STENOGRAPHERS, TYPISTS, AND COMPTOMETRISTS 9I 
yho had never studied French would have great difficulty 
111 copying correctly a paragraph in French and it would 
undoubtedly take him a long time to do it. It takes us 
uiuch longer to copy a word which is new to us or which 
have seen only a few times than to copy one with which 
We are familiar. To be sure, the ability to spell is not as 
e ssential to the copyist as it is to the stenographer, because 
the stenographer must rely almost entirely on her memory 
|° r the spelling of the words she takes down. Neverthe- 
f ss , the lack of this ability will greatly increase the typist’s 
lability to error and very markedly decrease her speed as a 
. Co pyist. Moreover, in the case of dictaphone typists, 
spelling 3s even more important than it is in the case of 
stenographers. For whereas the latter has an opportunity 
to look up doubtful words in the dictionary without hold- 
ln g up her machine, the dictaphone typist must bring 
er dictaphone to a stop before she can look up the neces- 
sary word, and when she resumes, must frequently set 
* e dictaphone back so as to recover the sense of what 
sue is writing. It frequently happens that the applicant 
as only recently learned how to type and is therefore 
ji°t yet proficient. It is very essential to distinguish 
e tween a typist who is not proficient because of inex 
perience but who promises to become proficient, and one 
ao is naturally inept and is not likely ever to become 
Ver y proficient. The spelling test is one means of dis 
covering this fact; for a candidate who is a poor speller 
as an initial handicap which will greatly retard her 
Progress. 
Another test, chosen largely for this purpose, is the 
stitution test. Other experimenters have already es- 
ushed the connection between ability in this test and 
act ual or potential ability in typing. If an applicant 
sub