
way  it  can  easily  be  carried  around  or  stored.  The  bulk
of  the  apparatus  is  kept  in  a  permanent  laboratory  where
new  apparatus  is  constructed  and  tried  out  before  it  is
sent  out  for  use  in  the  portable  laboratory.
As  was  expected,  the  use  of  this  room  provoked  some
scoffing  and  ridicule  among  the  shop  men  and  their  overseers ­
  at  the  outset.  All  kinds  of  queer  names  were  given
to  it  by  the  men  such  as  “pill  box”,  “monkey  cage”,
“star  chamber”,  etc.  However,  it  was  never  abused  and
the  experience  which  those  who  were  examined  had  with
this  room  tended  to  transform  their  contempt  into  curiosity ­
  and  often  into  admiration.
“Do  you  know,”  said  one  man  who  had  been  given
tests,  “I  have  much  more  respect  for  that  place  in  there
(pointing  to  the  portable  room)  than  I  did  before.  At
first  I  thought  it  was  a  lot  of  monkey  business,  but  it  got
me.  It  made  a  monkey  of  me  all  right.  It  showed  me
that  I  wasn’t  quite  as  smart  as  I  thought  I  was.”
After  the  expiration  of  a  few  days,  the  laboratory  is
taken  as  a  matter  of  course  in  the  shop  where  it  has  been
set  up.  No  one  pays  any  more  attention  to  it  than  to  the
permanent  shop  fixtures.  This  has  been  the  case  wherever
the  room  has  been  used.  The  first  few  days  provoke  a