CLERKS
79
at this work, she was first given the sorting of factory time
t'tkets. So far she has done so poorly on the simpler work of
the section that her section head is ready to discharge her. In
the tests, I noticed at once that she was the poorest one in the
e ntire group, and if these tests had been applied at the time
°f her employment, I presume that she would not have been
hired, in spite of the other things in her favor. She may still
he valuable for simple work, but she has started with a false
es timate of herself and a wrong kind of encouragement from
Us - We have other cases in mind where clerks have done exeeptionally
well, although first impressions have been poor
°wing to an estimate made from their general appearance and
deportment rather than from a knowledge of their technique.”
It was at the suggestion of the office manager making
^is statement that the tests given in this experiment
^ere classified under the head of tests for technique and
te sts for intelligence. The distinction is by no means clear
Cu t, but it has a certain practical value which every office
Manager will recognize. By technique is meant the speed
atl d accuracy shown by clerks in sorting tickets and papers,
posting and adding columns of figures, indexing and filing,
a ^d in other routine clerical operations. In short, techni
que is the degree of mechanical perfection which is desirable
in all kinds of routine office work. The tests
Ca lculated to give an index of a clerk’s technique were
tests numbers 4, 10, 12, and 15, all of which are given
^’th appropriate directions in the Appendix. The term
lnte lligence was interpreted to designate the facility and
SUc cess with which a clerk could master new tasks and
follow directions about new work assigned from time
to dme. One of the tests used for this purpose was
*- es t number 13, the well-known Woodworth-Wells hard
directions test. (See Appendix. This test has since
