144 
EMPLOYMENT PSYCHOLOGY 
limited scope of verbal tests is becoming more and more 
apparent. The reason for this is that the vast majority 
of industrial occupations do not depend so much upon 
verbal agility or the gift of words, as upon ability of hand, 
eye, foot, trunk, and combinations of these. This does 
not mean that the activities involved in these occupations 
do not require mental agility. As a matter of fact, they 
frequently require intellectual ability of an extremely 
high type. However, the kind of mental agility involved 
is not necessarily the kind which expresses itself in a fluent 
use of words. Scientists, for instance, or inventors may 
be very poor in verbal tests and yet highly remarkable 
for their ability to formulate scientific laws or devise in 
tricate and ingenious mechanical devices. Many a tool- 
maker or draughtsman is very slow in naming the op 
posites to a list of words such as that given, but very 
quick in setting up and turning out a difficult piece of 
work or in making a complete drawing from a rough 
sketch. To the unbiased mind of the layman, instances 
like these are probably too obvious to need elaboration. 
But even the psychologist, setting out with a penchant 
for verbal tests, is bound to see in time their comparative 
insignificance when applied to a vast majority of human 
activities. 
Looked at from another point of view the verbal tests 
described are entirely too general to be of much value 
in differentiating between the various abilities required 
by the various kinds of work. Verbal tests as used 
hitherto have been aimed at the discovery of general in 
telligence rather than specific abilities. The so-called 
Trabue Language Scale is a good example of this tendency- 
However, agility in the use of words is only one kind of 
ability and is by no means synonymous with general